Rooted in the local context, the pavilion buildings nestle within the perimeter landscape of Primrose Hill and overlook Regent’s Park – one of London’s largest open spaces providing a green respite to city dwellers. Inspiration stemmed from the flow of spaces and pocket gardens in John Nash’s layout of Regent’s Park and the surrounding nineteenth century villas – Carlton House in particular, the Prince Regent’s primary residence – as well as the coexistence of city dwellings with nature’s greenery.

The development is organised into three main pavilions overlooking the park, with landscaped garden mews providing visual relief between each building. These pocket gardens are visible through permeable glazed walkways, which connect the apartment buildings and blur the distinction between the interior and exterior.

Throughout the architecture and interiors, nature has inspired the material palette. Externally, handset textured Portland stone pavilions rise from a black granite plinth, topped by penthouses featuring a variegated bronze leaf shingle cladding. Crisply framed bay windows project out from the facade to maximise views of the surrounding parks and garden mews.

Inspired by John Nash’s Regent’s Park villas, internal spaces are designed to flow seamlessly into one another. In place of traditional corridors connecting the three buildings, the practice created timber-lined library spaces with seating niches, bookshelves and postboxes, themselves connected by glazed walkways with views to the garden mews, so that the journey from reception to apartment is experienced as a sequence of spaces, which flow in and out of the gardens.

Continuing into the apartments, generous living spaces combine with one another and draw natural light inside with generous full height and protruding bay windows, allowing residents to feel immersed into the landscape of Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park.

Kitchens and bathrooms use green onyx and Statuario marble to reference nature through their vibrant colour and dramatic veining. To balance the lively feature stones, apartments utilise a calm smoked larch timber accented with bronze trims, which is also used to line lift lobbies on each floor.

Squire and Partners created a bespoke antique bronze finish door lever used throughout the apartments, inspired by the primrose flower. The lever was designed in collaboration with Samuel Heath, an established family-run ironmongery firm in the UK since 1820. The primrose flower with its five petals is distilled into a simple motif, which features in the end of the lever, and forms a cap to highlight the junction between stem and lever.

This primrose motif was adapted to become the logo for the 50 St Edmund’s Terrace development, being carved into the stone entrance signage as well as appearing in promotional material and stationery.

In Apartment One, the long and extending views across Primrose Hill, Regent’s Park and the city take main stage, and therefore the furniture and decorative elements are calm with an understated elegance. Natural materials feature in many of the selected furniture such as the Carrara marble coffee table, smoked oak dining table, timber framing to lounge chairs, and the walnut and leather desk in the study. This apartment displays a restrained opulence that evokes quality and craftsmanship synonymous with the ethos of the whole development.

In Apartment Two, where views of neighbouring buildings are more immediate and the setting provides a stronger element of the built form, the palette features more manmade and processed materials such as the sculptural concrete table, metal spiral chandelier, blackened oak coffee table and anodised aluminium sideboard. The colour scheme fuses vivid greens, yellows and oranges from nature with metallic bronze, grey and black to reference the city.

Both apartments are light-filled and spacious, and are designed to have international appeal. Squire and Partners curated a mix of furniture and decorative pieces from a range of internationally renowned designers, whilst allowing striking pieces from established and emerging British designers and craftsmen such as Julian Chichester, Tom Dixon, Dare Studio and Poole Pottery to take centre stage. It is important for Squire and Partners that its work supports local and British designers, craftsmen and suppliers wherever possible.

Scape Design Associates was appointed for the landscape design of 50 St. Edmund’s Terrace. The privileged location offered Scape idyllic inspiration for a landscape that provides residents with both social and private connections to nature.

The properties’ peripheral landscape lies on an embankment that slopes towards Regent’s Park. Native ground cover, evergreen perennials and annual plants have been introduced to offer continuity of habitat and a food source for small animals and insects whilst increasing the site’s biodiversity.

New plantings of robust, shade tolerant shrubs and hedges occur in the verge to reinforce the green edge of the development, while high hedge planting alleviates the effect of the buildings’ exposed structural bases. In addition, several native trees have been incorporated to complement existing vegetation.

The courtyards and the beds directly in front of the buildings display more exotic planting such as African Lilies, Japanese Anemones, Siberian Bugloss and Red Hot Pokers to provide colour and fragrance. Native species along the west side of the development as well as the hedgerow at its front encourage wildlife habitats and foraging corridors for birds and bats.

Scape’s concept not only forms a harmonious bridge between the residences’ two verdant neighbours, it also corresponds to the Regency style proportions of architect Squire and Partners’ building design. The landscape has a “naturalistic” and “gardenesque” planting scheme within a formal and classical structure that radiates from an axial focus, typical of Regency and Late Georgian gardens.

Two long courtyards with stone clad water features provide a peaceful escape from the public parks and street side hardscape by offering a private oasis for quiet contemplation. Formal groves of silver birch create focal points at the end of each axis, accentuated by decorative stone feature walls.

Apartments overlooking these benefit from the tranquility of the reflecting pools and greenscape, with small, multi-stemmed trees forming low light canopies that screen ground floor apartments from upper level windows. Ornamental and seasonal shrubs and groundcover, as well as programmable planting like potted Japanese maple trees, allow residents to enjoy the cycles of nature throughout the year while also providing a habitat and food for birds, butterflies and other insects.

Scape’s remit included the obtaining of planning permission in a sensitive and heavily constrained 1500m² plot above a Thames Water infrastructure site, as well as site observation during construction to ensure compliance. Built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4, environmental concerns were of the utmost importance.

Green roofs planted with acid grassland provide habitats for native birds and insects so that the biosphere is integrated with that of the parks. In addition, 17% of the electrical demand for the 36 apartments and one townhouse is generated by renewable sources, with rooftop photovoltaic cells as well as a ground source heat pump to capture thermal energy. A rainwater harvesting system is also in place to irrigate the gardens.