This existing 3 storey public house is converted and extended into a restaurant and bar, with 8 flats and a penthouse over. On a main artery into the Elephant & Castle regeneration area, it sits in a section of the street with a frontage which is composed of a series of discrete and disparate buildings of different ages and types. The design takes the idea of a street infill in an urban block rotating this through 90 degrees to create the vertical extension. The conjunction of new to old is stacked vertically rather than being arrayed horizontally, with the volume of the new and old interlocking.
The generous penthouse terrace on the top has an open front recessed across its full width. The extension is configured to enhance the elements of the gables, edges and frontages that contribute most to the visibly dynamic character of this, the adjacent building and site. This work is modelled through the asymmetric composition of both the frontage elevation and section to affect a dynamic interplay of angles and planes that picks up in a contemporary sense upon many of the forms and angles of the adjacent buildings. The pivotal form gestures to the isolated church tower which lies on the street opposite, to create a uniquely distinctive gateway into the Elephant & Castle.