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A new era for public housing and landscapeled urbanism
St Raphael's Estate Masterplan Axonometric aerial view © Karakusevic Carson Architects
The landscape of public housing is under pressure to be multifunctional and to provide amenity, recreation, shade, ecology and biodiversity. Three projects from Karakusevic Carson demonstrate new thinking in council-led schemes.
Landscape within the realm of public housing estates has long been contested. Post-war neighbourhoods possess a visible generosity of it: a strong legacy of the modernist-inspired planning of our cities, when acres of green space were created to promote communal forms of living and offset new densities.
However, neglect, a sense of insecurity, species monoculture and hostile nearby uses such as car parking and busy roadways have rendered many landscapes unusable. Despite their generosity and original intention, some estate open spaces can play an active role in partitioning communities and severing neighbourhoods.
Today, as some councils embark upon programmes of housing and estate renewal, a new era of landscape-led urbanism has emerged. As a practice working within these environments, our brief is to provide new and ever greater numbers of homes. As part of this process, green spaces are impacted, so a positive relationship between architecture and landscape – and architect and landscape architect – is key. In all our projects we work collaboratively to ensure the creation of new dwellings, but also maximise the potential of landscape to create spaces that will support residents’ quality of life and the future resilience of our cities.
Led by residents, these urban rambles provide an opportunity for design teams to learn from their local experiences and better understand their sense of identity and the issues as they see them.
All our council clients have declared a climate emergency and realise the need to rethink neighbourhoods to increase their resilience and improve the lived experience of residents. Typical challenges for estates include a lack of ground floor activity, poor quality pedestrian environments, a lack of cycling links, the dominance of cars, a lack of bin and cycle storage and underutilised but valued green spaces. To support positive change and help mitigate climate impacts, there is significant pressure on landscape and civic spaces to be multifunctional and to provide amenity, recreation, shade, ecology, biodiversity and sustainable drainage, as well as support physical and mental wellbeing.
As we embark upon any project, we look for strategies to improve connections and forge links between existing assets and the rest of the city. London is blessed with lots of green spaces and many of our estate projects, for example Kings Crescent in Hackney, Broadwater Farm in Haringey and St Raphael’s in Brent, border existing large public parks. However, the mere presence of a park does not guarantee active use of or participation in it. In response, we ensure routes are purposeful and that buildings frame key civic spaces in a positive way, maximising views out for residents, creating open and generous backdrops, while promoting engagement with existing assets such as mature trees often found within post-war estates, but which are frequently uncelebrated.
To understand the role of open space in the neighbourhoods in which we work, we carry out site walks. Led by residents, these urban rambles provide an opportunity for design teams to learn from their local experiences and better understand their sense of identity and the issues as they see them. These walks can reveal neighbourhood stories, anecdotes and characters that can often be surprising and challenge assumptions.
Public realm is typically a key priority for residents on public housing estates. We undertake numerous thematic workshops to inform co-design processes and engage specific groups to discuss potential ways to improve green spaces. As part of these sessions, we take time to work with young people and girls in particular, who often feel excluded in public space and are less likely to spend time outdoors. The broad range of workshops for specific groups like children, young adults and old people ensures we capture as many views and experiences as possible, in order to design for flexibility and a variety of needs, aspirations and user groups.
Additional excursions with housing estate maintenance teams and sometimes local police also inform the landscape and masterplan approach. Ongoing pressures on council budgets means money needs to be spent wisely to future-proof landscapes and minimise costly maintenance. Working with clients and collaborating with others we prioritise the development of initiatives that are simple, practical, multipurpose and flexible and so provide ecology, play and amenity simultaneously.
Kings Crescent Estate
Approved in 2013, our masterplan for the 1960s Kings Crescent Estate in Hackney was an early exemplar in promoting alternative approaches to estate renewal and new and experimental landscape. Renewal of the neighbourhood is ongoing with phases one and two delivered in 2017. At the heart of change are new mansion block buildings that provide mixed tenure homes and work with existing estate buildings to create a series of courtyards. Developed in close collaboration with muf architecture/art, the strategy for landscape across the estate is twofold.
At the heart of each of the three communal courtyards created are a series of discreet and intimate responses intended to bring residents in both old and new buildings together with young child play space, small planted gardens, quiet seating areas, allotments and growing spaces to promote interaction and engagement with nature. The main articulation of the new neighbourhood however is its central east–west street – a linear axis designed to open the estate and improve connectivity to adjacent amenities, but also be a civic space in itself – a sociable, active and consciously playful space to linger rather than simply pass through. The traffic-free space is lined with trees and is full of new planting and playful installations to encourage imaginative responses from people of all ages, including a huge table for impromptu open-air gatherings. Supporting the life of the space, front doors and the communal entrances to the new buildings all open out onto the space ensuring regular use by and visibility of the community. The generous high-ceilinged lobbies feature large openings that provide views from the street through to the courtyard landscapes. Elsewhere, non-residential uses at ground level at key locations, such as retail and community use, brings activity to occupy and spill out into this public realm.
