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THE POST-WAR BUILDINGS OF CROYDON

ROBERT. W. PARK

Croydon is being talked about a lot in design and development circles at the moment. Something is afoot in this old market town at the extremities of south London.

BD seems to report successful planning applications for bright new towers and shopping centres on a monthly basis. Recently completed projects have already made an impact, including London’s second completed Boxpark, the emerging Ruskin Square and Saffron Square, which was unfairly nominated for BD’s Carbuncle Cup but is a bright addition to the skyline and seems to be regarded favourably by most of the locals I have spoken to.

And it is exciting to see Croydon council creating its own new development company, Brick by Brick, and associated architectural practice, Common Ground, which have already combined productively to put forward interesting new affordable housing proposals. This is really leading the way, and Croydon should be congratulated for this initiative.

But to call Croydon an old market town is to ignore more than 60 years of the town centre’s intriguing development history. The 1956 Croydon Corporation Act, masterminded by a clique of influential but autocratic local politicians and businessmen, provided the impetus for what was to follow.

The political zeal for a modernist town centre to support the council’s commercial idealism resulted in the demolition of large swathes of the Victorian town centre. By the mid-60s, the people of Croydon were active participants in a grand municipal urban experiment of new modernist offices, shopping centres, council buildings, theatres, concrete car parks and the notorious underpass and flyover. It might be fair to say that some of the older members of the Croydon community are still reeling from this urban upturn, but those who were young at the time have fond memories of the new Croydon.

Unfortunately, but perhaps predictably, it was only a matter of decades before the modernist vision of Croydon’s long-dead aldermen had culminated in an urban centre in significant decline.

There was an intriguing documentary broadcast on the Late Show in 1993 which documented the town centre and attempts by the great and good of the British architectural scene at the time to breathe life into the place through work produced for an exhibition instigated by the Architecture Foundation. It is fun to witness Richard Rogers confidently claim that a giant communication mast powered by wind turbines would contribute to the town’s resurgence, while Ian Ritchie reimagined Croydon’s office buildings submerged beneath a giant lake. Michael Hopkins took the pragmatic approach of suggesting a nice new park. In his opinion the last thing Croydon needed was more buildings. The documentary also makes an unflattering comparison with Goddard’s dystopic film-noir Alphaville, culturally rebranding Croydon as an urban environment more akin to eastern Europe than the heady bright capitalism imagined by the 1950s elders. A disappointing turn of events, I’m sure.

But 25 years later things seem to have turned again, and so I take a walk around to get a feel for the place. As well as the new developments, there seems to be a newly found enthusiasm for the post-war stock, and this is what I have come to see.

First stop, on the High Street, one of the original Sixties shopping centres, St George’s Walk and St George’s House (1964, Ronald Ward and Partners) leads you through a run-down, but well-preserved modernist office complex that terminates at the Nestlé office tower building. The route has been made bright and engaging through its occupation by some of Croydon’s more creative businesses, including the pro-active Rise gallery who commissioned the hundreds of graffiti murals around the building. Further up the high street, the minimal brutalism of Leon House (1969, Tribich, Liefer & Starkin) is currently masked by scaffolding while it is transformed into a lifestyle apartment building with concierge and roof terrace, revealing some of the original sculpted interiors by William George Mitchell.

Some of the most diverting architecture can be found around East Croydon Station, the prominent feature of which is a strenuous high-tech canopy that straddles the main concourse (1992, Alan Brookes Associates). Close to the station are two high-quality Richard Seifert buildings. Corinthian House (1965), a neat modernist office in the international style sits on a podium of asymmetric concrete columns, openable swivel windows, and an elongated cantilevered concrete entrance canopy that projects to the pavement. Right next to the station, No1 Croydon (1972) is known locally as the fifty pence tower (or threepenny bit, depending on your age), a formal misnomer as it is actually made up of rotated square floorplates with bevelled corners. It was not that long ago that it was highlighted in a Channel 4 documentary as one of the greatest eyesores in Britain, but has since been cleaned up and refurbished, acquiring semi-iconic status in the process as an undeniably strong local landmark.

Tucked behind it is Alico House (1963, Biscoe & Stanton) a pleasing concrete office building with a sealed facade of stacked repetitive cubist blocks. It was originally built for the General Accident insurance company but is now partly occupied by easyHotel, not the only mid-century building to be taken on by one of the big hotel chains.

