Corringham

Corringham is a residential building on Craven Hill Gardens in Paddington, designed between 1960 and 1961 by Douglas Stephen and Partners, with Kenneth Frampton as job architect, and built from 1962 to 1964 for the Hector Property Company. R J Crocker and Associates served as engineers.

The building comprises thirty-two two-bedroom and eighteen one-bedroom flats, conventionally termed maisonettes because of their split-level arrangement. It consists of eight storeys containing six flats per floor, erected over a basement carpark and stores, with a flat roof throughout.

The structure is constructed from an in-situ reinforced concrete box frame, with board marking evident in places, now mostly painted. The roughcast end walls were always intended for painting. Windows are of painted aluminium with some pivoted casement openings in timber subframe, arranged in continuous bands across a regular six-bay façade. Underwindow panels feature metal-backed mirror glass, some renewed.

The most significant architectural feature is its scissors plan—a sophisticated design derived from London County Council housing research conducted by David Gregory-Jones, Colin Jones, Ian Hampson and Margaret Dent (Mrs Stephen). Most maisonettes contain four half-levels, with bathrooms positioned under or over the central access spine. Stairs lead upward and downward from this spine to living rooms and kitchens (all facing west) and bedrooms (all facing east), ensuring maximum through light and ventilation within a compact footprint. In the upper five floors, alternate maisonettes are accessed from different levels, while those in the lower three floors follow a more repetitive layout with a single bedroom. All flats feature east-facing balconies inset within the building's line.

Externally, this complexity is expressed through a split-level escape stair on the southern elevation. The entrance sits at ground level, accessed via a long ramp, with separate articulation provided by a modelled tower containing the lift, stair, heating flue and waste disposal units. This tower provides strong contrast to the simple regular patterning of the main block. The garden elevation is enlivened by inset balconies, each with side panels finished in marbled effect, and by the projection of the upper five floors.

The entrance hall retains original tilework to its walls. A dog-leg stair features a continuous welded steel balustrade. Maisonettes were not inspected internally but originally contained fitted cupboards and wardrobes. The kitchen was positioned as a galley to the rear of the living area, necessitating a sophisticated extract ventilation system.

Corringham was one of the most elaborately planned private residential blocks of its period and appears unique in employing the scissors section. This planning concept was first developed by the LCC around 1955–1956 under David Gregory-Jones and initially tried at the Tidey Street scheme in Poplar. It was subsequently used for blocks in the Pepys Estate, Deptford, but was not widely adopted. The design was published in the Architect's Journal on 28 February 1962, well after Corringham's conception. The scissors plan proved sophisticated in offering ideal east-west aspect to every unit with maximum through light and ventilation while reducing corridor requirements.

Douglas Stephen and Partners were among the most progressive young practices designing flats in early 1960s London. Corringham represents the only substantial completed work of Kenneth Frampton, who later moved to the United States in 1966 and developed a considerable reputation as a scholar, critic and writer on modern architecture, though he designed only one major housing scheme there. Frampton acknowledged strong design debts to Lyons Israel Ellis and James Stirling, particularly in the massing of the service tower and entrance. He also cited influences from Atelier 5 in Switzerland and the Neue Sachlichkeit architects in Germany. The work of Douglas Stephen and Partners is generally recognised as indebted to Italian rationalism, a profound influence on Stephen himself and on other talented architects including Panos Kowlermos and Peter Stonebridge who designed important buildings for the firm in the early 1960s. Frampton's involvement in Corringham is particularly noteworthy, as it represents perhaps the firm's most coherent design of the period and certainly their most architecturally interesting.