Winstanley Road

An early high density scheme which was designed for a tough area and has survived despite poor maintenance. Hard paving dominates and has been carefully detailed with much use of brick. The spaces flow well between the blocks and tree planting softens the formality. One of the few clear successes amongst the redevelopment schemes of the 1960's. (Landscape Architect: Michael Brown) The landscape around the tower blocks which adjoins this scheme was refurbished (1982) by the London Borough of Wandsworth to create semi-private defensible spaces and some private gardens.

Between Winstanley Road and the railway, SW11.

HOMEPAGE - Landscape Architecture London List

• almost 2 years ago annabel downs said

  Michael Brown's drawings for this project are housed at the Landscape Institute's archive [currently closed]. Brown's drawings clearly show how his thinking developed from initial sketch designs through to what was finally implemented. Unlike many practices, Brown kept all his preliminary and working sketches, you can see how hard he pushed himself throughout the life of the project to arrive at what he [and presumably the architects and the client etc] considered the best solution for the site.
  Before I saw these drawings I met some of the residents in the 1980s as part of an mental/environmental health project and they wanted to attribute a number of social problems [burglary, vandalism etc] to what they perceived as the poor quality of the landscape. I walked round the estate with a couple of the residents, and could see it had been very robustly and well designed, but the most serious problem was the lack of good and intelligent maintenance, to both hard and soft landscape. Until and unless maintenance is properly addressed and funded all our designs are vulnerable. Privatisation of some of the garden spaces is not the solution.