Dunbridge House

TQ 21 74 SE WANDSWORTH

1207/18/10056

GV HIGHCLIFFE DRIVE (South East side)

Dunbridge House

II*

Block of 75 maisonettes. Designed 1952-3; built 1955-8 by the LCC's Architect's Department, Colin Lucas Architect in Charge, J A Partridge, W G Howell, J A W Killick, S F Amis, J R Galley; R Stout job architects; W V Zinn and Partners engineers. Reinforced concrete in-situ frame of board-marked concrete now painted, with storey-height prefabricated concrete with Dorset shingle and Derbyshire spar exposed aggregate; flat roof. The plan consists of five tiers each of fifteen maisonettes each a 12' bay, raised on alternating lines of two and three piloti at bay intervals along the ground floor. The nine bays south of the lift shaft left Open Top of lift shaft and services expressed on roof as geometric shapes, Double-height lift landings, paved. Each maisonette has private balcony facing east, and gallery access from west; the upper three tiers of flats additionally with steel. emergency access balconies at bedroom level. Timber windows (original) with opening casements and flush timber doors. Each maisonette with kitchen ;111d living room on lower level, two bedrooms and internal, mechanically ventilated bathroom and toilet (a new departure in planning) on upper level; internal fittings not of special interest. Ramp of board-marked concrete in front of lifts incorporates Corbusian-style drip mould, much imitated in the most progressive architecture of the time. The slab blocks devised by this team are inspired by Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation in Marseilles, which Howell and others had visited in 1951. The proportions are based on his 'Modulor' and the Fiboracci number sequence. The expression of each maisonette as an individual element in the facade marked a new rigour and sophistication in the LCC's pioneering slab design. The placing of the slabs into the side of the hill, a revision made in 1953, is a powerful and skillful response to their landscape setting in Downshire Field - an C18 landscape much remodelled and enhanced by the team; the steep slope gave purpose to the pilotis. The relationship of the blocks to each other and the landscape is a 'majestic' piece of town planning (Ian Nairn). They are the centrepiece of the Alton West estate, the LCC's most ambitious post-war development scheme and considered 'probably the finest low-cost housing development in the world' (G E Kidder Smith) (Bruckman H and Lewis D L: New Housing in Great Britain: Stuttgart: 1960-: 60-99; Kidder Smith G E: The New Architecture of Europe: New York: 1961-: 44-45; Nairn I: Modern Buildings in London: London: 1964-: 62-63; The Cambridge Guide to the Arts in Britain, vol IX: Simon Pepper: Housing at Roehampton: Cambridge: 1988-: 279-287; Day N M: The Role of the Architect in Post-War State Housing: PhD, Warwick University: 1989-: 283-286).

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Listing NGR: TQ2173474225