ao link
Twitter
Facebook
Linked In
Twitter
Facebook
Linked In

You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles

Standing the test of time

Simon Brandon visits some award-winning estates from the previous century to see it they have withstood the test of time. Photography by Simon Brandon

Linked InTwitterFacebookeCard
Sharelines

How well have award-winning developments from the past stood the test of time?

Twenty years ago, Oasis’ Be Here Now became the fastest-selling British album in history. The reviews were rapturous.

But it’s fair to say Be Here Now has not aged well. In 2007, Q magazine – which had originally given it five stars – described the album as “a disastrous, overblown folly”. Last year, Pitchfork branded it “one of the most agonising listens in pop music”.

Tastes change. But while an out-of-favour album can be donated to a charity shop, buildings are rarely treated with such mercy. Like records, they may often be very much of their time. And yet to succeed they have to perform as intended for decades to come, irrespective of changing tastes. The Housing Design Awards (HDAs) were also launched in 1997. Unlike Oasis, however, they are still going strong. Inside Housing visited three winners of those inaugural awards to see whether, 20 years into their lives, they are standing the test of time.


READ MORE

From the frontline - David WalkerFrom the frontline - David Walker
Thinking outside the boxThinking outside the box
Top 50 Biggest Builders surveyTop 50 Biggest Builders survey

Homes for Change, Manchester

Despite two decades of changing styles and tastes, Homes for Change – a block of 75 flats sitting on 30,000 square feet of workspace in Hulme, to the south of Manchester’s city centre – has aged well.

“It is an extraordinary experience to approach this structure by road,” said the HDA judges back in 1997. “It sails like a flagship for the future above the wastelands of Hulme.”

Hulme had a poor reputation in 1997, but the area is no wasteland today. Just over the road to the north of Homes for Change is a brand new Manchester Metropolitan University campus. To the south is a large plot of allotments and blocks of smart new housing. Homes for Change itself is a striking building: a mixture of sweeping curves and sharp angles built from wooden cladding and yellow brick, peppered with metal balconies. It does not look dated at all. In fact, according to one resident, it set a trend for the regeneration of Hulme.

“This building was very influential on the design of other buildings around it,” says Rob Harrison, the chair of Homes for Change’s management committee and an original tenant. “This – the steel, the yellow brick – they appear in a lot of places.”

“We are like a tiny bit of socialist housing from the 1990s that people have forgotten to scrap.”

Homes for Change is owned and managed by an eponymous housing co-operative. It was dreamed up by what Mr Harrison calls a “bunch of hippies” who played a big role in the original design process.

“It was very idealistic in its conception,” he says. “The idea was if you lived and worked in the same place you wouldn’t burn loads of carbon.”

All the flats are for social rent, although nowadays the co-op outsources its rent collection to nearby Mosscare Housing. “It was hard to collect money off your neighbours,” Mr Harrison explains.

Inside the quadrangle, the front doors are connected by balconies and metal walkways, reminiscent of the old – and much maligned – ‘streets in the sky’ approach to estate design. “Here, it just kind of works,” Mr Harrison says.

The quadrangle encloses a small car park and a larger grass-covered hillock. It is a beautiful day when Inside Housing visits. Two residents are enjoying an impromptu picnic in the sunshine. They have nothing but praise for the building in which they live.

“The sense of community here, I have never had anywhere else,” says Niki Quinn, 38.

“It’s a pretty amazing place. We are a co-op so part of that is helping to run the building. You have to interact with your neighbours. I feel safe here.”

Her neighbour Maria Budacz, 36, is equally taken. “The vibe of this place – I can’t even explain it,” she says. “People look after each other, they are happy to interact and socialise. It is a safe bubble.”

The building and its residents have also benefited from the co-op’s exemption from the yearly rent cuts imposed on the rest of the sector. They will not have to participate in the Right to Buy scheme, either – and that, says Mr Harrison, is in keeping with Homes for Change’s original purpose: “We are like a tiny bit of socialist housing from the 1990s that people have forgotten to scrap.”

