Urban Clash At Park Hill

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Park Hill was opened in 1961 and designed by architects Jack Lynn (1926- 2013) and Ivor Smith (born 1926). Their design was very ambitious for the era, 1,000 new homes were to be built. The homes were organised as three types of apartments to replace the poor quality terraces. It was said to be the first effective action to remove a community from the horrific and poor terraces. The unique shared walkways were tribute to Le Corbusier’s principle on residential housing design, Unité d'Habitation. In the 1980’s the estate had the status of being notorious for crime, poverty and public order offences. This changed when the building Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith designed, Park Hill, became a grade two listed building in 1997. It is the biggest listed building in Europe. By this it shows the complexity of the vision they had as architects. Then Urban Splash took over the building and commissioned architects, Studio Egret West and Hawkins/Brown to re-design the flats and create some offices. David Bickle, the Hawkins\Brown partner in charge of the project, said that ‘We found Park Hill to be a remarkably intelligent structure full of complexity, potential and great character.’ The improvements that Urban Splash made have been vital to the estate being successful whilst still maintaining Park Hill’s brutalist architecture. …show more content…
Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society, who safeguards the heritage of architecture and design from 1914 in Britain, said that the refurbishment has given Park Hill ‘a more Brutalist aesthetic than it ever had

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