CMA Planning
Where: No 1 Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, E17
Who For: Scape Living
What: 272 studio rooms and 1000 sqm music venue and bar
Architect: AHMM
CMA secured planning permission in April 2023 for Scape Living’s proposals to deliver a new cultural venue and bar, 272 ‘Purpose Built Shared Living’ homes (an alternative to traditional housing that meets the needs of renters), high-quality amenities and retail space at the ground floor.
The scheme will see the creation of a new cultural venue for Waltham Forest providing opportunities for community participation along with a connected bar/cafe and a separate retail unit. The proposal also includes 272 studio rooms of purpose-built shared housing on the upper floors alongside supporting internal and external amenity space on each floor, which will help meet local housing needs and add to the range of housing options for local people in the area. The new purpose-built cultural venue for Waltham Forest, The Standard, will enable the site to continue its tradition of providing entertainment to the local area by replacing the vacant pub and much-loved music and comedy venue that previously occupied the site.
The site, previously home to The Standard public house, is located on a prominent corner of Blackhorse Lane & Forrest Road, opposite Blackhorse Lane station. The proposed scheme presents a different urban approach to a key junction in the area with a series of stepped planted terraces that seeks to mediate between the established low rise residential buildings along Forest Road to the east and the newer taller buildings of the Blackhorse Lane Masterplan to the west. This articulated massing provides each floor with an outside terrace and the form of the building tiers up and creates a south facing central landscaped courtyard adjacent to the shared amenity spaces for the building. Articulated brick horizontal banding emphasises the stepped approach and the building is set on a colonnade providing further public realm up to and around the building.
