125, PARK ROAD

Block of flats with garden walls and planting boxes, designed in 1967 and built between 1968 and 1970 by the Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership for the Mercury Housing Society Ltd, with Anthony Hunt as structural engineer.

The building is an eleven-storey structure on a square plan with curved corners. It comprises an in-situ reinforced concrete core and floors clad in corrugated anodised aluminium fixed to a galvanised steel angle frame, itself bolted to a reinforced downstand beam. The aluminium windows are curved at the corners and fixed by topseal stainless steel fasteners. The roof is slightly pitched and glazed, with a central flat plant room.

The central service core provides the primary structural stability and incorporates lifts, stairs and two pairs of bathrooms on opposite corners. As built, the block contains two one-bedroom and two two-bedroom flats per floor, together with four duplex penthouse flats and a caretaker's flat, making 41 dwellings in total. The design maximises flexibility with no structural elements between the core and perimeter, allowing continuous perimeter glazing and unobstructed floor space for flexible division of rooms.

The interiors are deliberately simple, designed to maximise space within the Housing Corporation's budget of approximately £1,750 per dwelling. Floors are left as simple concrete screed without skirtings. Freestanding columns, continuous perimeter heating and regularly-spaced electrical sockets support maximum flexibility. Partitions are seven inches thick, constructed of steel and fibreglass quilting. The design emphasises minimalism whilst achieving a finely proportioned and architecturally sensitive sense of space.

The entrance is set between brick planting boxes and low walls, which form an integral part of the scheme.

Mercury Housing Society Ltd was a co-ownership society funded one-third by the Housing Corporation and two-thirds by a Building Society. Its members included Farrell and Grimshaw, together with friends and acquaintances. The stringent finances of the Housing Corporation shaped the minimal approach, creating a simple and repetitious envelope that allowed the interiors to exceed Parker Morris minima and provide flexibility for individual tenants. This was the first true 'core' building with the entire perimeter as habitable rooms. The entirely square plan with curved corners was adopted to enhance the sensation of panoramic views by eliminating the need for corner mullions on such a small site.

Terry Farrell (born 1938) and Nicholas Grimshaw (born 1939) met at the London County Council in 1961 and formed a partnership in 1965. Both worked in close collaboration; Farrell developed the brief and plan while Grimshaw developed the cladding design. Farrell had become aware of Buckminster Fuller's work before arriving in London in 1961, and Grimshaw developed an interest in lightweight steel cladding whilst at the Architectural Association from 1962 onwards. No. 125 Park Road represents the vanguard of an alternative approach to flexibility, services and new technology that fascinated both partners and became known as the 'High-Tech' movement, a British development of international renown. It was the pair's first major new building, combining a still-novel building type (the Housing Association flat) with a minimal architectural approach expressed through simple, cheap finishes and crisp proportions.