This area has been designed by the various teams to show a diverse, well-crafted place where people would really want to live. There’s a variety of housing types including terraced houses and apartment blocks – which creates a diverse community in the neighbourhood.
The homes are designed to a high standard, with careful consideration of the surrounding context but at the same time having distinct character. Back gardens appear to be well-used and carefully created – and they seem to be well looked after by gingerbread residents!
There’s a wealth of diverse architecture to be explored if you hop on a train to London, Barcelona or even Rotterdam.
This area of The Gingerbread City’s masterplan is split up into several individual plots. Teams from architecture and design companies were asked to pick one of these plots – and then supply a bespoke gingerbread building appropriate for it. Over the past few months, the wonderful buildings below have been conceived, designed, crafted, and baked by them to fit.
The buildings of the Connected Quarter
Lamington Lane Hotel
4M Group
The Juxtaposition of solid and transparent triangular forms create these dynamic shelters. As the structure rises, the triangles vary in angle, allowing the potential of light and air perforation in an attempt to bring the facets of the external environment inwards. The two structures offer companionship for one another and their inhabitants. Greenery ‘’flows’’ throughout the structure and its environment.
About the designers: 4M Group is a collaborative design and build team, all working in unison towards a common goal together. Their team is culturally diverse, and like the foundations of the buildings they design, they too, provide support to each other. From this diversity, interesting crossovers occur, which adds a frisson to the work the practice does.
Sticky Toffee School
Ashton Architecture
Children are encouraged to skateboard or slide down the building’s sloped roof on the way to the sticky toffee school. The shared garden areas around the building and on the roof terrace are dedicated to growing fruits and vegetables for the children’s school lunches which they grab on their way to school. This encourages the formation of a community and also teaches children to care for and grow vegetables by incorporating a play area into the vegetable garden.
About the designers: Ashton Architecture was founded in 2018 and believes in making better spaces for living. They care about the big picture and the small picture equally. They are conscious of the obligation to reduce waste and the responsibility to create built environments sustainably.
Bee Hotel
Baily Garner
The practice aims to raise awareness about the decline of bee populations which is primarily due to habitat loss, hence they are utilizing rooftops and facades for nesting places and nectar & pollen-rich crops and flowers located within their urban farm. Bees are a delightful and charming part of life and wellbeing and are essential pollinators. Their loss will have serious consequences for food production and ecosystems. The design will result in local production of honey and produce at Gingerbread City with the assistance from Bee friends.
About the designers: Baily Garner has been combining excellence and innovation for more than 40 years. Based in London and Birmingham, they have a strong track record across the housing, regeneration, mixed-use, health, education, care, blue light and commercial sectors.
Twelve Shapes of Christmas
Barxonomy
Barxonomy’s “Twelve Shapes of Christmas” celebrates the different needs of the residents of Gingerbread City. There is a wheelchair and bicycle accessible curved roof home, living roof and wall in a more triangular style home, and double-height ceilings in the modern glass extension. Each home has a garden allotment and cycle path to join the larger city route.
About the designers: Barxonomy is a new resource for homeowners looking to renovate, redesign or refurbish their homes. The practice provides design services along with tools and educational materials to empower people to successfully manage their renovation projects.
Passivhive
Bennetts Associates
The Passivhive is a bee house, made from sustainably sourced ingredients that aim to encourage biodiversity in the neighborhood. Bees will travel from their home in the Passivhive walls to the nearby Nice Allotments and Playing Fields to pollinate plants, instead of fulfilling the traditional role of honey producers. The house itself will be made from small building components which can be disassembled for re-use in future projects. As well as using a gingerbread recipe with a carbon footprint almost three quarters lower than usual, the Passivhive’s carbon footprint will be calculated and offset remaining carbon emissions making it a Net-Zero Passivhive.
About the designers: Bennetts Associates creates sustainable and enduring architecture that is more than skin deep. The employeeowned practice has completed a diverse portfolio of cultural, workplace and education projects in both the public and private sector, ranging from masterplans to small historic buildings.
The Carrot Cake Café
BM3 Architecture Ltd
The design concept aims to create a high-quality well-designed area, which maximises connectivity across the site for pedestrians and cyclists. This is supported by green public spaces that are open to the community, including a roof garden and a vertical living wall to promote sustainability and healthy living. Pockets of spaces are created through utilisation of the changing site levels to allow for social interactions. The CarrotCake Café opens on to the park and is run by onsite residents to provide local produce and refreshments to all Gingerbread citizens.
