Southwyck House, also known locally as the Barrier Block, is a large housing building on the Somerleyton Estate in

Brixton Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...

, south

London London is the capital and 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 down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. It was commissioned by

Lambeth Council Lambeth London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Lambeth in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, and one of the 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council meets at Lambeth Town Hall ...

and approved by a

planning committee A planning committee in the United Kingdom is a committee of local authority councillors that sit as the local planning authority to determine planning applications. Advice is usually given to the committee by planning officers who provide a reco ...

which included future prime minister

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...

Design

The Barrier Block, Coldharbour Lane (4508753920)

The block is in the

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

style and has similarities to Park Hill, Sheffield and

Byker Wall The Byker Wall is a long, unbroken block of 620 maisonettes in the Byker district of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. They were designed by Ralph Erskine and constructed in the 1970s. The wall is just part of the estate, which in total covers . De ...

, Tyneside. The block has 176 properties in total, consisting of 3 low rise flats and 173 high rise flats. It was designed in 1968-70 by a team of architects including Magda Borowiecka, and built between 1972-1981. The building was designed to account for the

South Cross Route South Cross Route (SCR) was the designation for the southern section of Ringway 1, the innermost circuit of the London Ringways network, a complex and comprehensive plan for a network of high speed roads circling and radiating out from central Lo ...

motorway passing adjacent to the building, and although the motorway plan was scrapped in 1973, the design was kept, including small windows on the wall that would have faced this flyover. Borowiecka said "The motorway would have been 60ft up in the air, so I needed to create a blank wall going up higher than that. It was rather miserable and I had to think of some way to make an interesting building."

History

During construction the block had no name, simply being called the Loughborough Park redevelopment and locally known as 'Brixton Nick' for its resemblance to a prison; proposed names included 'Hillmead' and 'Northcliff'. Residents of the building suffered from crime including burglary and the use of heroin and crack cocaine, and so alterations were made to the building in the 1990s to improve security. Several of the building's flats were

squatted Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

for several years from its completion.

References

External links

{{coords, 51.4623, -0.1086, display=title Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Lambeth

Design

History

See also

References

External links