Terry Farrell and Nicholas Grimshaw built Park Road Apartments, which contained their own homes, in the 1970s. We continue our high-tech architecture series by looking at the metal-clad housing block.
Working together as the Farrell Grimshaw Partnership, the architects completed the Park Road Apartments' high-rise housing block in 1970.
The pioneering building demonstrated many of the attributes of the high-tech architecture movement, which was characterised by the use of industrial materials and technologies, with an emphasis on the external structure.
The 11-storey building was influenced by the design of office blocks, with the core kept close to the centre and the perimeter left open plan. It used inexpensive metal cladding to make it cheap to build and could be reconfigured to create a different mix of apartment numbers and sizes with relative ease. Terry Farrell and Nicholas Grimshaw designed the Park Road Apartments block. Photo is by Tessa Traeger
Park Road Apartments was the second scheme by Grimshaw and Farrell, who went into partnership in 1965 after they met during a brief stint working at the London City Council.
They decided to build the residential project as place to live for them and 40 friends, who were members of co-ownership group the Mercury Housing Society.
In total there were 40 apartments at 125 Park Road in its original configuration, but each level was designed so that it could be split into as many as 14 bed sits, or turned into one large fla...