Highbury Square

Arsenal Football Club's decision to move from Highbury Stadium to the new larger capacity Emirates Stadium nearby posed the question what should become of its historic home. Highbury was not only sentimentally important as home to the football club since 1913, it was also notable for its substantial physical presence in what is a predominantly residential area.

Embedded in a typical London neighbourhood of Victorian terraces interspersed with post war blocks of flats. the stadium's size (3.5 ha) and close proximity to an underground station suggested that the site would be well placed for residential redevelopment to deliver some of the new homes that London so urgently needs. However, as one of the first purpose-built football stands in the world, the 1930's art deco East stand is a local landmark, and listed Grade II.

This approach was a pragmatic response to multifarious aspirations. By retaining not just the listed stand but the geometry and setting of the pitch our proposal worked to make sense of a group of substantial structures, much larger than any of the other buildings in the neighbourhood, grouped around a central space.

The existing four-metre structural grid of the stands was used as a planning grid for the whole project, including the landscaped gardens that occupy the space where the pitch once was. A shared garden, the relationship between the buildings and public realm has much in common with the Georgian London square, where a group of architecturally similar buildings frame a formal garden, albeit in the case super-sized.

Apartments are inserted into the structure of the east and west stands, with a focus and orientation towards the garden through extensive glazing and balconies.

On the rest of the site additional infill residential accommodation around a series of smaller courtyards creates a high-density residential development. In total Highbury Square provides over 25 different housing typologies including interlocking duplexes, triplexes and penthouses, across a mix of tenures.

Naturally lit and ventilated car parking and secure bicycle storage are located in a basement below the development, with light brought in via glass encased illuminated water walls, a feature of the garden.

The design for Highbury Square works hard to reconcile potentially conflicting criteria. It fulfils the area's planning objectives by introducing substantial numbers of new homes and developing the site to a high density while stepping down in height and mass towards its edges to respect the scale of the residential neighbourhood.

And equally importantly it develops a sustainable future for the stadium's heritage assets and retains rather than erases the popular memory of the site.