02.3 Community & Retrofit — Kingston upon Thames

RAK — Queen’s Reach

Adaptive reuse of a disused riverside building into a socially inclusive community hub for Refugee Action Kingston.

Site plan of the Queen's Reach proposal showing the riverside building, its green courtyard, and the Thames — Site plan — the proposal sits on the Thames at Queen’s Reach, Kingston

A community hub on the Thames

Queen’s Reach is the adaptive reuse of a disused riverside building in Kingston upon Thames into a community hub for Refugee Action Kingston (RAK), a local charity supporting refugees and people seeking asylum. The proposal opens the ground floor to advice services, workshops and shared rooms — places to gather, to learn, to wait — while keeping the residential floors above intact.

Behind the building, the design wraps a publicly accessible riverside terrace around a green courtyard, stepping down to meet the Thames. The aim is a quiet, generous front door for the charity that doubles as a piece of public realm for Kingston.

Demolition and proposal

The design works with rather than against the existing building. Ground-floor garages and circulation are stripped back (shown in red in the section drawings) and replaced with the new community programme behind a sheltered, glazed frontage (shown in blue). The residential floors above are untouched, and the existing brick character carries through.

Where new structure goes in, it’s built from rammed earth and reclaimed brick — the same material logic explored hands-on at Under Construction. The result is a community hub that feels woven into Kingston, not imposed on it.

Fig. Drawings

Hand-drawn coloured axonometric of the proposed community hub, showing the riverside terrace, green courtyard, market stalls, trees and street activity — Coloured axonometric — the proposed hub and its riverside courtyard

Front elevation showing demolition in red (top) and the proposal in blue (bottom) — Front elevation — demolition (red) and proposal (blue)

Riverside elevation comparison: existing condition above, proposal below with new ground-floor community spaces and a planted terrace facing the river — Riverside elevation — existing above, proposal below

Section through the existing building with demolition shown in red — garages, ground-floor circulation and shutters to be removed — Section — demolition (in red)

Section through the proposed building with the new community programme in blue — workshops, gathering spaces and the publicly accessible riverside terrace — Section — proposal (in blue)