Norfolk House (1959, Howell and Brooks) was the first tall building to be built in Croydon. It still has a wide range of shops at street level, from a small newsagent to a Waitrose, but the upper levels and entrance foyer have been refurbished quite nicely and are now occupied by Travelodge. The angled windows in chevron plan at first floor and at roof setback levels particularly draw the eye. In fact, many of the less auspicious office buildings in the blocks adjacent have also had a recent change of use, most of them being converted to flats – some high quality, others less so – but all retaining an office-like appearance. But with a patchwork of eclectic curtains and blinds behind the windows telling tales.

Perhaps the most auspicious modernist building near here is Fairfield Halls (1962, Robert Atkinson & Partners), which served as Croydon’s primary music and concert venue until two years ago, but has since lain dormant. It is currently the subject of a £30m investment in a new cultural quarter designed by Rick Mather Architects (now re-christened Mica). The building gives the appearance of the Royal Festival Hall in miniature, and if the original interior of the building can be preserved and restored, it could be quite a special object.

To round up a whistle-stop review of Croydon’s modern architecture, it would be a shame not to mention the lovely fire station (1962, Riches & Blythin) a Sixties municipal gem with geometric training tower, undulating long-span roof and glassy red doors revealing the engines inside to drivers on the flyover.

There have been some recent losses too. Both Taberner House, the old council offices, and Essex House have been demolished in preparation for new housing developments. Meanwhile, the Nestlé Tower will be re-clad in a contemporary style, extended and converted to flats, and St George’s House has been bought by a Chinese development group for £60m with a view to demolition and replacement with a high-rise mixed-used development.

So it seems that Rogers, Hopkins, Ritchie and all those other fine architects of the high-tech era were wrong. Croydon didn’t really need anything radical or exciting to push it on. All it needed was for people to start loving these modern buildings again. And despite its chequered planning history, and after all the harsh words that have been said about it, Croydon seems to be winning at last.

With contemporary sensibilities, it is hard to justify the intrusive and destructive planning decisions of the Fifties council leaders but, ironically, their gung-ho approach might now be bearing fruit.

Croydon today provides quite a unique urban condition. The mistakes of the past, in this case, seem to have provided the fabric for something worthwhile. But there is a contradiction here. While Croydon’s planners have the bravery of their predecessors as a template, they should also step back and understand what it is that makes the town centre interesting. Croydon is a modernist experiment that went slightly wrong, but is now working fine.

This article was originally published in BD:Online, 5 March 2018.

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THE IMPLICATIONS OF ADVANCED VISUALISATION TECHNIQUES AND INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS ON THE FUTURE DESIGN OF URBANISM AND ARCHITECTURE

CHRISTOPHER FERRIS, PLP ARCHITECTURE

Across July-August 2018 we have been engaging in research into how Augmented Reality (AR) can be used at PLP to extend our existing methodologies around design, visualisation and fabrication.

The following is an explanation of the hardware and software being utilised in this research, followed by descriptions of some case studies relating to the research.

The Microsoft Hololens is a pair of mixed reality smartglasses that were first released as a development edition in the spring 2016. The glasses allow the user to add virtual objects to their world and to walk around them as though they were real. The Hololens achieves this through an array of sensors; advanced optics that create a transparent lens to which information can be added and a embedded using a highly-specialised computer. The device also tracks the hands of the user, as inputs for control.

The primary software environment for our research has been Fologram, a plug-in for Rhino, allowing 3D models to be streamed directly to the Hololens in real-time. Beyond its functionality as a holographic viewer, Fologram has Grasshopper functionality which means it can send back information from the Hololens. For instance; where in XYZ space the headset is and where it is facing; or hand gestures for interactivity - such as changing number sliders or moving objects.

The first deployment of the Hololens on a PLP project was for a ground lobby screen installation required to obscure the face of people on the other side. A Grashopper script was developed which linked parameters of the design: spacing between wires as well as minimum and maximum sizes of the sphere and distances between them. This enabled the client to test the visibility through the screen in real-time inside the headset, by adjusting the parameters as they saw what was inside Rhino at 1:1 in 3D space. The Hololens was later used on the same project in order to visualise in-situ how the lobby will look when construction is completed.

Additional research into advanced visualisation techniques has included an app made in the game engine Unity3d that allows the live manipulation of a cutting plane through two-handed gestures. This is envisioned to be used at the Francis Crick open day as a educational device for visitors.

Most recently we've been experimenting with how the Hololens can be used to build without drawings. A prototype wire model was made in less than a day, with each length of wire rod measured from the hologram, and then held in place and soldered. Each piece being dimensionally and positionally unique.

