The Wornington Green estate, which sits just to the east of Ladbroke Grove and alongside Portobello Road, was built between 1965 and 1985. A number of attempts to address various design flaws in the original housing blocks had already failed, leading – over time – towards Catalyst’s decision to regenerate and rebuild within a masterplan spanning three phases.

Conran and Partners became involved with phase two, following a limited competition, and has continued working on the project during the third and final phase.

An important part of the brief from the start was to engage with the local community. We established an important dialogue with existing residents about the project, underpinned by the residential components but also involving support elements including retail and community facilities that help support the new homes.

The regeneration masterplan – which we have evolved and developed for phase three – is also about repairing the city by returning to the original street pattern around Portobello Road, which was built over during the Sixties and Seventies.

The residential make-up of the regenerated neighbourhood features a mixture of social housing, including an offer of new homes for all current tenants, along with homes for private sale and shared ownership. Importantly, these various models of occupancy are fully mixed and integrated, adding to the diversity of the community. The second phase of the project alone encompasses three hundred new homes, with the ambition to create around one thousand residences in total.

Given its location on the iconic Portobello Road, we have been careful to think from the ground up to develop a journey and series of spaces in our design approach.