UK - Day 18...AnneThorne and Angell Town

A rainy day in London, and our first appointment isn't until noon - a visit to Anne Thorne's architecture office. It is quite a distance away though, near the Bethnal Green tube stop so Keith and I head that direction at 10:30. We are only 20 minutes early by the time we near the address, so we stop at a local park to watch some laborers on break play cricket and football. The rest of the group trickles in and when most of us are there, we go to find the office. We walk up and down the street where it is supposed to be, not seeing anything that looks like an office. Finally, Bruce and AnneMarie (a former employee of Anne's and good friend of Bruce's who actually came to Idaho a few months ago and talked in our London seminar class) show up and lead us to a security gate where they call Anne to release the lock on the gate and let us in. I'm really not sure how we were supposed to get in if Bruce had been ahead of us and gone in already, but he does not seem concerned by that or the fact that some in our group have yet to arrive and will not know how to find the office either! Those of us who have made it here watch a presentation by Anne about the work her firm does. They are a small firm that mostly does collaborative community designs and always incorporates sustainability. In fact, they are the most environmentally-conscious group we have met so far! And, the office is peaceful and comfortable, and they work by daylight for most of the day. We all brought breads and cheeses and gather 'round with them for a potluck lunch. Fran, who works with Anne, tells us a little about Angell Town - our next stop of the day. The missing four in the group show up, and my roommate Satara is angry. She got stuck traveling with our all-knowing TA (teacher's assistant) who led the foursome in completely the wrong direction despite Satara's polite protests that she didn't think it was right, and then when they were finally almost to Anne's office, a bird pooped on her head! The poor girl had a bad start to her day and makes me promise not to leave her ever again. Looks like we'll be joined-at-the-hip roommates!
Drama aside, we are off to Angelltown. This affordable housing development is set adjacent to an old Victorian neighborhood with fairly large and expensive homes. Quite a contrast.
Angell Town began as a social housing project, and like many in that category it became a very rundown and dangerous place to live. The director of the current Angell Town tells us that it got so bad that taxi drivers refused to give you a ride home if this was your destination. A proactive woman named Dora lived in the development at that time and wanted to make a change - to create a better life for herself and others living here. So, she gathered together a group of volunteers, and together they obtained funds to begin the next step - hiring professionals to analyze the problems and find solutions. The committee decided to hire five different architecture firms in order to come up with a variety of solutions, and Angell Town was transformed into a better place to live with some renovations as well as some demolition and new construction.


The original design tried to separate the people from the cars, so there was no ground level access to the buildings from the parking. Instead, a series of stairwells and long corridors and skywalks served as the connection between units, and became high crime areas. The ground floor was taken up by garages which also became the scene of drug deals and other crime out of site from the units above. The architects redesigned to link people back to the ground and open up the stairwells for better visability and safety.
They also converted the ground floor garages into shops and offices to create a live/work opportunity on site.
Play areas were added for children and for teenagers and a meandering walkway made of recycled glass passes through them.
It is amazing to see that redesigning a housing disaster really can solve other problems lurking within it. Angell Town is now a safe and rather happy place to live where people interact with their neighbors and question strangers (we were stopped a few times as we wandered through). The new environment does not encourage the drug/crime scene and it has moved out and faded away. The change here is truly incredible, and this development has earned the attention of visits and awards from even the royalty here.
And it all began with a determined lady named Dora who didn't want to live in the worst neighborhood in town, but instead of abandoning it, she worked to bring positive change to herself and her neighbors. It's very fitting that they named one of the new streets in her honor. The director says they chose 'way' because Dora always got her way!
So we leave this little development, and I don't know how the rest of the group feels, but I am motivated to make a change in my career - to be a part of improving quality of life through design.