Pocket Living Walthamstow

Background

Located in the heart of the Waltham Forest borough of London is Pocket Living Walthamstow, a new development of high-quality, accessible, and affordable homes for first-time buyers. Designed by architects Gort Scott, the low-rise, sculpted three- and five-storey residential building features high-quality architecture, unique decorative detailing and carefully selected internal materials to enhance accessibility while paying homage to the borough’s art and crafts heritage.

The Vision

This development aimed to construct 90 affordable one-bedroom homes on a historically significant triangular site across from the William Morris Gallery. Demos Ioannou, the Senior Design Manager at Pocket Living, would choose internal materials that were not only inspired by the borough's cultural heritage but also to establish a high standard in design and build quality for future residential projects in the area. To accomplish this, they focused on addressing equally important design factors for collective housing projects, including durability, accessibility, maintenance, cohesion, and environmental impact.

Why Tarkett?

Having previously collaborated on other projects, Pocket Living placed its trust in Tarkett to deliver durable, sustainable, and visually harmonious flooring solutions for their new Walthamstow development. Tarkett is dedicated to creating a sustainable, circular economy that generates value for all while closing the waste loop, preserving natural resources, and reducing its impact on climate change. These values resonated with Pocket Living. Additionally, because of Tarkett-Human Conscious Design^®—our commitment to creating flooring surfaces that benefit both people and the planet—Pocket Living was able to select solutions that not only improved sustainability and offered the desired natural look and feel of timber, but also met the needs of an accessibility-focused multi-unit housing project.

Products Used

Tarkett supplied 4,500m² of Classics Rigid 30 LVT in the English Oak GREGE plank design to meet Pocket Living’s design requirements. This phthalate-free flooring solution offers numerous benefits, including unrivalled natural-looking wood designs that complement the architectural style and overall project design, TEKTANIUM™ PU coating for easy maintenance and protection, resistance to scuffs, scratches, and stains, as well as improved grip, which reduces the risk of slips and falls with its textured and matt finish, durability for heavy use, ultimate acoustic comfort (up to 19dB) for reduced noise transmission between units and in common areas throughout the multi-unit residential building, and 100% recyclability through ReStart^®.

Results

The Pocket Living Walthamstow project has been positively received by the local community, buyers, and the architecture and design community. It has been praised for setting new design and building quality standards for future residential projects in the area. The project successfully achieved its goal of providing good quality, accessible, and affordable homes in Waltham Forest through collaborations with partners such as Tarkett. This exciting new development now incorporates floors that benefit both people and the planet by being aesthetically pleasing and minimising environmental impact through lowered CO₂ emissions.

The People Behind the Project

“We wanted to enhance our sustainable credentials in our apartments and provide a natural-looking timber effect LVT flooring that was circular yet robust. Having worked with Tarkett on our other schemes we knew Tarkett could provide us with a sustainable solution for our homes at an affordable price point that minimises environmental impact.”

― Demos Ioannou, Senior Design Manager at Pocket Living

“It’s always a pleasure to work with Pocket Living on their developments. Their consistent approach to material selection prioritises design, performance, and circularity, an approach that aligns with the values we hold at Tarkett. What they have achieved at Forest Road is fantastic: creating 90 beautiful homes and a community for local people – a place they will be proud to call home.”

― Katie Hough, Project Consultant – Residential Developments at Tarkett