When it was announced that Swedish practice ‘White Arkitekter’ had won RIBA’s international design competition ‘House 4 Life’ in April last year for their proposal in the English town of Salford, it represented a fundamental departure from the traditional attitude toward social housing design in the UK.
The Scandinavian firm’s landscape-led proposal has now entered the first phase of what is officially known as the Greengate Residential Development.
In winning the RIBA award and gaining the Greengate contract, White Arkitekter were one of a number of competing practices working to a unique competition brief for this type of development. The main requirements of Salford City Council and the NHS (the two main clients for the project) were for an architect fronted masterplan to provide sustainable and affordable family housing and have a positive long-term effect on the local community whilst maintaining an environmentally friendly foundation to the plan.
Ultimately, the brief centred around long-term sustainability and the promotion of creating good places and communities in the local area for the future.
It may come as little surprise therefore, that a Scandinavian practice won the competition. After all, the Nordic countries have long been renowned as global leaders in forward-thinking liberal attitudes to both social inequality and tackling environmental issues as well as exemplifying high standards of living, with Sweden currently in third place in the UN’s Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index and Norway taking the top spot.
The design of the scheme relies heavily upon the architecture of the landscape with a centralised open space forming the focal point of the scheme and acting as a meeting area for the surrounding residential development. The quality of the public realm on the site sits very near the top of the agenda for the plan with a biodiverse courtyard in phase one and a tennis court area situated among fruit trees in phase two of the development known as ‘The Orchard’.
Indeed, this promotion of open space and legibility is continued in the approach currently being undertaken by White Arkitekter in addressing the issue of gated entrances to the central courtyards of each residential area – there are none. Rather than this traditional and distinctly British method of enclosure, the landscape architect for the practice has suggested ‘greenhouse’ style areas to act as gateways to the courtyards. This is another distinctly Scandinavian approach to the permeability and ‘openness’ of the scheme. In an interview with Architects Journal, an international director for White Arkitekter, Geoff Denton, reinforced the differences between the two countries and the need for a breakaway from traditionally private, confined and defensible spaces in favour of an open plan and accessible approach to these areas “We don’t do Secured by Design in Sweden, because crime is less of a problem here”. Therefore ut remains to be seen how well, in terms of site security at least, this idea will export to the UK (where crime and anti-social behaviour are as Denton states, simply much higher than is the case in Sweden.)
The Greengate scheme proposes greenhouse style 'gateways' to centralised courtyard areas of the site.
Greengate can be viewed as an experiment. Some would argue that the scheme is an experiment in social engineering, importing a liberalised, open and sustainable model of affordable housing from a country reflecting and currently championing the same ideals. Those in this category may believe that good places change people and society for the better. There will however, also be those who will view the development as naive folly, placing too much trust in the underlying tendencies of certain elements of society to ensure safety and make the area work, this group would argue that people ultimately make (or break) places.
Personally, I believe that neither view is mutually exclusive. I am in favour of the design, which I think reflects both positive aesthetic qualities as well as the fundamental foundations required for the creation of a long-lasting, sustainable scheme. Too often has social housing represented a form of development which has served a function (to house) rather than looking to its impact on those living there and externally, on the surrounding environment and community. It will remain to be seen how such a radical departure from previous forms of this development type will work out and will be received, however, change of this sort can only be a step in the right direction.
The Built Environment Review 