125 Park Road is a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Occupying a prominent site opposite the Hanover Gate entrance to

Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...

, the 11 storey block of flats has 18 two bedroom, 18 one bedroom, four penthouse and one caretaker's flat. Three quarters of the 41 flats have views over the park. The block was one of the first funded and built on the co-ownership principle made possible by the formation of the

Housing Corporation The Housing Corporation was the non-departmental public body that funded new affordable housing and regulated housing associations in England. It was established by the Housing Act 1964. On 1 December 2008, its functions were transferred to two n ...

in 1964. Lessees contributed to a group mortgage and received a premium payment when they left. This was designed to reflect the increase in the value of the flat during their stay.

Architects

125 Park Road was designed in the late 1960s by the architects Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership for the Mercury Housing Society. Both

Sir Terry Farrell Sir Terence Farrell (born 12 May 1938), known as Terry Farrell, is a British architect and urban designer. In 1980, after working for 15 years in partnership with Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Farrell founded his own firm, Farrells. He garne ...

and

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, CBE, PPRA (born 9 October 1939) is a prominent English architect, particularly noted for several modernist buildings, including London's Waterloo International railway station and the Eden Project in Cornwall. He was Pre ...

were members of the society and lived in the block. It was their second scheme and, when listed in 2001, was commended for pioneering the British High Tech architecture movement. The block was completed in June 1970 at a contract cost of £227,000.

Design

The building is widely known for its corrugated aluminium cladding, radiused corners and sloping glazed roof. The exterior belies the light and spacious interiors of the flats. Living space is maximised by concentrating bathrooms, lifts and stairs in a central structural core. Natural light is maximised by placing the freestanding perimeter columns behind continuous window glazing. Curved corners add the sensation of panoramic views over London. Most internal walls are non-loadbearing which allows flats to be combined as larger units. This shows the benefits of designing residential accommodation on the same principles as commercial offices where habitable space is freed by concentrating services in a central core.

Recognition & reputation

In 1973, the flats were highly commended in the Housing Design Awards sponsored by the Secretary of State for the Environment. Increasingly, features about the building and individual flats started to appear in Sunday colour supplements and architectural magazines such as ''Building Design'' and '' Architectural Design''. One of the penthouses was used as a film location, other flats were used for magazine and advertisement shoots. The inclusion of 125 Park Road in guides to modern British and London architecture, in Elain Harwood's England: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings and in Colin Amery's monograph on the early work of Nicholas GrimshawAmery, C. Architecture, Industry and Innovation: v. 2: Work of Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, 1965–1988. Phaidon Press Ltd. 2000. helped to make the block a destination for visiting architects and students. It is now widely recognised as the first residential block designed on the office block principle of maximising habitable space around an easily accessible central service core.

Notes

External links

125 Park Road website
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110620213445/http://www.125parkroad.org/ , date=2011-06-20 Grade II listed buildings in the City of Westminster Grade II listed residential buildings Nicholas Grimshaw buildings