Unanimous Planning Approval Granted for Fellows Court
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
Intergenerational Passivhaus housing scheme delivering twenty-eight social rent homes for Hackney.
Fellows Court, NOOMA Studio’s twenty-eight home Passivhaus housing scheme for the London Borough of Hackney, has received unanimous approval at Planning Sub-Committee.
The scheme transforms a formerly underused garage site into intergenerational social rent housing, alongside a new pocket park and community street that repair the estate fabric while sensitively increasing density. Providing twenty-eight family-sized social rent homes, the project will be one of Hackney’s first multi-unit Passivhaus developments and forms part of the borough’s New Homes Programme. Designed to Passivhaus principles, it addresses fuel poverty and long-term operational performance while reinforcing placemaking quality.
From the outset, Fellows Court was recognised as a challenging urban infill site, with complex physical constraints and strong local opposition. In response, the project team established a Resident Steering Group and committed to an open, iterative design process. Issues of overlooking, safety, play, servicing, massing and daylight were addressed directly. The layout, façade articulation, landscape strategy and threshold conditions evolved through dialogue, balancing technical performance with lived experience.
Alongside design development, deliverability was embedded from the earliest stages. On constrained urban sites, planning risk, resident impact, servicing constraints, site abnormals, long-term management and political context must be carefully balanced from the outset. Fellows Court demonstrates that quality and viability are not opposing forces, but interdependent considerations that shape successful housing delivery when addressed together.
The resulting application received no objections at planning. The unanimous approval reflects the rigour of the process and the collaborative approach taken throughout.
The scheme was subsequently featured in coverage by The Architects’ Journal, which reported on a series of small infill projects approved that evening under Hackney’s New Homes Programme. The article highlighted how overlooked and constrained sites within existing neighbourhoods can deliver high-quality social housing and meaningful public realm improvements when approached with care and discipline.
Over the coming weeks, NOOMA Studio will present lessons from Fellows Court to local authorities, registered providers and house builders working on similarly complex infill and regeneration sites. Organisations tackling comparable challenges are invited to arrange a CPD session exploring the scheme’s design development and delivery strategy.