About the designers: BM3 Architecture Ltd is a multi-disciplinary practice with offices located in Birmingham and London specialising in the residential sector. BM3 prides itself on delivering high quality and innovative architecture. This is achieved by a consensual approach to regeneration, master planning and design.
Gingerbread Connected Quarter
Carta Nova - Architecture & Beyond & Jennifer Nursiah
The Gingerbread Connected Quarter is a collaboration between Carta Nova and their colleague and friend Jennifer Nursiah, a mortgage broker. The Quarter creates urban living that is close to nature. The family home has been designed for patchwork, multicultural and cross-generational families. It is on split levels and includes inside-out spaces.
About the designers: Carta Nova are a London based studio for architecture and interior design. For them, every design starts with a simple sketch on a piece of paper. It’s this state of possibilities that’s at the heart of the Carta Nova philosophy.
Caramel Wafer Bridge
Civic Engineers
Caramel Wafer tram bridge is designed to bring nature to the connected quarter, acting as a green gateway to Castle Hill. The garden bridge concept seeks to improve the welfare of all Gingerbread City dwellers, encouraging the use of sustainable modes of transport such as public trams, cycling and walking. This supports the vision for future travel which is based on providing more opportunities for cycling, walking and better accommodation of public transport and green space. There is a positive impact on the environment and people are able to live happier and healthier lives.
About the designers: Civic Engineers continue to be at the forefront of engineering design, creating inspirational structures and places that have a positive impact on the environment, and which enable people to lead healthier and happier lives.
DashR
Darling Associates
It’s good to be prepared to adapt to whatever life throws at us. Dynamic Active Smart Home Residences (DashR) are revolutionary low-waste houses that physically transform based on the needs of each resident. If your family grows, the DashR grows with them, with extra room modules a simple addition. Friends visiting from out of town? The DashR can roll backwards to accommodate more parking spaces. Want to grow vegetables? The DashR glides forward to create more space for an allotment. DashR can expand, transform and manoeuvre to fit your family’s everchanging requirements. DashR is for life, not just for Christmas.
About the designers: Darling Associates is a multi-award-winning 120+ strong architecture studio with principal offices in London and Manchester.
Fereday Pollard
Battenberg Cake Bridge
The Battenberg Cake Bridge provides a recreational public space for the local community to play, relax and explore the landscape, whilst connecting them with the school and residential areas on opposite sides of the Rhubarb River. Its structure extends into the sky, creating a landmark feature amongst the surrounding townscape, and provides wayfinding assistance for local people navigating across the water. Cycling, skateboarding and walking routes improve local connectivity, weaving their way through the landscaped gardens and providing views out onto the river and the town beyond.
About the designers: Fereday Pollard provide people-focused architectural solutions to significant engineering problems, by integrating architecture, landscape, public space and connectivity. They are involved in some of the largest infrastructure projects in the UK, including Crossrail, Thames Tideway Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing.
Figroll Terrace
Fuse Architects
Fuse Architect’s design for Figroll Terrace uses upper level windows and balconies to take advantage of views of the stadium, bridge and river for residents. Front gardens provide cycle parking and electric vehicle charging points, while rear gardens provide space for playing and food production.
About the designers: Fuse Architects was founded in 2019 from the amalgamation of two long-standing architectural practices MDR Associates and David Hughes Architects. People and performance are the basis of their core values. They are committed to balancing customer satisfaction with a commercial approach to architecture.
Kugelhopf House
Hildrey Studio
Kugelhopf House focusses on the needs of Gingerbread City’s most vulnerable residents. As Dick Wittington found out - the streets aren’t paved with gold. Instead, for some a hidden uphill struggle is faced to get back on their feet. Kugelhopf House makes use of the prime dockland site to create a circular economy whereby income from those fortunate enough to be housed can go towards funding the care of those working their way up. You can even try it yourself by putting coins into the housing and watching it make its way to those in need.
About the designers: Hildrey Studio is an awardwinning creative practice that uses architectural skills to create a more socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable built environment. This year, the studio was shortlisted for Beazley Designs of the Year for its ProxyAddress project.
Bake-ology Bridge
Hopkins
The architectural design of the Hopkins’s Bake-ology Bridge embraces it’s landmark position within the GingerBread City by linking the Research University District and The Residential District. It questions the existing paradigm of a Bridge by creating a landscape that brings together ecology, architecture and horticulture. The Bake-ology Bridge aim is to inspire its visitors through a journey of discovery and creation, embracing the importance of biodiversity and increase the understanding of the need to protect species and ecosystems to safeguard the world’s biological heritage.
