Harp and Harp reinterprets suburban architecture for Croydon housing

Architecture studio Harp and Harp has finished a residential development in London with pale bricks, red roof tiles and pale green window frames in a characterful take on its Art and Crafts-style neighbours.

Named 158 Purley Downs Road, the project comprises seven family homes and replaces a single home and large garden in the suburban village of Sanderstead, Croydon.

The creation of 158 Purley Downs Road was enabled by the Croydon Suburban Design Guide – an initiative by the Mayor of Croydon to alleviate housing shortages through the densification of the suburbs. It was announced in 2018, but was revoked in 2022.

In the face of significant backlash from the surrounding residents, Harp and Harp designed the housing to demonstrate how this densification could be achieved "sensitively and comfortably".

"The project faced a really difficult planning process with significant organised NIMBYism that opposed its planning and delivery at every step," studio director Steve Harp told Dezeen.

"While on the one hand we understand the concerns, we are now at a point where we are in a crisis of housing with the capital and a huge number of new homes need to be built quickly to address this," he explained.

"We hope this project can serve as an example of how intensification can be implemented to not only provide good quality housing at a much higher density but also still deliver an interesting design that works sensitively and comfortably within the existing character of these contexts."

To lessen its visual impact, the development occupies two separate blocks separated by car parking areas. A block of three units occupies the footprint of the former home to the north, while a block of four units sits on the former garden site to the south.

Setbacks, individual front doors, irregular dormer window placements and subtle material differences were all used by Harp and Harp to make the blocks read more as varied terraces rather than a single, homogenous development.

"Understanding that the character of the area is defined by larger detached and semi-detached houses, and to not want to disrupt this visually, terraces were designed to read as fewer larger units – a trick also often used on the terraces of the garden city movement," said Harp.

"Front doors placed on side elevations enhance this feeling whilst actively providing more animation and outlook to the street."

Facing an adjacent road, the smaller block has been finished in pale brickwork that references the rendered facades of its neighbours.

Further south, the contrasting appearance of the neighbouring buildings informed a finish of red brickwork in various bond patterns as well as tiles laid flat on their sides like bricks.

The two blocks are united by their pale green window frames and doors, and at either end, each one has been "sliced" to address a corner and finished with a porthole-like window.

"The material choice follows the overall design strategy for the site, which is to use a palette of materials that feel both sensitive and comfortable in their suburban context without slavishly replicating what is there now," said Harp.

Inside, each home is organised around a central stair and bathroom core, with living rooms facing the street. Kitchen and dining areas open onto individual gardens through folding doors and bedrooms are tucked beneath the steeply pitched roofs above.

Other projects on Dezeen that have recently addressed ideas of suburban densification include Houses with One Pillar by Buero Wagner – a pair of conjoined homes that replaced a single dwelling.

Elsewhere in London, Wendover recently converted a police station into rental housing and DRDH used red brickwork to bring "civic character" to a housing block.

The photography is by Adam Scott.

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