What would homes look like if they came from a supermarket? The architectural taste test suggests that Tesco might not fare well: in 2014, it won the Carbuncle Cup – an annual prize awarded to the worst building in Britain – for a residential block over its Woolwich Central store.

The bulky glass-and-cladding monolith was said to be ‘too much for the site, for the area and for the eye’ by Hank Dittmar, the late urbanist and an adviser to (now) King Charles III.

Waitrose would do better. Last May, the John Lewis Partnership secured planning permission to build around 400 homes above a store in Ealing, with a crescendo of towers rising up to 20 storeys. With orange and yellow brick, the scheme looks solid – and fairly conventional (although still not without its detractors) – as London regeneration projects go.

But the grocer with a clear edge, and a proven track record of sponsoring world-class architecture, would have to be Sainsbury’s. In the 1980s, the company was seeking to redevelop the Aerated Bread Company factory in Camden into a new superstore, but the initial scheme was deemed ‘not quite good enough’ by Sainsbury’s own adviser, the Financial Times architecture critic Colin Amery, who recommended Nicholas Grimshaw for the job.

Grimshaw – who was knighted in 2002 and sadly died last September aged 85 – aligned the main store and a separate office block along the two principal roads that define the site, while the turning circles for the car park and loading bays left him with a 10m-wide strip along the Regent’s Canal.

It was not suited to the block of flats the planners had initially called for, so the architect persuaded them to accept instead a row of 10 three-bedroom houses, a maisonette and a studio. All face the waterway to the north, while their southern elevations are wholly blank, serving as a barrier against noise.

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Admittedly, views of loading bays and car parks aren’t ideal. To bring light deep into the homes, which were completed in 1988, double-height dining rooms – fully glazed with retractable garage doors – form the heart of each house, with a more intimate lounge to the side. The central spaces also open onto small balconies and the canal beyond, with each of the terraced homes featuring a curved aluminium bay window, creating a striking rhythm and reflections along the water.

Inside, stark white walls were offset with pale beech wood on floors, stairs and doors, while the exterior balustrades – made of horizontal wooden slats – further domesticate the high-tech scheme. Some aspects of Grimshaw’s design, such as direct canal access via ladders (visible in the architect’s early sketches), were left unrealised. Roof terraces were, however, added in 2006 and, in 2019, the homes – together with the superstore – received a Grade II listing from Historic England. It’s a shame a two-for-one discount is not available at the time of writing.