The former Hartley Centre site in East Ham was not an empty canvas. It was a civic remnant, layered with memory and compromise. To build here is to edit what already exists, not erase it. The London Borough of Newham approached this as more than a housing delivery exercise. It is part of a broader modernisation of public assets, an intelligent consolidation of health provision and later living within a single urban footprint. That ambition is strategic. Architecturally, it is exacting.
Reused sites resist clarity. They come with scale dissonance, tight adjacencies, and inherited expectations. Integrating new architecture into such terrain requires composure and discrimination. Mæ Architects have not pursued novelty; they have pursued legibility. Two volumes, read clearly. A robust plinth housing the 1,650 square metre health centre. Seventy five homes above, arranged with generosity rather than efficiency alone. The stepping down toward Hartley Avenue is considered, not just deferential. The building acknowledges its two storey neighbours without diminishing its own civic presence.
Calm is the rare achievement here. A scheme that combines public healthcare with housing for residents over 55 could easily fracture under competing demands for privacy, security and identity. Instead, the spatial order is lucid. Circulation is ample. Thresholds are level. Balconies extend each dwelling into light and air with quiet assurance. The third floor garden, suspended between the two blocks, acts as a social hinge. It is neither decorative nor residual. It is the measured heart of the composition.
Materially, the language is disciplined. Pale red brick at the plinth establishes civic weight at street level. Darker brick above modulates the mass. White balcony balustrades catch light at the corners, offering a precise counterpoint. The effect is not spectacle but steadiness. One senses judgement at work.
There is also a wider urban intelligence. One hundred percent of the homes are delivered at London Affordable Rent levels. By housing older residents well, the scheme releases under occupied family homes back into circulation. Architecture here operates within a larger housing ecology. It is infrastructural as much as it is spatial.
The integration of health centre below and homes above forms a compact civic campus embedded in the high street. It feels deliberate, as though part of a longer plan to reorganise and repurpose municipal assets with care. The public face is confident without bravado. The domestic realms above achieve quiet without isolation. That gradient between civic and private is handled with uncommon tact.
Noele Gordon House has a steadiness that feels ethical. On a difficult site, within stringent economic parameters, it achieves clarity, dignity and a measured generosity. Well worth a place on the shortlist.
