Barrett’s Grove: A CLT Cloister in Brick, or, How to Make a Villa Out of a Void
In Stoke Newington, where London’s architectural eras occasionally trip over each other, Barrett’s Grove manages to pause time. Groupwork’s (née Amin Taha Architects) six-flat block sits between a tall Victorian villa and a red-brick Edwardian school, and rather than smoothing the join, it exploits the dissonance. The result is a building that feels like a misremembered memory — a folk-modernist monolith dressed in a double-bonded brick cardigan.
This is no ordinary infill. The project uses cross-laminated timber (CLT) not just as structure but as finish, expression and — crucially — cost strategy. No plasterboard, no skim, no cornices. Instead, the spruce is left bare, its pale tone warming the rooms and letting the structure’s precision become its poetry. Even the construction joints are proud participants, rather than something to be concealed.
That honesty carries through to the envelope. A brick rainscreen wraps the insulated CLT structure — but not in the usual way. It’s self-supporting, open-bonded, and slightly oversized, exaggerating the building’s grain and echoing the generous voids of the adjacent school and villas. The pitched roof, clad in the same brick, completes the ensemble — part cottage, part cathedral, depending on the light.
It’s not just clever; it’s disciplined. Each decision has a role to play: deep-set balconies are large enough to dine on (and deliberately anti-storage in their detailing — wicker woven through the steel trusses to screen the clutter). Front doors are bespoke, with bronze-patinated locks that reward the hand. Inside, cabinetry folds into structure, full-height doors disappear into the wall, and the floor plates — clear-spanning up to six metres — keep the plan legible and the air moving.
Technically, this is an architecture that rethinks the spreadsheet. By integrating structure, finish, and services, the team could eliminate the usual layering of trades and materials — reducing embodied carbon, site time, and, crucially, cost. They didn’t just persuade the developer — they exceeded expectations by 25%. Proof that a smart, first-principles approach doesn’t have to be a boutique indulgence. It can be replicable.
And it’s that replicability that makes Barrett’s Grove so interesting. Because beyond the aesthetic charm and artisanal confidence is a template: a model for what happens when you treat the wall not as an abstracted zone between lines, but as a constructed thing. Something delightful. Something articulate. And, happily for me, something gorgeously photogenic.
