CU2105

CASEstudy
Commune 4 testbed perspective
Victoria Flats living room redesign
functionalist ethos and attempted to
provide a degree of diversity of style,
culture and interest in high-rise
construction. The best example of this is
the Nottingham Woodlands development,
upon which £18 million was spent, and
which resulted in a significant drop in crime
in the area, promoted by the Nottingham
Cities Homes NCH initiative.
The biggest changes, though, were
initiated by the Government's 'Right to Buy',
which saw the volume of available public
house fall from 40% to just 7% today. Now
homes are generally seen as an investment
rather than habitation, with a drop in the
standard of accommodation and a major
shortage of affordable housing. The interest
now is in short-term profits and the
construction of overpriced houses which
are out of reach to most, either to buy or
rent privately.
VICTORIA FLATS
Conceived in the 1960s by Artur Swift &
Partners as a concrete and glass
megastructure mixed-use housing and
shopping centre around three public areas
for pedestrians, Victoria Flats was
completed in 1970, although its
construction was somewhat compromised
because of the oil crisis at the time. Victoria
Flats now consists of a number of tower
blocks from 7 to 23 stories in height, built
on top of a two-storey shopping mall in the
vicinity of Victoria Station. Entrance to the
flats is via the shopping mal, the largest
enclosed mall in the world at that time, over
a covered car park which shared its
distinction. When the mall is closed, tenants
have to use a rear entrance in Milton Street,
with restricted entry to residents supervised
by a security guard.
The 2,100 flats have just 6 lifts between
them - often broken down - and are
connected to the access lifts and an
adjoining Tesco's by 'relentless' narrow
corridors and many fire doors. The flats are
basic and all very similar with high windows
which you can't see out of when you are
seated, and which have been covered with
tinted film to cut down on overheating -
which gives tenants the impression that
they are constantly wearing sunglasses.
There is space on the roof areas for small
garden plots but they are largely unused
grassy patches.
Henri included a series of very positive
interviews with a number of tenants, but the
underlying impression was that the
configuration of the flats didn't encourage
much social cohesion among the tenants,
and had a lack of amenities - the width of
the corridors and access mitigated against
mums with prams and bicycles.
Some attempts have been made to
improve the flats. In 1994 pink and blue
pebble dash was added along with the
window tinting. But the more than 2 million
pound cost of updating the 5,104
windows, and the environmental cost of
replacing the embedded carbon by tearing
the structure down and rebuilding, are
considered to be excessive.
COMMUNE 4
Henri put forward an alternative by
reconfiguring the existing flats to provide a
more varied topology that would cater for a
wider demographic, with a variety of open
spaces, double height areas, balconies
and multi-aspect windows. He based his
ideas on examples from Le Corbusier and
other architects who have had greater
success in integrating communities in highrise
buildings.
Passive, as well as mechanical ventilation
and energy generation would be improved
to reflect current requirements and reduce
operational carbon requirements and
emissions, and the corridors reconfigured
to provide 'pocket' parks as relief spaces.
Existing spaces, such as the roof garden
with its 1.6 hectare space available, would
be rehabilitated and used more effectively.
Ultimately, the reconfigured flats would be
clustered in a number of Communes. So
for example Commune 4 would consist of 3
or 4 clusters of 15 bedsits, flats,
maisonettes, or town houses - both
horizontally as well as vertically.
To change the configurations of the
uniformly constructed flats would require
some of the concrete panels to be be cut
into, reshaped and subsequently
reinforced. Structural elements, such as
tension trimmers and cross-members,
would be used to create cantilevered
balconies and other overhanging features.
In an interesting extension, excess heat
from the shopping mall would be used as a
'shop-source' heat pump to provide an
early morning central heating boost -
countered by new cladding and a thermal
buffer of vigorous planting schemes,
THE VALUE OF RESEARCH
Henri's thesis highlights the role of
comprehensive research when planning
major social projects. How many of the
issues in the original designs for Victoria
Flats would have been implemented if a
proper analysis of its occupation had been
carried out? We regularly conduct in-depth
research and analysis for current projects,
but how will they fare in 50 years time
against future expectations? Henri's
submission gives much food for thought
and a well laid out solution.
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May/June 2021 19