'Fresh' Juice Bar, N19

Client: Highgate Newtown Community Centre
Photographer: Jason Orton

Award:  Camden Design Awards, highly commended, community development

Highgate Newtown suffers from some of the worst localised crime in London. It is far from the resources of the city centre and offers little for deprived youth. The Community Centre realised that they were not getting through to the kids. Drugs and alcohol were causing side effect crime. They asked us to give them a facility that would draw young people in. A bar on the only commercialised street in the area, in a space donated by the Local authority. The difference was this bar would combine fitness and health – a juice bar and gymnasium.

Panelists described it as “a great success in design terms, and for the local community. Let’s hope that more projects like this will be seen in the next awards.”