Karakusevic Carson Architects started working at Broadwater Farm in Haringey in 2019 on an Urban Design Framework (UDF) to guide long-term improvements and provide new homes. The UDF captures the unique character of Broadwater Farm and residents’ aspirations for the type of place it can become through the delivery of physical projects improved housing, public realm and encouraging active travel.  The UDF considers how people interact with and on the Estate, their sense of ownership, wider perceptions and everyday experiences. It identifies the latent qualities of buildings and spaces, addresses the failings, particularly of the ground floors and public realm, to create a safer and more welcoming place to live and visit. The framework is structured around five interlocking principles derived from comprehensive resident engagement. Each principle provides the basis for detailed strategies and design studies to demonstrate best practices and illustrate key ideas for implementation.

The UDF brings together a series of ideas for community focused, welcoming interventions on the Estate, creating proposals that were developed closely with the local community ensuring they respond to local needs and ambitions. The estate’s confusing, car dominated public realm is transformed into a network of pleasant, direct walking routes, linking destinations within and beyond the Estate. Boundaries are transformed into public spaces that create a sense of arrival and positive  relationship with the surrounding areas. Public spaces along main streets are lined by mixed-use activities re-provided in new buildings. Improvements are made to courtyards, with sport amenities, play spaces and public art creating new destinations. 

Broadwater Farm Estate has generous open courtyards and a unique relationship with the valuable landscape of Lordship Recreation Ground and the Moselle River Valley. To unite the neighbourhood and celebrate this landscape, a diagonal pedestrian link and community park follows the culverted River Moselle beneath the site. Alongside establishing broad principles neighbourhood change, our more localised estate designs have focused on the heart of the estate and the redevelopment of the Tangmere and Northolt sites. New buildings are configured to define courtyards that echo the generous green spaces characteristic of the estate. The existing buildings are constructed with concrete Large Panel System (LPS), which contrast with the brick and render of the surrounding 19th century terraced streets. 

The appearance of new homes has been developed to relate to the architectural character, massing of Broadwater whilst linking into the surrounding terraced streets through their materiality.  Secondary communal entrances to existing buildings are improved in their appearance and layouts with integrated bin and bike stores to declutter the public and communal space at street level and inspire a sense of security as part of a long-term retrofit programme.