Orms revisits : Bow Quarter

More than 30 years after its completion, we return to east London's Bow Quarter with founder Oliver Richards and original client Colin Serlin – a story of resourcefulness, risk and remarkable foresight.

A fortuitous introduction

The early 1990s were not an easy time for anyone working in property and construction. Economic uncertainty had rattled the industry, and Orms, like many practices, was actively looking for new work to sustain the team. It was in this climate that Colin Serlin, his business partner Keith Zerdin, and the wider team at London Buildings first came to us. The meeting came about through a fortuitous introduction by David Rosen of Pilcher Hershman – one that none of us could have anticipated would lead to one of east London's most distinctive and enduring residential conversions.

Bow Quarter, the grand Victorian match factory complex near the Hertford Union Canal, had already had a troubled journey by the time Colin entered the picture. A previous developer had run out of money partway through an ambitious attempt to convert the various warehouses into homes. Where others saw failure, Colin saw opportunity. He bought the site and appointed Orms to help find a way forward – a project which was to be the first of many over the next decade.

Making the most of what was there

What Colin and Oliver found at Bow Quarter was a building with extraordinary bones and a rich history. The former Bryant & May factory saw many famous historical events; the Match Girls' Strike of 1888 started here, for example, culminating in the establishment of the first British trade union for women. The building offered something that new-build homes simply couldn't: soaring ceiling heights, generous proportions and a tangible sense of industrial history. The challenge – and the opportunity – was to work with what existed and find a practical way to make it genuinely liveable.

The design solution that emerged was deliberately and unapologetically practical. Oliver drew directly on his experience of commercial fit-outs, approaching the residential conversion much as he would a cat B office specification: horizontal service runs, robust and easily maintained materials, and insertions designed to be dismantled, repaired or adapted over time without fundamentally altering the building's fabric. The approach was about working with the grain of what was already there, not imposing something new upon it.

Each dwelling was designed to respond directly to the existing window proportions – either as a double unit or a single repeated module, with some atypical arrangements resolving the corners of the site. The result has a disciplined, coherent logic that felt honest to the building's industrial character while creating genuinely aspirational and liveable homes.

A home with a different offer

Colin understood from the outset that if Bow Quarter was to succeed, it needed to offer something beyond a standard conversion. The generous ceiling heights were the obvious headline – but he knew that residents would also need to feel part of something larger than a collection of flats. An onsite gym and pool were already built and carefully considered shared landscape spaces were integrated into the scheme from the beginning, establishing a sense of community rather than simply a development.

This was relatively unusual thinking at the time. The idea that a residential scheme could offer shared amenities and a genuine sense of neighbourhood – particularly in this part of east London – was a real risk. But Colin's instinct proved right. Back then, Bow was decidedly off the radar for many buyers, far removed from the central locations that commanded a premium. Yet it offered something those central locations couldn't: space, light, character and community. As Colin put it, you weren't just buying a flat – you were buying into a different way of living.

Selling the vision

Colin, knowing that buyers would need to see and feel what this unconventional product could be, commissioned a series of show flats, not from a single interior designer applying a uniform vision, but from a range of designers and makers, including Andrew Logan the jewellery designer and Ben Kelly, who each interpreted the spaces in their own way.

This was years before social media could amplify such things, but the show flats made the local press and generated genuine excitement. People came not just to buy, but to experience. Colin also ensured that purchasing was made as frictionless as possible: mortgage offers were pre-arranged, solicitors were on site on the day of the launch, and buyers could complete their purchase with a deal already on the table. It sold extraordinarily well. The risk had paid off.

Lessons that still resonate

Returning to Bow Quarter over 30 years later with Oliver and Colin, what struck me most was how well it had aged. The robust simplicity of the design, the quality of the spaces and the enduring strength of the community all speak to the clarity of shared vision between client and architect from the very beginning.

Oliver's commercial instincts – the forensic efficiency, the adaptability, the focus on light – are all clearly present. And in Colin's approach, there is something that architects would do well to remember: that good residential development is not simply about the units themselves. It is about understanding what people genuinely need in order to live well, and having the courage to provide it even when the market hasn't yet caught up with your thinking.

