The housing scheme at Thames Reach contains 25 units and is located adjacent to the warehouse complex housing the Richard Rogers Partnership and the River Café. The design takes its cue from these warehouses, rather than the surrounding streets of two-storey houses, and has a scale and form appropriate to the riverside. The use of brick, unusual in the practice’s mature work, reflects the attention paid to the context.

By breaking the scheme into three blocks, views are provided through from the street to the river, where there is a generous public promenade. To the street – very much the ’rear’, with articulated stair and lift towers – the scheme is restrained to the point of sobriety. On the river frontage, where living rooms are placed to take advantage of the fine views, a regular grid of glazing is broken up by an expressive pattern of cantilevered balconies. The ‘nautical’ theme is deliberate but applied with a lightness of touch which recalls the bridges and piers of the 19th century.