Sunday, October 17

Alton



The Alton Estate, pictured, is a large council in Roehampton not too far from Sheen. It's made up of Alton East and the slightly later Alton West, each with several separate neighbourhoods. There are 13,000 residents making it one of the UK's largest. The architecture is mainly split between brutalist architecture and its Scandinavian-inspired counterpart. The area comprising a crossroads which links Roehampton Lane, Roehampton Village and the estate is undergoing planning to be redeveloped by Wandsworth Council.


Alton West was considered by many British architects to be the crowning glory of post World War Two social housing at tits completion in 1958. What made Alton West so special was its response to its setting: Built on a large expanse of parkland on the edge of Richmond Park, Alton West was a direct translation of Le Corbusiers’ idea of the Ville Radieuse or park city; sets of "point" and "slab" blocks being surrounded by the beauty of Richmond Park below. On this natural landscape at Alton West stood a number of different housing configurations; 12-storey "point" blocks with 4 flats per floor, terraces of low-rise maisonettes and cottages and perhaps most famously, five 11-storey "slab" blocks, heavily influenced by the recently completed Unité d'Habitation by Le Corbusier. Source: Wandsworth Council and Wiki

Madeleine, watching X-Factor: "Juggling fire, dad. Isn't that a bit dangerous?"