About the designers: Hopkins Architects have helped pioneer British architecture since it’s founding by Michael and Patty Hopkins in 1976. The Practice is now led by five Principals and is based in London, having completed projects throughout the world.
Yeast Croydon Station
HONE:
In the new cutting slice of the cultural quarter, Yeast Croydon station is the icing of transport and democracy! Not only is it the rising hub of zesty commuting, but it is also the beating heart of debake! Here you will find people of all bakes of life, chewing the fat in the delicious pistachio meadow.
About the designers: HONE: is a RIBA chartered architecture and interiors practice based in Clerkenwell London. They enjoy collaborating with clients to find truly bespoke solutions perfectly suited to their requirements. The practice strongly believes that good relationships are the key to successful projects.
Expresso Wheels
KC+A Architects
This local café, bar & bike workshop with homes above serves the residents of Connected Quarter with expresso powered peddles. Commuters drop by for a coffee on their way to work and to have their ebikes kept in tip top condition whilst road riders assemble at the weekend to do timed laps of Castle Hill. Designed for Manufacture and Assembly, the building is constructed from cross laminated gingerbread, which is ideal for open plan shop units with flats above.
About the designers: KC+A are committed to making better places for people to live, work and play by integrating sensitive consultation, design quality and efficient use of resources.
Food Growing Curiosity
make:good
Take a walk through the allotments, taste from the communal plots, get inspired and get involved. It is rare we get a chance to see an allotment up close so the practice wanted to create a route through their plot that will open peoples’ eyes to the possibilities of food growing. What if all our journeys took us along a more curious path? What if we wanted to walk or cycle because we knew we would be inspired, see new things and it would be much more joyful? This is just what make:good wanted to do with their open allotments.
About the designers: make:good are a design and architecture studio involving people in shaping neighbourhood change and championing meaningful participation. They encourage people to get hands on in sharing ideas and their creativity to develop completely unique local projects.
Fee-Fi–Fo-Fum
Matteo Cainer Architecture
The magic of nature and its ability and power once again invites us to reconsider a new coexistence with the environment. The tale of the ‘magical beans’ connecting humans to nature as a form of tactical creativity will offer the residents of the city a new way to stay well and fit and to connect to a ‘new world’ through nature’s lymphatic system. The enchanted park celebrates the ability of nature to redesign its own territory, its landscape, its meaning and its relationship with the constructed world.
About the designers: Matteo Cainer Architecture is an interdisciplinary practice, with a distinct conceptual approach to architecture and design.
Rich Tea Row
PBA (now part of Stantec)
Rich Tea Row re-imagines the concept of terraced housing. Whilst there is an expectation for the row of attached dwellings to share their side walls, the practice wished to distort where connections meet, and openings exist. A strong biscuit base is complemented by a modern modular building process. The re-use of gingerbread containers, which have exceeded their shelf-life have been re-purposed as family dwellings. The stacking of ingredients creates multilevel houses. It is futureproofed accommodation, with the blocks suitable for reconfiguration, to adapt to the family’s needs.
About the designers: PBA (now part of Stantec) is a leading consultancy of engineers, planners, scientists, and economists. All of their work, from the engineering of landmark buildings and critical infrastructure to the spatial planning and economic evidence in support of development, is evidence based and informed by a deep understanding of what it takes to deliver construction.
Sugar Plum Square
PHASE3 Architecture
Sugar Plum Square’ is a futuristic re-interpretation of the traditional Georgian Square, a pedestrian public space surrounded by terraces. The open space allows the community to come together. The connection from the tram to the school is activated by children and park visitors throughout the day. As an open-source building system, the pre-fabricated, standardised units will be manufactured off-site from pre-cast gingerbread. The mix of residential unit sizes and configurations respond to individual and family needs to create integrated, holistic homes for local Gingerbreadians.
About the designers: Focusing on collaboration PHASE3 designs strategies. Strategies that enable the practice to distil the complex right down to its essence, unlocking hidden potential at any scale, for Future Building – for clients, themselves and cities to empower creative thinkers.
