16 CONTEXT 181 : SEPTEMBER 2024 ² Architectural Review, March 2021 improve access to the blocks, with foyers as social spaces. However, the foyers were unpopular with the residents and were later blocked off. PBA’s scheme replaced the single-storey additions with three- and four-storey social housing, and new, safer entrances.2 In addition, eight private-sale dwellings were built to fund the cost of the seven rented units and other improvements made to the estate. The eight dwellings were built on either side of part of the road that passes around the edge of the estate, six on one side and two on the other. At two and three storeys, these soften the scale of development on the estate and look out on to what is now a pedestrian street.The six three-storey units occupy a thin strip of land that was used for car parking and a sloping bank previously considered unsuitable for development. Here, an unorthodox arrangement of domestic spaces includes placing the bedrooms on the ground and second floors with living spaces at first-floor level. By cutting back the frontage to create an elevated terrace overlooking the street, this enables a connection to a garden at the back of the row. Edgewood Mews As with most of Barber’s housing projects, every one of the new dwellings at Kiln Place has its own front door. This is not only a way of achieving greater security, but also allows for higher density and a greater amount of communal open space, since 20–25 per cent of the footprint of shared-access apartments is normally taken up by corridors, lifts and other circulation spaces. Edgewood Mews, PBA’s largest scheme to date, demonstrates this concept most forcibly. Built for Kuropatwa in conjunction with the Home Group Housing Association, it consists of 97 homes, of which half are affordable. On the south side it fronts the hostile North Circular Road in Finchley, and consists of a long, narrow, curving plot that was left over from an abandoned road-widening scheme. Made available under the Mayor of London’s Small Sites Small Builders programme, it had been earmarked for 50 dwellings in the form of apartment blocks at the widest points on the site.3 Instead, PBA devised a pedestrian mews flanked by dwellings. Facing the six-lane highway is a 200-metrelong, fortress-like facade with parabolic, doubleheight arched openings at street level, projecting bathroom blocks above and a saw-tooth roofline. At each end is a curious eye-catching tower. The layout of the buildings is immensely complex. The site rises steeply from the road, allowing for underground parking beneath the mews. Designed to look like town houses, the units on the south side are flats for affordable rents and shared ownership maisonettes, mostly one room deep so that living spaces get ventilation from the mews. Those on the north side are a mix of flats and townhouses. As well as all having their own front doors, most have roof terraces and balconies open to the sun but protected from the noise of traffic. Children play in the mews with no danger from vehicles and the detailed layout ensures that there is a successful balance between privacy and social engagement. What is also remarkable is that the different tenures across the site are indistinguishable. Reviving the tradition of council housing In 2022, Peter Barber was awarded the Soane Medal. This recognises those who continue the mission of Sir John Soane to encourage a better understanding of the importance of architecture in people’s lives. A strong believer in social equality, Barber considers that the growing housing crisis can be reversed only by housebuilding for council rent, while halting the sale of council houses under the right to buy. At present he is building several projects for the London Borough of Greenwich, mostly knitted into abandoned parts of council-owned sites. While these are small schemes, what his work shows is that by reviving forgotten building types and urban customs, using traditional materials and construction techniques, and creating spaces that enrich people’s lives, it should be possible to deliver publicly funded housing of real quality at an affordable cost if the politics will permit it. ³ RIBA Journal, October 2023 At Edgewood Mews, instead of the apartment blocks that had been expected, Peter Barber Architects devised a pedestrian mews flanked by dwellings. Peter de Figueiredo is the reviews editor of Context.
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