Queen Caroline estate anti-flooding scheme
A Hammersmith housing estate’s project to counter the effects of climate change has scooped an environmental prize.
The climate-proofing of the Queen Caroline estate, near Hammersmith Bridge, has won a Nancye Goulden award in the annual Hammersmith Society review of local schemes.
More than £250,000 was spent creating green roofs, rain gardens, food-growing beds, gravel lawns and a green wall on the estate, with the project conceived by Hammersmith & Fulham Council and realised by the green teams of Groundwork London, which give young unemployed people new skills.
The award was announced by H&F Mayor Cllr Michael Cartwright at a ceremony at the Dorsett Hotel, Shepherds Bush.
The society launched its award scheme 28 years ago, to encourage imaginative urban design and to shame blots on the landscape. Buildings can be nominated by anyone living or working in the old metropolitan borough of Hammersmith.
The Queen Caroline project improved drainage, boosted biodiversity and reduced the risk of flooding on the estate.
The green wall, horizontally planted and sustained by rainwater, and the estate’s green roofs not only provide homes for birds and insects, but also create natural insulation to keep buildings cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
The Hammersmith Society’s conservation award went to the Bush Theatre in Uxbridge Road, the recently revamped arts venue financially supported by H&F Council.
Committee judges expanded the scope of the award to record their approval of all the work done on the building; citing the “modernisation and conversion, wheelchair entrance and garden terrace, ensured it is fully functional and more flexible while retaining its informality and eccentricities of the original building”.
The society’s top award went to King’s House at 174 Hammersmith Road, Hammersmith; the former site of the King’s Theatre, demolished in 1963. The new building was described by judges as “an unusually fine and distinguished office building, modest in height, beautifully detailed and in keeping with its location within the Brook Green conservation area”.
A second Nancye Goulden award went to the conversion and extension of the former St Mark’s CofE church at 20 St James Street, Hammersmith, into offices, with developer and architects Michael Dunning and Elizabeth Swainston winning praise.
Wooden spoons
Wooden spoons were presented to adverts on BT telephone kiosks (“notable for their ugliness and, in the era of mobile phones, lack of purpose”) and what the society described as “crudely designed” flats above Apple estate agents in King’s Parade, Askew Road, Shepherds Bush.
