Saxton Gardens

Dive were selected as finalists in an invited competition entry to refurbish and extend two derelict 1960's apartment blocks to affordable housing for first time buyers and to integrate this with the existing council tenants in the other five blocks.

A folded landscape becomes the village green, a space where the residents come together in different zones; play, rest, social, shade, flowers. The proposal seeks to bring together the whole estate avoiding boundaries between old and new. The landscape folds are continued through to the parking area and also inform the architecture where a series of angled projections have been inserted into and onto the existing fabric of the buildings. This not only increases the floor area but also re-invigorates and infuses new life into the Saxton Gardens Estate.