Chatelain House is the redevelopment of 182-202 Walworth Road in Southwark for Fabrix, transforming a 1980s office building into new student and affordable homes alongside a public garden and community kitchen. The scheme retains the existing concrete frame facing Walworth Road, reducing embodied carbon while giving the building a new life at the heart of the neighbourhood.
Adaptive reuse and design quality
In today’s climate emergency, breathing new life into old structures is key to building a more sustainable city. Chatelain House, therefore, retains the existing three-storey concrete frame along Walworth Road, avoiding the embodied carbon cost of demolition and new build. New lightweight structure sits above the retained frame, with the existing structure assessed and strengthened to meet current performance requirements for fire, acoustics and structure.
The design responds to its context with a brick facade that draws on the proportions of nearby Georgian townhouses, while contemporary rooftop storeys are set back and finished in blush-pink metal, a modern reading of a traditional attic form. Glazed brick marks the public entrances at ground level, drawing people in from the street towards the garden and community spaces beyond.
PBSA and affordable homes
Chatelain House provides 283 new student rooms in a mix of cluster apartments and studios, in a location close to King's College London, University of the Arts London and London South Bank University. Student amenities are arranged throughout the building to bring activity to the facades and help free up conventional housing stock elsewhere in the borough while creating a vibrant student community.
A dedicated building on Amelia Street provides 20 affordable homes, with their own access and servicing separate from the student accommodation. Homes range from two to four bedrooms, housing between three and eight people, with half of the apartments dual aspect and all benefiting from external balcony space. A separate residential amenity space at ground level gives these permanent residents dedicated outdoor space alongside the public courtyard.
Local connection and community
A new public garden runs through the site, connecting Walworth Road to Amelia Street and bringing students, residents and the wider community together around shared outdoor space. Retail units and a community kitchen open directly onto the garden, allowing activity to spill outside and providing natural surveillance that helps the space feel safe and well used.
At the centre of the ground floor is a community kitchen of around 250 sqm, designed in partnership with local charity Pembroke House, who will run it once the building opens. The kitchen is intended as a space for gathering and collective cooking, supporting healthy food and bringing together the existing local community with the new residents on site.
