ABSTRACT
Patel Taylor have worked with Barking and Dagenham Council previously, designing a masterplan for housing provision on disused brownfield land within the borough. This scheme is located on Wood Lane in Barking, London. There is an additional site in close proximity called The Lawns, located along Rainham Road. The incentive for the one and two-bed homes was to free up much needed family homes within the borough, which were no longer suitable for their elderly residents. The design had to be high quality, affordable and wheelchair adaptable to entice the new tenants. The design evolved from a monopitch roof to a dual pitch roof, and the omission of chimneys and bay windows to reduce materials. The linear blocks were also defined by the gable ends and entrances instead of the individual chimneys. Barking and Dagenham contains a lot of poor-quality and dated postwar housing and is also an area of high crime.