Broadwater Farm Estate
Completed in the 1970s, the modernist landscape of the Broadwater Farm Estate features extensive areas of green, but much of it is a visual resource rather than an active space. Dominated by car park undercrofts beneath residential buildings, pedestrian movement about the neighbourhood was originally separated to upper decks, which also meant a separation between people and their local landscapes. Following demolition of connective upper-level walkways in the 1990s, residents were left without defined pavements or routes through the estate.
Collaborating with What If projects and East Landscape architects, we prepared an Urban Design Framework that establishes five core principles that, alongside providing new homes, will transform the landscape and the experience of the estate over more than ten years. Developed with the community they include the creation of safe and healthy streets, a focus on welcoming and inclusive open spaces, more active ground floors and enhancing the existing character of the neighbourhood.
The main articulation of the new neighbourhood however is its central east–west street –a linear axis designed to open the estate and improve connectivity to adjacent amenities, but also be a civic space in itself – a sociable, active and consciously playful space to linger rather than simply pass through.
To ensure a coordinated approach to neighbourhood change, the framework seeks out synergies between existing assets and new interventions. One of the central proposals is the creation of a new route through the estate following the line of the culverted river Moselle. This connective artery aims to better link the neighbourhood to the adjacent Lordship Recreation Ground, but also provide the axis for new residential buildings and new civic spaces. Elsewhere, the framework includes the retrofitting of existing communal entrances and simple measures, for example encouraging diverse planting regimes in existing spaces and proposing less frequent lawn cutting to allow wild flowers to thrive and carbon to be sequestered.
A common critique of post-war estate landscapes is their overpermeability. Our work with the community at Broadwater challenged this perception and residents demanded that the openness of the numerous courtyards be retained to minimise loss of public space and prevent the privatisation and securitisation of the area. In response, our framework retains routes through the network of courtyards, whilst prioritising key connections to aid wayfinding. Desired accessibility of landscape has also informed the design of a new residential building that is conceived as an open courtyard and a building in two parts, echoing the existing organisation of the estate.
St Raphael’s Estate
Bordering the meandering landscape of the River Brent and the extensive Brent River Park, our work at the 1960s St Raphaels’ Estate in Wembley with Periscope landscape architects revealed a surprising misconception about open space that has directly influenced the masterplan now being taken forward. One of the main outcomes of our extensive consultation with the community was that the generous open space nearby was seen as a place of concern and potential danger, rather than one that was readily valued or celebrated. Homes physically turned their backs on the space, and it was evident that most people did as well, in particular young women and girls.
Through co-design conversations we together developed six residents’ principles that informed an estate-wide strategy for change. This included the provision of new affordable homes, new community facilities and improved access to the estate, ensuring all streets are safe and welcoming and improving the existing green areas and the park adjacent to the estate.
To achieve this vision our masterplan involves the creation of infill homes within the footprint of the existing estate, but also by building along the edge of the park on an area bordering the busy North Circular Road. This approach was not without controversy. London-wide policies prohibit building upon open space; however, the evidence from the community, the existing condition of the park and proposed benefits persuaded the council to adopt a different, but very site-specific position which was endorsed by the Greater London Authority (GLA).
Conceived as elements nestled within topography, the three new landscape-led apartment buildings will directly balance loss of space, by introducing new activity, with new homes providing new life and contributing to physical park improvements that will increase safety with new pathways and new lighting, promote biodiversity through new wild flower meadows and planting, support resilience through the addition of flood attenuation basins and promote new use through growing spaces, seating areas and play amenities including an outdoor gym and skate park.
In creating new and adapting existing housing for the future, landscape has a fundamental role to play. Well-designed, meaningful and well-loved spaces engender ownership and provide opportunities to improve wellbeing and for communities to come together.
Within the realm of the public housing estate, the pressures upon councils to introduce new homes can seem overwhelming. The integration of estates and neighbourhoods through new connectivity and spaces with common purpose is key. Through our work in public housing we have learned that the development of strategies through collaboration and co-design is the best way to better understand communities, to challenge and interrogate assumptions and ensure lasting legacies.
Paul Karakusevic is Founding Partner and Abigail Batchelor is Associate Director at Karakusevic Carson Architects
