The Building
Strata SE1 is located on the site of Castle House, an early 1960s six-storey office building, which was the first commercial premises at the newly rebuilt Elephant and Castle. When completed, Castle House was warmly received. The Architects’ Journal in August 1962 found "little to criticise and much to praise and until New Zealand House is completed it is possibly one of the best examples for anyone wanting to look at a good office block in London."
25% of the building's flats have been sold by Family Mosaic Housing Association for shared-ownership sale. These consist of the "Esprit Apartments" — located on floors 2–10 of the tower — and a further nine flats in the adjacent "Pavilion", a three-storey structure located to the west of the tower and earmarked for former residents of the nearby Heygate Estate.
Each floor of the affordable area comprises 10 flats (equally divided between one and two-bedroom flats), while the floors above the 10th floor contain 11 flats in a mixture of studios (40), one-bedroom flats (149), two-bedroom flats (101) and three-bedroom flats (20) to a total of 310 units.
Only the open-market flats have access to car-parking (in the basement of the building). The 39th floor features a "Sky Lobby" (a small corridor with a view over central London), while the living area is topped by a £2.5m three-bedroom duplex penthouse. The ground floor comprises two commercial units. A third one is located in the Pavilion, along with a "kiosk". All three remain unoccupied although Inara (for the kiosk), Costa Coffee and Crussh have shown interest in the retail units
The building has its own extranet site, named "inhabit".
The one-level basement of the building contains a secure car park and 437 bicycle storage places.
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