The building, containing 24 key-worker flats, sits within a ‘belt’ around central London. Though classified as ‘urban’ under the London plan, local aspiration frequently related more strongly to suburban conditions. The challenge was to reconcile this with issues of social sustainability and efficient land use too often associated with the inner city alone.

The need for density was balanced with careful provision of public and private open space at various scales and a desire to reinstate the adjacent park as a safe and valuable green space. The north façade thus presents a vibrant backdrop in the form of an array of private balconies and projecting habitable rooms onto the park, providing round-the-clock surveillance. Ground floor flats have private verandas onto a communal garden at the rear. Together these provide a range of spaces between balcony and park, from a morning coffee outdoors to a five-a-side football match.

Access, via short inhabitable decks, is sheltered from the elements and from neighbouring homes through gridded timber panels, forming semi-transparent privacy screens. Each home has a projecting window with built-in desk/reading space which faces onto these communal areas and provides the user's requirements for both privacy and openness.

This is the first car-free scheme in the London Borough of Enfield, and was opened in 2008 by Anthony Mayer, Chief Executive of the Greater London Authority.