星空传媒

Iroko Housing Cooperative

Location Coin Street, South Bank
Management Iroko Housing Cooperative
Architect Haworth Tompkins
Completed 2000
Units 59 dwellings (mainly five-bedroom houses and three-bedroom maisonettes)
Tenants Rented to key workers and built with funding from the Housing Corporation, SRB challenge fund and loan finance
Cost 拢14.5m Wayne Hemingway is a familiar face at Iroko, a housing cooperative set up by Coin Street Community Builders on the South Bank of the Thames. He first came here soon after its completion in 2000. At the time, the 700-home development that he and his wife Gerardine had designed for Wimpey at Staiths South Bank in Gateshead had just gone to planning, and he was relieved to see that Iroko incorporated a similar combination of private and communal gardens. He is a big fan of its clear design and public spaces: 鈥淚 loved how it looked and saw that it worked.鈥� At the heart of Iroko is a communal garden, surrounded on three sides by houses and flats. This, says Hemingway, is the development鈥檚 real success story. On a sunny day, parents with buggies jostle for space and residents without children come outside to read a book or have a barbecue. The garden has strong echoes of Hemingway鈥檚 youth, specifically the recreation ground around the block of flats where he grew up in Morecambe, Lancashire. 鈥淎ll I remember was that we had this amazing communal space with great landscaping for kids. I can鈥檛 think of anything about the inside 鈥� apart from the smell of piss in the lift.鈥� Of Iroko, he says: 鈥淭he thing people like best is that it鈥檚 affordable. Second, they like the open space. Third, it鈥檚 a nice design. It鈥檚 human, not trying to be futuristic or retro.鈥� Coin Street Community Builders, which initiated and partially funded Iroko, says its aim has been to 鈥渄evelop housing to the highest standards achievable within the social housing grant system鈥�. It鈥檚 perhaps surprising that Hemingway should put design at the bottom of his shopping list of important features 鈥� the architecture of Iroko is simply 鈥渘ice鈥�. But to Hemingway, the quality of open space, management structure and affordability are far more important. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not some kind of utopian community. These people have come here because there鈥檚 a chance for them to live close to work.鈥�

Brunswick Centre

Location Bloomsbury, central London
Management London Borough of Camden
Architect Patrick Hodgkinson
Completed 1972
Units 400 flats
Other uses Shops, a doctor鈥檚 surgery and a cinema As Hemingway poses for the camera at the Brunswick Centre, a chunk of concrete lands at his feet. It鈥檚 been lobbed over by a group of youths and he restrains himself from throwing it back. 鈥淚 was tempted to have a go,鈥� he says light-heartedly. 鈥淚f I see someone drop litter in the street, I hand it back to them.鈥� Hemingway believes in people taking responsibility for the places in which they live, but he also thinks the fact that kids roam the terraces of this inner-city estate looking for trouble is an indictment of the way the building has been neglected. As a geography student at University College London in the late 1970s, Hemingway lived close to the centre, now grade II-listed by English Heritage. 鈥淚t could be fantastic 鈥� they could green it so people could enjoy the space. At the moment it鈥檚 approaching sink estate standard. You expect shady characters to come out of the dark corners.鈥� Completed in 1972, the Brunswick Centre was new when Hemingway visited the supermarket in the ground-floor shopping precinct. At that time, the raised podium, now a desolate stretch of concrete, was a continuation of the public realm. By the 1980s, open access was regarded as a risk to residents but, without investment from the council or freeholder, the podium has come to be regarded as a problem. Although Camden council is responsible for maintaining the residential parts, the building is owned by a private developer, Allied London Properties, which plans to begin a comprehensive refurbishment next year. Neil Litherland, Camden鈥檚 director of housing, says straightforward repairs have been held up because the freeholder鈥檚 plans have been in limbo for several years. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very difficult for us to justify spending serious money on the building, although I generally think that the space around it should be brought into sensible use,鈥� says Litherland. Unlike many of the building鈥檚 critics, Hemingway does not find it oppressive. 鈥淚t feels quite European 鈥� like you could be in Paris.鈥� He even claims to be working on a 鈥渕odern version鈥� of the building in southern England that adopts its form of stepped terraces. 鈥淚f housing like this was built today, we鈥檇 be less brutal about it. Concrete is wonderful, but this hasn鈥檛 stood the test of time,鈥� he says. He admires the principle of the centre; in reality, its ideals have faded.

Benin House

Location Proctor Street, Holborn
Management Ujima Housing Association. Developed as the result of a section 106 agreement with Camden council as planning gain for a 9300 m2 complex of offices and shops adjacent
Interior architect Ankur Architects
Completed 2002
Units Six flats, mostly one- and two-bedroom
Cost 拢580,000 Faced with a dismal office-to-housing conversion on one of London鈥檚 busiest one-way systems, Hemingway remains ambivalent about its flaws. 鈥淚f a flat at Benin House was offered to you it might be financially viable and close to where you work,鈥� he says diplomatically. 鈥淚t鈥檚 dull but it will probably weather OK.鈥� Yet even the architect of the adjacent office 鈥� an inhuman glass complex that bridges the road, bearing down on passers-by 鈥� admits that putting housing in this location was simply a convenient trade-off as part of the section 106 agreement. Sue Belk, director of development at Ujima Housing Association, which manages the housing, is more upbeat. 鈥淭here are private flats next door [developed by Berkeley Homes] and our attitude is that if housing here is good enough for the private sector, there鈥檚 no reason it can鈥檛 be good enough for us too.鈥� Nevertheless, the flats back onto a dark, gloomy courtyard filled with parked cars and rubbish, and at the front there is a constant stream of buses and cars. Barely audible above the noise of traffic, Hemingway eventually concedes, 鈥渢his is depressing even for an office鈥�. Meanwhile Belk says the issue of traffic noise is dealt with by the interior design, for which Ujima went to its own consultant, Ankur Architects. The fact that there is little outdoor space is, she says, one of the downsides of living in central London.