№08 · The register

Belleville Estate

Estate developmentAbuja, NigeriaDelivered

An estate is a promise made to strangers who will one day be neighbours.

Belleville Estate is multi-family work in the Katampe cadastral zone: walk-up apartment blocks arranged along planted streets, with a gatehouse that takes the arrival seriously. Estate building is repetition, and repetition is where standards either hold or quietly die - the tenth staircase must be built like the first.

The blocks are standing, the court is paved and the cars parked on it belong to people who live there. The first three plates below are photographs of the estate as handed over. The visualisations that follow are the design record it was built against, and the two agree, which is the only test that matters.

The plates

Completed three-storey apartment blocks at Belleville Estate, Abuja — Plate I · The blocks, standingPhotograph

Paved courtyard in front of the completed blocks at Belleville Estate — Plate II · The court, pavedPhotograph

Footage · Finished, the court pavedFootage, unretouched

Dusk visualisation of apartment blocks at Belleville Estate — Plate III · The blocks at duskDesign visualisation

Aerial visualisation of Belleville Estate, Abuja — Plate IV · The estate, from aboveDesign visualisation

Gatehouse and entrance wall of Belleville Estate — Plate V · The gatehouseDesign visualisation

A second street of completed blocks at Belleville Estate — Plate VI · The second streetPhotograph

Wide view across the paved court at Belleville Estate — Plate VII · Across the courtPhotograph

The plans, published

Ground floor drawing for Belleville Estate — Ground floor1 : 100

First floor drawing for Belleville Estate — First floor1 : 100

Second floor drawing for Belleville Estate — Second floor1 : 100

Unit plans as built. Ground, first and second floor, the same three-bedroom plan repeated through the blocks.

Next in the register

Emerald City

№09 · 26 terraces · 3 blocks of flats · Kaura · Abuja