I didn't venture far this week, just down Pundersons Gardens to Kedleston Walk. I think it's one of the more intriguing of the small-scale council flats I've seen.
This is the view looking down Pundersons Gardens
You can see it's a series of what look like maisonettes - there are 58 in total, with a large number having some outside space. I like the long rows of windows too.
The architect Douglas Stephen (who runs his own practice in Old Street) said he was trying to create a low-rise high-density scheme that wasn't slabs or towers. He is quoted as saying he was going to "try and do a sort of funny section, to spread the building as much as I could over the whole site". And the building does echo the more traditional terraces of the East End, more than another high-rise would have.
There are entrances at either end. Here is one (with my neighbour's cute vintage car parked outside)
And here is the one at the other end
But by far the best thing about Kedleston Walk is the interior walkway that links all the flats together. I am presuming this is what gave it the 'walk' part of the name.
You can see here there are garages underneath on the left - on the right are the buildings facing out onto Pundersons Gardens. And the flats on the left are linked to those on the right by a series of walkways.
Properties come up for sale here regularly, in fact there is one on sale on Ebay at the moment. If you're interested, it's a one-bed for £165,000.
It sounds like a bit of a steal. The most expensive flat sold in the building's history was number 49, at a price of £349,999 in January 2008. More recently neighbouring number 48 was sold for £275,000. Back in 2000 number 12 was snapped up for a mere £93,000. What a bargain that seems now, hail the pre-gentrification days of the East End.
I live in the building and really enjoy it. As a designer and fan of post war architecture, I think the design is very successful on a human scale: great room sizes, outdoor space and communal spaces well proportioned. The cut-back terrace effect is particularly successful in allowing most flats to have an open vista which is rare in central London. As per any council housing, a fair proportion of unsavory characters blight the block, but in general the ground floor communal corridor creates quite a peaceful ambience. The top floor 4-bed duplex flats have an exceptionally large terrace which catches the sun all day. It also adds a lot of light and feeling of openness within the flats. On the ground floor are a row of 2-bed duplex flats whose roofs are the terrace of the top floor duplex. These have a different feel to the top floor flats as they have a small garden and feel more like a traditional terrace housing. The only 'dud' apartments are the one-beds sandwiched on the middle floor. They are east facing, with little light and no outdoor space, the corridors of the duplex above them acting as an oppressive cantilever above their front doors.
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