Standing in the courtyard, I was struck by how dramatically the area around it has changed. Bow Quarter, once considered a little out of the way, now sits in a part of east London transformed by the 2012 Olympics and the rapid growth of the surrounding neighbourhood. Yet the Quarter itself doesn't feel like a period piece – if anything, it feels ahead of its time.

The value of 'ultra-practical'

One of the phrases that has stayed with me from my conversations with Oliver about this project is ultra-practical. It was the guiding principle behind every design decision at Bow Quarter, and I think it remains one of the most undervalued virtues in architecture.

The existing structure was treated as a clean waterproof shell, with spaces partitioned into single or double bays according to the existing rhythm of the building. Simple mezzanines were designed as independent insertions which used the huge structural strength of this repetitive building; almost furniture rather than architecture; meaning they could be adapted or removed without touching the fabric of the building. Ceiling beams were deliberately positioned above the partition lines, keeping the living spaces as uninterrupted as possible. Kitchens, bathrooms, stairs and balustrades were all refined through physical mock-ups before being fabricated off site and installed across the scheme, ensuring that what was designed worked in practice.

Even the more unglamorous aspects of the building were resolved with the same rigour. The long corridors that are an inevitable consequence of warehouse conversions were generous in both height and width by any standard; and crucially, each corridor included a window. It sounds like a small thing, but it transformed what could have been a gloomy institutional experience into something that felt considered and humane. Services ran horizontally throughout, with diamond-drilled drain runs keeping interventions minimal and the structure essentially intact. Sales were phased floor by floor as works were completed; a practical decision that also helped manage risk for both developer and buyers.

None of this was accidental. It was the product of an architect and client who had thought hard about what really mattered and had the discipline to pursue it consistently throughout the project. Originally each level of corridor was different using graffiti and super graphics to give these spaces individuality – though unfortunately these quirks have been removed.

Could this be done today?

Returning to Bow Quarter, it is hard not to ask the question: could a project like this happen now?

When Bow Quarter was developed, there were no requirements for affordable housing contributions – on-site provision or otherwise. It was private for sale at a genuinely affordable price point, and the local authority was, in Colin's words, simply glad to see homes being made in a volatile market. The planning system at the time created space for this kind of pragmatic innovation because the risk was largely carried by the developer, and the outcome – homes being created in a building that might otherwise have sat empty – was self-evidently a good one.

Today, the picture is considerably more complicated. The question of use-class alone presents a significant challenge. If Bow Quarter were proposed under a conventional C3 residential classification, it would need to comply with a suite of space standards that simply wouldn't accommodate the ambition of the scheme – the mezzanines, the atypical corner units, the unconventional layouts that made it so distinctive. Could it be considered sui generis? Perhaps – but in the Co-Living category, the units would likely be considered too large, and the amenity provision too limited to meet current expectations. The most probable outcome is that a project like this would only be achievable today through permitted development rights – a route that, ironically, tends to produce some of the worst residential conversions on the market, rather than the most inspired ones.

Then there is the question of affordability. Bow Quarter is now approximately 60% rental, a reflection of how east London's property market has transformed around it. What was sold to single people and young couples as an affordable and genuinely exciting alternative to conventional housing is now, in many cases, a rental product for people who tend to move on once they outgrow the space. The scheme was conceived with a particular resident in mind – and in that sense, it has evolved beyond its original intention, though without losing the sense of community that Colin worked so hard to build.

The deeper question all of this raises is whether we have, in our effort to codify and regulate what good housing looks like, inadvertently made it harder to build housing that is genuinely good and innovative. Bow Quarter doesn't comply with today's standards in a number of respects. And yet, more than thirty years later, it remains a thriving and well-loved neighbourhood. People chose to live there. They still do.

With housebuilding and conversion rates at record lows and homelessness continuing to rise, projects like Bow Quarter feel less like historical curiosities and more like urgent reminders. Where a trusted architect, an inspired developer and a planning environment willing to extend a degree of faith to both - are brought together, the results can be extraordinary – even if they don't conform to the expected template.

That, perhaps, is the most transferable lesson Bow Quarter has to offer.