Robin Hood Gardens is a council housing complex in Poplar, London

Poplar, London

Poplar is a historic, mainly residential area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is about east of Charing Cross. Historically a hamlet in the parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in 1817 Poplar became a civil parish. In 1855 the Poplar District of the Metropolis was...

 designed in the late 1960s by architects Alison and Peter Smithson

Alison and Peter Smithson

English architects Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism .Peter was born in Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England, and Alison was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire...

 and completed in 1972. It was intended as an example of the 'streets in the sky' concept: social housing characterised by broad aerial walkways in long concrete blocks, much like the Park Hill estate in Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

; it was both informed by, and a reaction against, Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...

's Unité d'Habitation

Unité d'Habitation

The Unité d'Habitation is the name of a modernist residential housing design principle developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso...

.

The estate is owned by Tower Hamlets Council. It covers about two hectares and consists of two long blocks, one of ten storeys, the other of seven, built from precast concrete

Precast concrete

By producing precast concrete in a controlled environment , the precast concrete is afforded the opportunity to properly cure and be closely monitored by plant employees. Utilizing a Precast Concrete system offers many potential advantages over site casting of concrete...

 slabs and containing 213 flats, surrounding a landscaped green area and a small hill made from construction spoil. The flats themselves are a mixture of single-storey apartments and two-storey maisonettes, with wide balconies (the 'streets') on every third floor. The complex is located near Blackwall DLR station

Blackwall DLR station

Blackwall is a station on Docklands Light Railway in east London. The station is close to the northern entry to the Blackwall road tunnel under the Thames....

. It is within sight of the nearby Balfron Tower

Balfron Tower

Balfron Tower is a 27-storey housing block in Poplar, a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, UK. It forms part of the Brownfield Estate, an area of social housing between Chrisp Street Market and the A12 northern approach to the Blackwall Tunnel...

; both are highly visible examples of Brutalist architecture

Brutalist architecture

Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...

.

Preservation status

A campaign was mounted in 2008 by Building Design

Building Design

Building Design is one of the leading architectural magazines in the United Kingdom.According to ABC , the magazine's circulation for the year ending June 2008 was 22,848. The publishing company is UBM Built Environment, a division of United Business Media, which also publishes Building and...

magazine and the Twentieth Century Society to get Robin Hood Gardens listed as a historical landmark in order to save it from destruction, with support from Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers

Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside CH Kt FRIBA FCSD is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs....

 and Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid, CBE is an Iraqi-British architect.-Life and career:Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.After graduating she worked...

. However, English Heritage did not back the proposal, with its commissioners overruling the advice of its own advisory committee.

The campaign to save Robin Hood Gardens drew very little support from those who actually had to live in the building, with more than 75% of residents supporting its demolition when consulted by the local authority.

In May 2009 the Minister of Culture, Andy Burnham, issued his decision not to list this estate and also granted a Certificate of Immunity from listing which means that the structure cannot be considered for listing for at least 5 years. This ministerial decision endorses the recommendation of English Heritage that Robin Hood Gardens is unfit for listing and does not deserve statutory heritage protection, leaving the way open for Tower Hamlets Council to proceed with its demolition and redevelopment.

A resident's own survey, published in Building Design in June 2009, found that 80% of residents wanted it refurbished. In October 2009, opposition councillor Tim Archer accused the Council of ignoring maintenance problems to encourage residents to move out.

Redevelopment plans

The Council has declared the site part of a larger regeneration area named Blackwall Reach, bounded by East India Dock Road to the north, the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach and East India Docks

East India Docks

The East India Docks was a group of docks in Blackwall, east London, north-east of the Isle of Dogs. Today only the entrance basin remains.-History:...

 to the east, Aspen Way to the south and Cotton Street to the west. It plans to provide 1,600 new homes in this area along with improvements to the primary school, a new park and other community facilities.

In April 2010, Tower Hamlets shortlisted groups of architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s, housing association

Housing association

Housing associations in the United Kingdom are independent not-for-profit bodies that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in housing need. Any trading surplus is used to maintain existing homes and to help finance new ones...

s and developers

Real estate development

Real estate development, or Property Development, is a multifaceted business, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of improved land or parcels to others...

 to undertake the £500 million project.

Before the final announcement, the designs for replacement buildings were condemned in The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

as "generic developers' fare, with... no sense of place".

External links

• Reflections on Robin Hood Gardens and Brutalist Architecture in East London
• Meet the Smithsons
• Information from the Twentieth Century Society on the campaign to protect Robin Hood Gardens
• Robin Hood Gardens: The videos for and against, Building Design, April 2009
• The Brutalist Truth, TheThirdEstate.net, 24 May 2009