Donnybrook Quarter

This built project by Barber is a dense mixed-use scheme with living units along with community, work and retail spaces – all configured into an innovative terrace/courtyard hybrid typology. Research issues include how to use the program requirements and site conditions to generate models of high-density housing, and how to reinforce the role of urban streets as socially cohesive devices in the contemporary city. As such, the Donnybrook scheme should be seen as a further contribution to investigations into densified urban living, with the aim of improving urban sustainability. The notion of the street as the locus for social interaction has a long pedigree within architectural thought, as promoted by writers like Jane Jacobs and Richard Sennett. Barber had previously designed a well-received masterplan proposal which sought created a renewed sense of street culture in two Dalston estates, as discussed in Building Design (9 March 2001, pp. 12-13) and Local Government News (July/August 2001, p. 16).

The Donnybrook Quarter is published in Accommodating Change (Circle 33 Housing Group, 2002) and The Buildings of England – London Vol.5: East (Yale, 2005, pp. 625-6). The scheme was positively reviewed in the architectural press, including Building Design (24 February 2006, pp. 12-15) and RIBA Journal (April 2006, pp. 32-40). It was also included in the New London Architecture Exhibition in 2005. The project originated when it won Circle 33's 'Accommodating Change: Innovation in Housing' competition in 2002, and subsequently it received a Housing Design Award (2004; shortlisted again in 2006). The Donnybrook Quarter was highly commended in the Royal Academy Summer Show Architecture Awards (2004), received an American Institute of Architects (UK/London Chapter) Design Excellence Award (2006), and won a RIBA Regional Design Award (2006). The scheme was included on the long-list for the 2006 Stirling Prize, and only just narrowly missed the final cut.