This project transforms a long-neglected contractor’s yard into a sustainable place for learning, making, and gathering within the Highgate Bowl. Following the successful delivery of the Glasshouse, this second and final phase continues our practice’s involvement in the site’s regeneration.
The proposal comprises a series of lightweight timber pavilions accommodating diverse uses: seminar space, food preparation area, seed depository, washroom, workshop, and a room for quiet contemplation. Inspired by agricultural vernacular structures and the interrelationship between built form, landscape, and communal practice, the architecture responds directly to the topography and natural setting of the Bowl.
Rather than a singular object building, the scheme is conceived as a dispersed ensemble. Each pavilion is carefully positioned to frame views, define edges, and create a rich interplay of indoor and outdoor space. The spaces between buildings are treated as integral parts of the design, encouraging informal gatherings, fostering dialogue, and supporting seasonal events. A language of spatial devices, cuts, folds, thresholds, and colonnades, introduces variation and choreographs movement across the site.
Material expression is calm and restrained. Externally, untreated larch shingles will weather naturally and embed the structures within the site over time. Internally, machined Douglas fir forms a continuous lining, offering a unified and tactile backdrop for use across seasons and programs.
After decades of failed proposals, this scheme secured planning consent for its sensitivity, contextual response, and community focus, establishing a resilient framework for knowledge-sharing and collective activity, rooted in place and open to future adaptation.
Client: OmVed Gardens
Type: Cultural New Build
Phase: Two-Part Regeneration Strategy
Stage: Completed 2025
Location: Highgate, London, UK
Selected publications: Architects Journal
The proposal comprises a series of lightweight timber pavilions accommodating diverse uses: seminar space, food preparation area, seed depository, washroom, workshop, and a room for quiet contemplation. Inspired by agricultural vernacular structures and the interrelationship between built form, landscape, and communal practice, the architecture responds directly to the topography and natural setting of the Bowl.
Rather than a singular object building, the scheme is conceived as a dispersed ensemble. Each pavilion is carefully positioned to frame views, define edges, and create a rich interplay of indoor and outdoor space. The spaces between buildings are treated as integral parts of the design, encouraging informal gatherings, fostering dialogue, and supporting seasonal events. A language of spatial devices, cuts, folds, thresholds, and colonnades, introduces variation and choreographs movement across the site.
Material expression is calm and restrained. Externally, untreated larch shingles will weather naturally and embed the structures within the site over time. Internally, machined Douglas fir forms a continuous lining, offering a unified and tactile backdrop for use across seasons and programs.
After decades of failed proposals, this scheme secured planning consent for its sensitivity, contextual response, and community focus, establishing a resilient framework for knowledge-sharing and collective activity, rooted in place and open to future adaptation.
Client: OmVed Gardens
Type: Cultural New Build
Phase: Two-Part Regeneration Strategy
Stage: Completed 2025
Location: Highgate, London, UK
Selected publications: Architects Journal