11 Kerr Lane
4.1 m plot · 5 floors · 2023
One tall window closes a gap that stood open since 1941. Two flats, one stair, a roof the neighbours share.
We build in the gaps a city leaves.
Midblock is an architecture office for plots under ten metres wide: the gap between two houses, the yard behind a shop, the corner nobody could use.
A street takes a century to build and a second to see.
Before we draw a line, we film the plot’s street from first light to midnight and read it as one long exposure: where the sun reaches, who walks past, which colours the neighbours have worn for decades. Then we design the building the gap was waiting for.
- Narrowest so far
- 2.9 metres at 9 Ropewalk: seven floors with a bike workshop at the bottom.
- On our register
- Forty-one gaps mapped across the city, open to anyone who owns one or lives beside it.
- Since 2014
- Eleven buildings, each one on a plot somebody called unbuildable.
Five buildings, none wider than a bus
Walk the frontage. Each one stands at its real width, on a plot that had been empty for decades.
4 Saltmarket Row
6.2 m plot · 4 floors · 2021
Three balconies lean out over a driveway nobody used, so every floor gets the evening sun.
Quay 27
7.8 m plot · 3 floors · 2022
A timber frame on the last empty plot of the quay, set back to keep the towpath wide.
Mill & Ash corner
5.5 m plot · 2 floors · 2019
A folded concrete shell on thirty-eight square metres of corner: a studio above, a car below.
18 Weir Road
9 m plot · 4 floors · 2024
Two flats turned sideways to look past the neighbours, faced in timber from the old tannery roof.
Every one of them began as a line in our register.
We read a street for a whole day
A slit camera records one vertical line of the street from first light to midnight. Sun, shade, traffic and the colour of a neighbour’s door all end up in one long image. That image is our brief.
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Scan
05:40 · first light
We fix a camera across the street from the plot and record a single vertical line of it until midnight.
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Read
12:10 · noon
The long image shows where the sun reaches the ground, how long the shade lies and who uses the pavement at which hour.
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Draw
19:30 · dusk
We draw the building to the street’s own heights and colours, and give the sun back to the windows that lose it.
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Build
23:55 · midnight
Small sites mean small crews: one contractor, short sections, and a street that stays open while we work.
The gap register
A public list of every plot under ten metres wide we have measured in the city. If you own one, or live beside one, it may already be here.
Add a plot| Plot | Width | Depth | Faces | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Behind 3 Cooper Street | 3.6 m | 22 m | North | Mapped |
| Between 18 and 20 Weir Road | 4.8 m | 31 m | South-west | Owner contacted |
| Former substation, Hale Lane | 6.1 m | 12 m | East | In design |
| Yard of 7 Union Row | 5.2 m | 9 m | South | Mapped |
| End of Garnet Mews | 8.4 m | 15 m | West | Owner contacted |
| 40a Saltmarket Row | 3.1 m | 27 m | North-east | In design |
| Car wash, Brook Street | 9.6 m | 18 m | South | Mapped |
| 9 Ropewalk | 2.9 m | 21 m | West | Built |
Updated every month from our scans. Plots are listed with their owners’ agreement; exact boundaries are shared on request.
Borrowed colours
We never choose a colour from a fan deck. Each building takes its colours from the street it stands in, measured off the day-long scan.
Ropewalk sand
The render of No. 7, painted in 1932 and repainted the same colour four times since.
9 Ropewalk, ground floor
Quay brick
The fired brick of the warehouse next door, matched in a glazed tile.
Quay 27, window frame
Weir Road door
A front door painted in 1958, the only green on the street.
18 Weir Road, stair
Kerr Lane plaster
The pale lime of the terrace, taken at noon when it reads warmest.
11 Kerr Lane, façade
Saltmarket tram blue
The old tram shelter on the corner, a bus stop now and still this blue.
4 Saltmarket Row, balconies
Midnight asphalt
The last line of every scan, when the street lamps are the only colour left.
Every building, doors and rails
What the neighbours said
“They filmed my shopfront for a whole day, then asked what colour I would paint it if I could. The house next door is that colour now.”
“I expected two years of scaffolding. It took seven months, and the pavement was never closed once.”
“The gap behind our garden was nettles for forty years. Now there is a stair, and two children who wave from it.”
9 Ropewalk, floor by floor
A 2.9-metre plot between a garage and a print shop. Seven floors, one stair, and a building that is wider inside than it looks.
A garden behind the fins
Roof
Planters between the timber fins, a table for six and the best view of the river on the street.
One-bedroom flat
Floor 6
The bedroom faces east; the fins shade it from nine in the morning.
Duplex, upper level
Floor 5
Two bedrooms and a bath under a skylight that runs the full depth of the plot.
Duplex, lower level
Floor 4
Kitchen to the street, living room to the yard, and a stair that doubles as a bookshelf.
Studio flat
Floor 3
Twenty-eight square metres with a window seat set into the line of the fins.
Studio flat
Floor 2
The same plan as above, let at a fixed rent to someone who works on the street.
Bike workshop
Ground
The old garage door kept its size: a repair shop that opens straight onto the pavement.
Five people, one long table
We keep the office small on purpose: every plot is designed by the person who walked it.
Owen MarshFounder, architect
Hana OkaforArchitect, scans and site
Leo VargaArchitect, structure
Mei LindqvistProject lead, planning
Jun ParkModel maker
Questions we hear on site
The short answers. The long ones we give on the pavement, in front of your plot.
How narrow is too narrow?
We have built on 2.9 metres. Below about 2.4 metres a stair and a room no longer fit side by side, so we look at the plot behind or above instead.
What does a first visit cost?
Nothing. We walk the plot with you and tell you what the rules allow; only then do we quote for a scan and a feasibility study.
Do you only work in this city?
Most of our buildings are within an hour of the studio, because we want to be on site every week. We take on one plot further away each year.
Who owns the plots on the register?
Private owners, the council and two housing associations. We list a plot only when its owner agrees, and we never pass on their details.
How long from scan to keys?
About two years: three months of scan and design, nine to twelve months of planning, then seven to ten months on site.
- Studio
- Ropewalk Yard 9
Bristol BS1 6XN - Telephone
- +44 117 000 0000
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 9:00–18:00. Site walks on Thursdays.