CF Mller appointed on Robin Hood Gardens replacement scheme – Dezeen

Scandinavian firmCF Mllerhas been appointed alongsideHaworth Tompkinsand Metropolitan Workshop on the housing scheme that will replaceRobin Hood Gardens,the brutalist estate in east London designed byAlison and Peter Smithson.

CF Mller's housing will take the place of the eastern block of the iconic estate,while residences by Haworth TompkinsandMetropolitan Workshop who were appointed to the scheme in 2016 will sit on the site of the west wing.

The plansform part of the300 million regeneration of the Robin Hood Gardens estate in Popular, which is being overseenbySwan Housing Association.

The estate, which was completed in 1974, is currently awaiting its demolition, despite a high-profile campaign to save it as aprime example of the brutalist movement.

Dezeen recently used a drone to film the estate, which is partially deserted and boarded up in preparation for its demolition in the coming weeks.

CF Mller's design will provide 330 homes half of which are to be earmarked as affordable for the regeneration schemeknown as theBlackwall Reach Regeneration Project.

Early visuals show the range of one- to five-bedroom flats contained within a brick-clad block on the edge of the garden that currently separates the two wings of the brutalist estate. This outdoor space with its distinctive mound is the only element of Robin Hood Gardens that will be retained. It is to be re-landscaped and renamed theMillennium Green.

"Our approach to this challenging project is to develop an architectural and place-making response with the focus on designing the best possible new homes within a challenging location," saidCF Mller associate partnerRolf Nielsen.

CF Mller's housing will form phase threeof theBlackwall Reach Regeneration Project, which will see 1,500 apartments, commercial spaces and a mosque packed onto thesite beside Blackwall Tunnel thatcurrently offers 252 homes.

Phase one is currently underway, with 98 homes already on site, alongside the mosque, a community centre and an extension of a neighbouring school. Yet to come in this phase which is set for completion in early 2019 are 242 further homes, as well as shops and cafes.

Phase two is expected to begin imminently, and will see the delivery of four buildings byMetropolitan Workshop and Haworth Tompkins, which are to provide 268 homes.

"We were very impressed by their 'inside-out approach' to design. CF Mller really focused on the people who will live in these new homes and the relationship of the homes to the public realm," said Swan's regeneration and development directorGeoff Pearce.

"They were passionate about ensuring we deliver human-scale street scenes and links into the landscape to offset the impact of the busy external environment," he added.

Robin Hood Gardens is consideredexemplary of new brutalism, an architectural stylegaining its name from the French bton-brut, or raw concrete, used to form the structures.

Architects including Richard Rogers, the late Zaha Hadid, Toyo Ito and Robert Venturi, as well as the Smithson's son, all petitioned to save the estate. But the campaign failed and politicians have been calling for its demolition since.

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CF Mller appointed on Robin Hood Gardens replacement scheme - Dezeen