From these initial investigations we are seeking to develop more sophisticated real-time systems as well as gaining an understanding of how the tools could be used to construct at the building scale and what forms they might inspire.

We believe there is so much potential for Augmented Reality as an architectural design tool - and we will continue to investigate its use through experimentation and research.

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DESIGNING WORKPLACES WITH THE HEALTH OF PEOPLE IN MIND.

KAREN COOK

For some decades, office buildings have been designed and measured against certain building regulations and workplace guidelines. These standards have served to reassure funders, remote from the design process, that their speculative commercial real estate will meet institutional tenants’ needs. Architects have long complained that these rules are an inflexible rod, preventing design from addressing human values, and resulting in characterless places.

Ever since the financial crisis, a rebellion has been underway, not only among young people. The individual rebels against the idea of life time working for a large company in which unique personalities are swallowed into a homogenous workforce. In parallel, funding for speculative commercial development now often comes from pension funds rather than banks. These investors are represented by individuals with a name and a face, who are closer to the design process than their predecessors, and who bear responsibility for a long term stable investment. This outlook leads smart investors to consider qualitative characteristics of a design, if a value can be demonstrated to justify increased capital outlay.

Designing for well-being means addressing mind, body and spirit. Architects have an opportunity to re-introduce fundamental architectural qualities such as good daylight, spatial hierarchy, craft and art.

Technology makes it possible to work from anywhere, and we do seem to work everywhere, all the time, so why do we bother to go to work in an office building? Increasingly, our work is not individually focused, but interactive. We meet with clients and colleagues, we meet formally, we meet informally, we speak on the telephone, we try to read and write if we can find a quiet corner to concentrate.

Despite much talk about young people driving this change toward mobile working, the Leesman Index, which measures how workplaces support the employees they accommodate, reports that statistically the under 25s are more sedentary than their elders. The more complex the work, the greater variety of activities, accompanied by a need to move about to find the best setting for a particular work activity.

Technology already enables employees to work in different location across the office. In use, the culture of the employer’s organisation needs to support flexible working, by offering a variety of work environments. Some employees, reluctant to relinquish the personal relics with which they have enshrined their personal space, have only to experience the liberty that a choice of settings can offer, to realise their own potential for greater effectiveness.

Offices designed for well-being are visually appealing, leading to a common misunderstanding that the end objective is publication in the architectural press. Make no mistake, the benefits are commercial, or savvy developers would not be leading the way. Steve Lohr, in his NY Times article “Don’t get too Comfortable at that Desk,” cites research by Craig Knight and Alexander Haslan, University of Exeter. The researchers explored key concepts at the heart of workplace management; drawing on insights from the social identity approach to organizational life, applied to the study of office space.  Their research concludes that “empowered offices” – in which workers can choose and influence their working environments – can increase productivity by 25% or more.

The top five performing banks in Sydney embraced activity based working combined with offering a host of amenities to provide convenience for employees and promote interaction, leading to self-reporting of higher employee productivity.

The physical fabric of 22 Bishopsgate, the first WELL™ registered tower in Europe designed by PLP Architecture for AXA IM Real Assets and Lipton Rogers Developments, addresses well-being by offering higher clear heights, greater daylight transmission, better quality staircases, faster lifts, art and craft externally and internally. A tall building is large enough to be able to dedicate some space to a variety of stimulating and relaxing uses outside its primary use as offices. On five floors spread across the tower, the community of 12,000 employees and their visitors can escape the office to find a food market, an incubator hub, a fitness centre, a well-being centre. Stimulation or repose, group activities or retreat, a variety of needs as well as basic conveniences are met.  At the top of the building, due to be completed at the end of 2019, are restaurants and a free-to-access public viewing gallery, with views across the City of London.

The idea is that small tenants can offer these amenities to their tenants, thereby competing with larger tenants to attract and retain top talent.

Designing holistically with well-being in mind is here to stay. Work is no longer about performing repetitive tasks efficiently. Robots can do that without us. Our society will only remain competitive globally if we excel in creative work. Creative people want to enjoy work. The work environment needs to change to support how people work, rather than expecting individuals to adapt to a lean workplace.

The design process requires greater collaboration between the occupier, the architect, and the client, to analyse the way the occupier works, and synthesise those needs into design. The buildings will become more particular – but commercial developers should not fear a loss of flexibility. On the contrary, if buildings are designed with better circulation and better daylight, it should mean that in future they will be more adaptable to evolving uses.

This article was originally published in Blueprint Magazine, January-February 2018.