Royal Victoria Place, London

London’s Docklands has changed a lot over the past 20 years. The walk from Royal Victoria Docklands Light Railway station towards the huge Excel exhibition centre is a reminder of the area’s ongoing transition.

Directly across the water from Excel, at the end of a high footbridge, is a five-storey, semicircular block of housing called Royal Victoria Place. When it won a Housing Design Award in 1997, the judges praised what was then called ‘Crescent Block’ as a “highly confident piece of urban design which exploits a commanding position in a Docklands regeneration scheme”.

Royal Victoria Place is owned by Peabody and contains 67 social rented flats. It is situated at one end of the runway at London City Airport, so although the area is generally quiet, the peace is interrupted every few minutes as the sky fills with the roar of a just-airborne plane. The building was designed to insulate residents from this sound – but it is still noisy, says 46-year-old resident Salim Aziz, who lives here with his wife and three children.

“They put some sound insulation in there, but it doesn’t really help,” he says.

“The bedroom next to our kitchen is always warm. Is it because my missus is always cooking in there?”

The HDA also praised the block’s energy conservation system which, it mentioned, includes a stack ventilation system – to pull fresh air through the building in the summer – and a solar gain system, dependent on the block’s orientation, to help maximise or minimise the warmth of the sun depending on the time of year.

When Mr Aziz is asked what he thinks about the building’s thermal performance, however, he chuckles.

“The bedroom next to our kitchen is always warm. Is it because my missus is always cooking in there?” he wonders. “My bedroom is always freezing in the winter and really hot in the summer, though. I don’t know why.”

Mr Aziz has lived here for 20 years. He watched the Excel centre being built across the water. When Royal Victoria Place was built, he recalls, there was nothing else here. It was put down as a forerunner for the area’s regeneration, which is now almost complete. The building no longer exploits a “commanding position”. It has been subsumed by maturing trees, the more recently built footbridge and newer buildings on each side. The block is not as striking as it must once have been.

But as a place to live it has aged perfectly well, according to Mr Aziz.
“I’ve got good neighbours, they are all friendly,” he says. “I am happy here.”

Cherry Tree House, London

Truro Road is an unprepossessing suburban street in north London. Lots of semi-detached London villas, hedges, a few blocks of low-rise flats – there are thousands like it in the capital.

Walking down Truro Road on a wet and windy day, it is hard at first to spot the supported housing scheme that won a Housing Design Award in 1997.

Designed by Sheppard Robson Architects for Metropolitan Housing Trust, Cherry Tree House is a three-storey building of 28 flats set back a little from the road.

It is built from yellow London brick with plenty of grey-framed windows and pale, smooth lintels and surrounds. It is divided into three blocks, connected by smooth windowed walls sunk about 20 feet away from the frontage.

In other words, the building does not stick out from its surroundings, and nor was it meant to. “Much work by the architects and the planning authority has obviously gone into reconciling the needs of the residents at this sheltered housing scheme with the requirements of a conservation area,” said the HDA judges. “The final result… is a model of good manners and skilful planning.”

“The final result is a model of good manners and skilful planning.”

Inside, Cherry Tree House feels bright and roomy. Each floor is laid out in exactly the same way, explains Erika Pukinskiene, Metropolitan’s area manager for older people’s services. “It helps residents finding their way around – [the design] is geared towards the tenure,” she says.

It is a warm building, well-insulated and with good soundproofing between the flats. There is an outside terrace on the top floor, which means residents are able to keep pets. There is a large garden to the rear of the building, with vegetable plots bordering a lawn and a greenhouse in one corner.

Today, two residents are out gardening in the drizzle. The building’s entry hall is decorated with pictures of the produce they have grown.

One of those growers is Peter (not his real name), who has lived at Cherry Tree House for six or seven years.”It’s a nice building,” he says. “It could be updated a little. The independent living is good here… We all do our own thing. I’m happy here – I don’t want to move no more.”

Ms Pukinskiene, who is responsible for several sheltered schemes in north London, gives Cherry Tree House a big thumbs-up, too: “I’d live here when I get old,” she says.

Linked InTwitterFacebookeCard
Add New Comment
You must be logged in to comment.