The Wharf, Cardiff

A new build student accommodation located on the former Bute East Dock situated between the city centre and bay area of Cardiff.

Our vision for this site was to use contextual considerations and anecdotal planning history to provide a sustainable dense scheme tiering down in height and coverage from south to north and embrace the historic location by way of the architecture.

One of the main premises of the design is that it could be rooted to the dockside vernacular. This, along with the fact the site was wider and considered more capable of taking more height to the southern end and thinner and less positively able to carry height to the north, resulted in a series of broken forms.