Mille-Feuille Heights
Probyn Miers
Mille-Feuille Heights is a mixeduse development within the Connected Quarter. It provides much kneaded support to the gingerbread community with its delightful spaces. The Pannetone Park and Simnel Cake Sports Fields creates an angelica atmosphere with lots of roly-poly activities for the jelly tots and candy kittens. Mille-Feuille heights is well connected and the intention of the Connected Quarter is to avoid Pavlova with its well established Ratafia Tram and Saschertorte Station. It is a Tangfastic opportunity to give back to the community in creating a well-designed quality street.
About the designers: The UK’s leading chartered architects in forensic analysis and international construction, dispute avoidance and resolution. Founded in 1998, Probyn Miers is the UK’s leading firm of Expert Architects in the field of Construction Dispute Avoidance and Resolution.
The KinderWaffle
Sheppard Robson
This high-tech school is the best place for children to make as much noise as they want! This is because the noise the children make is absorbed into giant sound catchers which is then transformed into power used to run the school. Watch as the children walk along the rainbow sound wave paths that ribbon through the school. The design of the building has been based on an ‘ear shape’ which hugs the site and allows for a large courtyard play space at the entrance. The fluid rib structure is inspired by the motion of soundwaves, which emerges from the ground and raises to its peak at the giant auditorium space creating a dynamic roofscape for the children to play.
About the designers: Sheppard Robson has a long history of using new materials to design education buildings… so it makes total sense that the practice – one of the most established in the UK – should be designing a gingerbread school for this year’s exhibition! When not designing and constructing buildings from baked goods, the practice builds on its diverse portfolio of work and their reputation for thoughtful and responsible designs.
Victoria Sponge Visitor Centre
Simple Works
This design seeks to create a more free formed structure than those typically seen in Gingerbread City by pushing the material properties of gingerbread and sugar to create something in hope to inspire future projects.
About the designers: Simple Works are a structural engineering practice who fundamentally believe that simple works. Through clear communication and streamlined processes they are be nimble and dynamic in the way they approach design.
Party Ring Villas
smok
Simple‘monastic’ accomodation limits clutter of space, body and soul, removing life’s refuse and freeing the mind for the consideration of things of a more planetary significance. Set against the water’s edge the residents felt it important to illustrate their commitment to global environmental issues with their community garden, aquarium and ‘immersive Ocean experience’ facility. Their neutral environmental impact policy precluded the use of invasive structures for access to the sea/river shore. Instead they opted for a simple ‘classic’ log flume to connect and commute. The site promotes ‘Pleasure and preservation’ in total harmony - very much like a Party Ring!
About the designers: smok is a huddle of talented architects and designers, eager to make things happen. Agile and adaptive, we respond quickly and will build the right team for your project, regardless of size. Contractors, developers, homeowners and consultants are used to create, guide and implement because they enjoy working with smok and they know the practice will deliver.
Lamington Lane South
Stanhope PLC
The two homes and café have been designed to take advantage of the natural sun path, provide an ecological and biodiverse habitat and a sustainable place for future generations. The communal gardens and café will foster a sense of belonging and the site is open to encourage walking, cycling and skating and above all, enjoyment for all gingerbread people.
About the designers: A creator of urban development. Over the last 30 years Stanhope has created and reinvented some of the most recognisable buildings and masterplans in London. They identify opportunities, work with like minded partners and realise landmark real estate projects.
Marmalade Lane
TOWN
Marmalade Lane is a cohousing community focused around a car-free lane. Between two terraced rows of houses and flats, the lane provides a shared space for residents. Free of parking, the lane is a place for bicycles, tricycles, goal posts, ball games, chalk drawings and, fundamentally, for people. Accessed from the lane, the common house provides shared indoor spaces for residents to spend time together, including a kitchen and dining room, children’s play room, laundry and guest rooms.
About the designers: TOWN is a new-generation property developer with a mission to build homes, streets and neighbourhoods that people love. They are a profit-withpurpose company: who believe passionately in what they do, and think that delivering their mission profitably is key to driving wider change in the sector.
Ginger Bale
TVBites
The ‘Ginger Bale’ homes are what every resident in the Connected Quarter wants. Generous bale walls make these well insulated cosy homes. The roofs are fitted with ‘Candied solar panels’ to generate electricity which feed the charging points in the shared parking spaces for the ‘Liquorice PEV’s’ used to get around GMA. The back gardens are frosty, with special ‘chocolate composters’ for recycling domestic waste, 20% of which goes to the Nice Allotments. Clean & Delicious Living for everyone!!
About the designers: This collaboration can be traced back 20 years to the reckless days at TVB School of Habitat Studies in New Delhi.