Marshworth:Milton Keynes

INITIAL BRIEF

At the time that work was first starting on Milton Keynes there was the highest possible priority put on providing housing for those who would build it. This was not just a practical requirement but a political one, where there was a real fear amongst MKDC (Milton Keynes Development Corporation) senior management - led by Lord Campbell as Chairman and Fred Roche as General Manager - that the whole project might be cancelled at any minute; and, accordingly, the 'life and death' need was for 3,500 houses per year to be built.

The overall background is the subject of the excellent book ('TheArchitecture and Planning of Milton Keynes', The Architectural Press, London, 1982) by the then chief architect; Derek Walker. Unfortunately Marshworth only receives coverage in the form of one thumbnail photograph.

The most urgent requirement was, in the main, for the crescent of public housing estates in the Woughton Parish, including Netherfield and Tinker's Bridge council estates, but it also included - at a very early stage - provision for senior staff from the MKDC itself.

Accordingly, the brief for Marshworth was to produce housing suitable for these staff, mainly planners and their support staff, but also for the academics from the Open University which was just moving to Milton Keynes. This was a sophisticated audience, and this was reflected in the adventurous nature of the design. An added incentive was that the head of the MKDC lived in the large house by the canal on the East side of the development, and he wanted the best housing possible for his new neighbours!

With this sophisticated target market in mind, and driven by some quite advanced - socialist inspired - aspirations, the new development was to be the prototype for the best possible new private sector housing in the new city; at a time when the design overall called for low density housing, with detached and semi-detached housing even in the public sector.

As reported by Mark Clapson, in his 'Social History of Milton Keynes' (Frank Cass, London, 2004), Derek Walker, the Chief Architect at the time (1970-1976), argued that the most important influence on the development of Milton Keynes was Melvin Webber of the University of California (Berkeley), a visiting academic at the Labour government's very influential Centre for Environmental Studies (CES), who was "...invited to delineate for the Milton Keynes planning team the 'nature of 'the urban society of the future'."   Weber took Los Angeles as his model of the way towns changed in relation to technological changes, and argued that planners should move away from the idea of town centres with high density surrounded by lower density suburbs. Thus was the dispersed grid of the new city decided.

At the more detailed level of the Marshworth development itself, the brief was to be creative; in a way which was rarely allowed architects at the time or since. Indeed, it called for many things to be tried, including for example extendable housing. Unfortunately very few of these planned experiments saw the light of day, but fortunately Marshworth was one of these.

The leading edge domestic architecture of the preceding decade had been led by Mies van der Rohe (with his beautifully elegant, but ultimately impractical, 'Farnsworth House') and Philip Johnson (with his steel framed 'Glass House') and Charles Eames (with his Pacific Palisades house built from off the shelf components around a court). The original ideas behind Marshworth, therefore, included timber framing with glass walls away from the street and onto garden courts.

It was also the time when modular designs were coming into fashion, with a view to factory building; an important concept for MK, given the vast numbers of houses which would be needed.

Accordingly, the plan below was developed (based on a module of 2.7 x 3.6 metres) by Trevor Denton who (later Professor of Architecture at Edinburgh) led the team specifically responsible for Marshworth:

Original design, courtesy of Trevor Denton

The supporting timber columns were to be spaced at this (modular) distance, and this left the opportunity for the walls to be floor to ceiling, full-width, glass. thus, for example the walls onto the garden and the various courts were to be made up of sliding full length windows (some time before patio doors came into vogue!). Privacy was to be maintained by a brick wall surrounding the front and sides of the building.

The key feature of the very low density design, though, was to be the series of up to three garden courts around which the main rooms were grouped. Beyond this the gardens were to be open, through an open pergola which covered more than half the end of the garden, to the landscaped open space beyond.

Perhaps surprisingly, unlike most of the pioneering architecture of the time and since, the scheme was actually built to this design. Just about the only deviation in the layout of what was built was the change from 2 bathrooms to one (with a WC) which has since been remedied in most of the bungalows. The link room to the two rear bedrooms, in the 4 bed version, perhaps was better understood as a playroom for the two children whose bedrooms these were supposed to be!

Interestingly, and quite adventurously for the time, the plan even allowed for limited extension to the rear. Thus, it was planned that the single rear bedroom (no.2) would become a link to two further bedrooms; in an exact mirror image of the two already in place on the other side.

The irony is that this 'planned' extension would actually have offered more bedroom space than most of the extensions which have actually taken place since. At the same time it would have defined ever better the rear court; making the design even better from the point of view of the architects.

Unfortunately this information was not passed on to the residents, or even to the town planners, and the actual extensions encroached on the courts themselves since - unseen by the outside world - it was easier to get planning permission in this way. This process, which inevitably destroyed the garden courts, was though distinctly unpopular with the architects. on the other hand, precisely because the changes are hidden from view, the end result as seen by the outside world rarely deviates to any great extent from the architects' original elevations.

In detail, however, the scheme ran into major problems when it came to be built. The major problem facing the MKDC across the whole of the new city - and one of the largest construction sites ever - was that it was being built in the middle of nowhere, and the nearest builders were dozens of miles away. Thus, the construction infra-structure was stretched to the limit; and compromises had to be made. The main compromise in the case of Marshworth was that the only builder which could be found could not build timber-frames houses. Accordingly the walls were switched to brick, and amalgamated with the original screening walls. At a time when - even though the site was located in the middle of the brick production industry -  bricks were in scarce supply due to the Conservative governments conflicts with the trade unions, the bricks were obtained from Leighton Buzzard. The most damaging result, perhaps, was that the walls of glass disappeared - to be replaced by more conventional solutions; and it is interesting to note that the resulting windows are even now the element of design most criticized by the owners.

Some of the most important 'design' elements occurred outside the bungalows. Thus, at the heart of the ultra low density design was the open space. It was, through the pergolas at the bottom of the individual gardens, completely open - as an extension to the gardens themselves. On the other hand, it was deliberately made inaccessible to the general public. The two entrances to it, at either end, were deliberately hidden away. In this way the bungalows share if the whole space was nearly half an acre; a very large amount even in those days, and now perhaps ten times what might be expected of a development on such a prime site!

Even so, it was little short of a miracle that such an adventurous scheme was actually built; and even more miraculous that it still lives up to the ideals of the original designers. Moreover, in terms of 'buildings which learn' the strength of the original design has been such that - although architects might bemoan what has happened to the clean lines of the original - the many changes have been achieved without losing the character of the development.

The final twist was that the only way that the the MKDC could get it off the ground, where there were no local developers then around, was by itself becoming the developer. Thus it was that the signature on the original contracts, £11,350 for a 3 bedroom bungalow and £12,000 for the 4 bedroom version, was that of the MKDC itself!

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Last modified: 01/26/06