Transformation of the former Guardian Newspaper offices into 79 residential apartments.

The project forms part of a portfolio that earned t-sa architects, Best Refurbishment Practice of the Year 2016.

The project is an example of bedü and Takero Shimazaki Architects’ collaboration on a tight budget conversion to produce buildings of architectural merit out of ordinary building stock.

Phase 1 (2015–2016)
Conversion of a four-storey building into 79 residential apartments

Phase 2 (2017)
Basement conversion providing 6 apartments

Phase 3 (2021–2022)
Two storey roof extension providing 9 additional duplex apartment

Bedü ran a design competition amongst five emerging architectural practices for the sympathetic conversion and extension of this former mill to create a collection of 59 lateral and duplex apartments.

The award- winning practice, Takero Shimazaki architects, brought a material quality of sensitivity, emotion and atmosphere to this standard existing structure by distilling the tactile details of what is already there.

Bedü have secured planning to convert a disused warehouse into a purpose-built family hostel. Bedü’s aim is keeping families safe and secure when they are at their most vulnerable with a focus on the child’s experience.

The design evolved through a RIBA competition. The winning architects, Morris & Company also went on to win the Mayor of London sponsored “Hidden Homelessness” competition.

At the heart of the development is a landscaped courtyard for children to play outdoors in direct view of their accommodation and the hostel reception desk. This liberates the children from being trapped indoor and allows them to play in a purpose-built safe environment and to foster a sense of community enjoyment amongst resident families.

Bedü have worked closely with LB Newham and secured planning to transform this low-cost B&B into a purpose-built hostel designed around a scented garden.

The proposal will accommodate up to 73 single homeless adults.

Currently the Hartley hotel is not designed to be “lived in”.  It does not provide for any outdoor space for its residents.  The proposed hostel is designed around a central green courtyard, where residents can sit and use the wifi in their own enclosed private garden without disruption to their neighbours.  This space is at present being used as an independent carpark with little benefit to the type of occupants the hotel serves.  The hostel residents have therefore had no choice but to loiter in the local area. 

Bedü are working on redeveloping an existing asset where the intention is to support a managed and balanced community, offering new live/work spaces, whilst retaining the same quantum of emergency accommodation in a new purposefully designed building.

This mixed development will provide circa 300 shared-living, hostel and live/work units and associated co-working and public realm spaces.

Bedü are not proposing to solve the housing crisis, but to address the difficulties people currently face when they become homeless.

Bedü recognise that homelessness is not simply a housing issue but also a mental health one. Having a mental health problem can create circumstances which cause a person to become homeless in the first place and being placed into poor emergency accommodation can exacerbate that problem or cause them to develop further mental health issues. 

Bedü are trying to break this cycle and working to develop a new type of emergency accommodation that promotes a sense of well-being. 

Bedü have appointed the leading architectural practice in the field of mental health, Penoyre & Prasad Architects to remodel our existing hostels and promote this sense of wellbeing using the following design principles.

We have set ourselves the goal of 2025 to continue to improve our hostels in line with these guiding principles.