Highgate Road, Kentish Town - Creating community among the clouds

Location: 17-37 Highgate Road, Kentish Town, London NW5 1JY

Client: GM Developments

Products: AKRI Snap, Elements, Hollo, Rooftop, Fern planters

Sector: Residential / Rooftop

Sometimes the most thoughtful urban spaces exist where you'd least expect them, and this one happens to be seven stories above the bustling streets of Kentish Town. Now, 47 residents can share something rather special: a rooftop realm that feels both entirely urban and refreshingly removed from the city below.

The project

When GM Developments approached us through our colleagues at Outdoor Deck, they arrived with ambitious plans and a practical challenge. They had designed a fantastic rooftop space using bespoke elements, but needed to bring their vision within a £40,000 budget without compromising the design intent.

The beauty of such constraints lies in how they spark creative collaboration. Our first suggestion was to rationalise the very bespoke steel retaining wall planters into our AKRI Snap system: integrated seating within substantial planters that would maintain the design's integrity whilst delivering exceptional value. Using our configurator, we illustrated how these would transform the rooftop drawings into a lived reality.

Project solutions

AKRI Snap forms the backbone of the space, providing generous planting areas with integrated seating that feels like refuges within the city. Residents find themselves sitting not beside nature, but within it — surrounded by the hum of bees and the rustle of leaves whilst London spreads beneath them.

Fern planters create gentle boundaries around the rooftop's edges, offering privacy between levels whilst softening sight lines. They perform that delicate dance of creating intimacy without isolation.

Thetford tables bring contemporary picnic table functionality to the space – perfect for al fresco entertaining or the increasingly common sight of working outdoors. Their angular profiles mirror the clean lines of the building itself.

Hollo table and benches establish a more casual gathering point, arranged like a low-level coffee table setup that encourages lingering conversations and quiet moments of contemplation.

An Elements bench, tucked thoughtfully into a corner, provides that essential quiet getaway, proof that even communal spaces need pockets of solitude.

The craft in the details

The angular profiles of the Thetford tables weren't chosen arbitrarily. They echo the building's architectural language, creating visual harmony between furniture and architecture. Different seating heights and configurations provide varied experiences within a single space, allowing the rooftop to accommodate different moods and group sizes.

Most importantly, the AKRI Snap integrated seating allows residents to be truly immersed in the planting, intensifying that precious feeling of escape whilst remaining thoroughly connected to their urban home.

The transformation

This was a new-build rooftop, so there's no dramatic before-and-after story. Instead, there's something perhaps more meaningful: the story of a space designed to become part of people's daily lives from the very first day.

We met one resident on his moving-in day – a father who had chosen this particular flat for his son and daughter because of the rooftop. He described the views and the feeling of respite as "a gift," and made the rooftop his first destination when settling his children into their new London home.

Looking ahead

In five years' time, we hope to discover a community of residents bonded by their shared outdoor sanctuary… neighbours who've developed friendships that would never have flourished in empty corridors or brief lift encounters.

We also envision a thriving community of wildlife. The planters already buzz with bees, and we hope the space will feel increasingly shared with nature, creating that rare urban experience where city living and biodiversity enhance rather than compete with each other.

What makes us most proud isn't just the furniture we've supplied, but the life we've helped facilitate. Forty-seven residents and the building's staff now have somewhere to meet, relax, and build community. We've introduced biodiversity to a rooftop space whilst staying within budget and adding lasting value to residents' daily experience.

This is urban furniture working as it should: not just filling space, but creating the conditions for connection, contemplation, and the quiet moments that make city living truly liveable.

Interested in creating your own rooftop community space? Our design team would love to explore how thoughtfully chosen furniture can transform your outdoor areas into places where people naturally gather, relax, and connect.