Tide developed and built this 250-bed scheme, which is both a great space for students to hang out and a catalyst for wider regeneration.
Great Court, Bermondsey is a nine-storey, 250-bed student housing development in south London. It has been sensitively designed to support the Old Kent Road Masterplan, repairing a missing part of the streetscape and acting as a catalyst for wider regeneration.
Volumetric methods were crucial to delivering the building’s high-quality, controlled material finishes. These include different brickwork treatments inspired by the local listed terraced houses, adding depth and variety to the facades. The use of volumetric delivery also halved the construction programme, and greatly reduced associated impacts such as vehicle movements, noise and dust pollution.
The accommodation comprises 44 studio apartments and 29 clusters, ranging from 3 to 10 bedrooms, each arranged around a shared living space. Communal amenities include a dedicated lounge and dining area, movie and gaming theatre, separate study space and laundrette.
The ground-floor café and social areas benefit from full-height glazing, providing connectivity and interest along the street edge. Externally, the pavement has been more than doubled in width, allowing us to introduce new planting.
Great Court demonstrates how volumetric construction can deliver buildings with complex massing. The building steps in height between five and nine storeys to reflect the scale of the surrounding streetscape.
This has also enabled a green roof to be provided on the fifth-floor setback and further habitats for plants and insects on the seventh and eighth floors.
Great Court was not only built and developed by Tide – we also managed and leased it as an asset before selling to investor EQT. This shows just how wide-ranging our in-house skills are – encompassing asset management in addition to all of our design, manufacture and project delivery experience.
By building using the volumetric system, the development programme can be drastically reduced. Although volumetric units account for most of the total building area, they can be installed much more efficiently as per the diagram below:
