The Weatherboard, which is fire-resistant, low-maintenance and can be painted or stained just like real timber, graduates from canary yellow at the end where it blends with a buff-coloured Victorian terrace, to vermillion at the other where the red brick former town hall sits.
It was specified vertically, rather than the traditional horizontally, by competition-winning architects de Rijke Marsh Morgan to link the streetscape using colour.
The £3.5million project - a total of four blocks of apartments on Wansey Street, just around the corner from the bright pink Elephant & Castle shopping centre - was for the Southern Housing Group on behalf of Southwark council and has achieved an “excellent” Eco-Homes rating.
A trailblazer in concept as well as colour, it is the first of 16 infill housing schemes in the £1.5billion Elephant & Castle regeneration masterplan, bringing contemporary requirements for density, planning flexibility, sustainability, accessibility, ownership and security to the traditional terrace arrangement.
The 31 apartments for sale, rent and shared ownership are a direct and colourful contrast to the long Soviet-style grey slab block across the road that they were built to replace on Southwark’s 1960s Heygate council estate of 1,200 homes.
But it is not just their colour that dictates how well they sit between the Victorian terrace and town hall for the street façade steps up from four storeys next to the three-storey terrace to six storeys next to the grand town hall. The building disguises its height by being submerged half a floor below the pavement, just like the terrace next door.
The building appears to be long but is actually divided into four blocks by narrow open passageways lined in concrete blockwork as a contrast to the colourful façade. These stairwells lead to a communal rear garden which is overlooked by the rear elevation of the housing block.
This is in direct contrast to the colourful street façade, being entirely glazed, with deep balconies projecting from every floor and a screen of large white horizontal louvres. Materials were generally prefabricated off-site with on-site processes brought to a minimum.