Founding director of REMI.C.T STUDIO, Remi Connolly Townsend has been announced as a member of the judging panel for the WAN Awards 2024 which are now open for entry. She is also co-founder of KIT London, a property development practice specialising in the infill housing market.
Remi’s development company focuses on purchasing very small plots of land, and the story of Maryland House (pictured below), her home for the last three years, is also the story of how the practice started.
“When I started looking at property in London I realised, wow, I really can’t afford anything, let alone achieve the lifestyle I had in my head.
I’d come out of architecture school ready to take on the world and, perhaps naively, I thought, I’ll just build a house.”
Remi bought a plot of vacant brownfield land where planning permission had failed four times since 2002.
“I’d led designs and collaborated with planners on small interventions but I’d not gone through the process from a new build on an infill plot perspective. I was very green.”
But she saw the potential of neglected infill sites to not only help address London’s housing shortage but also to encourage innovative design and construction. The finished result is Maryland House. A bold bookend to a row of terraced houses in Stratford, it maximises space over three storeys including a light filled basement floor and a first floor workspace.
“You’re having to work with a lot of complex constraints which is great for designers. Infill sites create a really interesting brief.”
She reveals that the experience of getting a very difficult site through planning taught her a lot.
“I realised I wanted to be the developer too. I have an appetite for risk and development is a very creative discipline in its own right. It’s about all the material conditions that make the vision happen.”
Remi feels strongly about collaboration between the different disciplines involved in building design.
“Building is very complex. There are a lot of moving parts. People need to be willing to have conversations throughout the process,’ she says.
“With each one of our infill sites I couldn’t just follow the norm. Usually, the infill sites that are left are outside of the grain.”
She believes that developing infill sites is the answer to catering for London’s diverse lifestyles. “From couples who don’t want kids to multi-generational family households to retirees in their sixties looking for an exciting next place to live. We just don’t know what people’s circumstances are and our housing should be diverse enough to accommodate this variety. Infill housing allows for that diversity. It’s really exciting.”
Remi is also now in the process of opening a satellite office in Accra, Ghana.
“What we’re doing in Ghana is really driven by the studio's principles which are context and human behaviour,” she says.
“I’m half West African, but I’m very conscious that I’m from the African diaspora, born and raised in the UK. It’s not just about using local materials but really understanding local skills and using the local workforce as well. Rice City House is designed exactly around the client's patterns of behaviour – we tried to make it as contextually relevant as we can. It’s a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the area’s construction technologies and showcase local craftsmanship.”
Rice City House, in Tamale, Ghana (pictured below) features block work that creates patterned surfaces to celebrate and maximise their ergonomic capacity whilst testing how these materials can be pushed to deliver more. It also reuses leftover plastic bottles from the local area to provide void formers in the roof.
“The layout really focuses on framing the views from every aspect. We set the house back to make sure every view was covered,” says Remi.
The design also considers Ghana’s climate which ranges from dry arid months, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees, to rainy seasons with torrential downpours for weeks on end. With this in mind the principles of air flow and flood control have been core elements of the design. The key external feature is the floating roof that shades the veranda below, with its thin edge finish.
It demonstrates well the core ethos of Remi’s work.
“As a studio we focus on two key principles when approaching a new project; context and the human experience,” she says.
“How can this design make the most of the environment it is a part of, making use of the tools and expertise it is surrounded by? How can we better understand the patterns of people’s behaviour and enhance their spatial experience into all components of the design?”
Remi believes the WAN Awards are an excellent opportunity to showcase innovation in architecture.
She tells WAN Award entrants that it's important to "craft a cohesive narrative that outlines the entire design process, from conception to final use."
Find out how to get started on your WAN Award entry today, here.