Why is there a full-size tree inside this once-abandoned Liverpool terrace? Step inside Granby Winter Garden, the latest transformation from Turner prize winning architects Assemble
From the outside, they look like any other houses in the street, with their big bay windows framed by chunky liver-coloured sandstone, and bright-blue front doors in brick-arched openings. But there’s something strange going on. You can see the sky through the first-floor windows, and exotic leaves are pressing up against the panes. Step inside and, rather than a standard two-up two-down, you’re confronted with a lush scene of ferns, lilies and full-sized beech trees, while fronds of star jasmine wind up the stair banisters towards a greenhouse roof.
This is the Granby Winter Garden, the latest phase of architecture collective Assemble’s work in Liverpool. This innocuous street of terraced houses was catapulted to worldwide acclaim by the 2015 Turner prize. Assemble, a young practice, won the hallowed gong after a group of plucky residents took control of their street, having endured decades of “managed decline” that had seen the neighbourhood abandoned by the council and left to rot.
It was an intoxicating David-and-Goliath tale: a band of angry women taking on the authorities, organising guerrilla gardening and a street market, hatching a plan for a community land trust (CLT), and getting Assemble involved to transform abandoned houses into beautiful, permanently affordable homes. Easy as that, hugs and teary eyes all round.
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