Kingwood Hans Place is a super-prime residential development of ten apartments spanning the façades of four 19th century terraced townhouses, situated on the corner of Hans Place and Herbert Crescent in Knightsbridge.

The design is a crafted response to the setting, retaining historic elements of the existing facades and integrating them with contemporary insertions to provide luxury apartments and residential facilities.

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Areas of the façade have a bespoke brick, developed through a number of prototypes, which fuses traditional craftsmanship and modern digital fabrication to establish a new modern vernacular.

Two of the townhouse façades were retained, and three are contemporary insertions. An element of contemporary craft was introduced to the new façades, which respond to the original detailed brickwork. Proposals identified elements of the façades in which a bespoke brick could be accommodated – typically above and below window lintels/spandrels, and on the flank wall of a prominent chimney on the corner of Hans Place and Herbert Crescent. 

The decorative motifs of the original façades were created using a soft brick, manipulated by artisans who carved and rubbed the brick by hand to create intricate shapes and patterns.  Hand carving large areas of brick would now be prohibitively expensive and time consuming.

A 3D pattern was developed to create a geometric configuration which could be created with a limited number of brick types, but when laid in a stretcher bond gave a varied pattern across the façade.

Realising that both precision and the ability to mass-produce was important, the accuracy of digital fabrication (CNC cutting) and highly skilled bricklaying was developed to achieve the design.

A bespoke red brick in two basic patterns was established, with a small number of variants for junctions and corners, to be produced in batches. Following the CNC process of cutting the bricks to shape, using digital data to control a machine router, they were then hand rubbed to remove any texture left by the drill bit and to achieve a smooth finished surface.

Due to the level of precision taken inspecting and repairing the bricks, followed by soaking them in water before applying the putty, the team were able to lay a maximum of 1m of brickwork a day. Once a section was completed, the bricks required cleaning and face rubbing by hand to remove any smudges and achieve precise 1mm joints.