The houses that Neave built

February 18, 2018 Comments Off

Jen Pedler is running her Highgate New Town Tour on Thursday 22nd and Saturday 24th of February, you can find details and how to book on her walks page. As a taster, Jen describes architect Neave Brown’s radical, award winning approach to social housing (you will see the Winscombe Street houses as well as later developments in the area on Jen’s walk).

Neave Brown, who sadly passed away this January aged 88, was the first of the innovative team of architects employed by Camden Council under Borough Architect Sydney Cook in the 1960s and 70s. A few months before he died he was awarded the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Royal Gold Medal, the UK’s highest honour for architecture, in recognition of his lifetime’s work as a pioneer of social housing.

He is probably best known for the stepped concrete terraces of the Alexandra Road Estate, near Swiss Cottage, completed in 1979, the second of the housing schemes he designed for Camden after completion of the smaller Dunboyne Road Estate (formerly the Fleet Estate) in Gospel Oak.

The prototype for the Fleet Estate was the terrace of five houses Neave designed for himself and four of his artist/architect friends and their families in Winscombe Street, Highgate New Town.

To finance the building of the houses, Neave and his friends – who included architects Michael and Patty Hopkins – set up a housing co-op meaning they were eligible for a 100% loan from Camden Council on condition that the houses conformed to the standards and cost limits set for local authority housing.

Each member of the co-op had their own individual ideas as to how their house should be designed and Neave agreed to take all their ideas on board, provided they didn’t discuss the plans with each other. When the houses were completed each of them was delighted to find that all their requirements had been met. Imagine their surprise when they discovered that each house was identical!

The houses were designed on a ‘zone’ principle. The lower-ground floor was the children’s zone with bedrooms opening onto the communal garden, the top floor was the adult zone including main bedroom and living room. Between the two was the family zone with the kitchen and dining area and sliding doors leading out on to a balcony.

It was the emphasis on family that impressed the Camden Architects’ Department when Neave showed them the plans at his job interview. It suggested a new approach to the design of urban housing; one that was to give rise to arguably the best social housing ever built.