Wapping Pier Head | Chris Dyson Architects

Wapping Pier Head was built between 1810 and 1811, and stands at the northern end of a short terrace, which once overlooked the approach to Wapping Basin. This terrace was designed by Daniel Asher Alexander and combines traditional, domestic Georgian style with the more austere warehouse aesthetic. It lies within the Wapping Pier Head Conservation area and is Grade II listed. 

The brief was to create a family home that responds to contemporary domestic use. The condemned two-storey Victorian extension was replaced with an enlarged masonry extension that addresses the garden and provides kitchen, living and dining at ground floor level. Additionally, all services were replaced, insulation improved and rainwater harvesting introduced. Period features were reinstated and refurbished to sympathetically restore a sense of character that had been lost over the last 50 years. 

A traditional masonry construction was chosen to reflect and compliment the surrounding Georgian architecture within the Wapping Conservation Area. The restrained palate of materials, carefully detailed, created a quiet and contemporary aesthetic; extended cut brick arches and slim profile copings framing bronze casements. Brick colour and variety were critical to the success of the project therefore colour washing was implemented. This specialist technique meant transparency and shade could be gradually built up to complement the existing house and adjacent dock wall.