Urban Grain
Figure 4: Historic Map Overlay, Show the change in urban grain from before the development (1930) in orange with the current (2019) in purple Source: Authors Own adapted from maps obtained from EDINA Historic Digimap Service
Gibbered reconfigured the urban grain of the site in line with modernist thinking of the era, aiming to prioritise pedestrian movement and provide more public green space. A new street pattern was devised so that traffic is no longer tempted to cut through the estate, by paving over the eastern end of the site, blocking the direct connection to Kingsland High street.15
of interest, referring to them as 'pegs on which the new design hung'.17 This continuity between the new and the old means the estate blends well into the existing context with no clear point to where the estate begins or ends, unlike most other modernist developments that had a clear estate boundary. Although Gibberd referred to the previous arrangement as "dull Victorian dwellings built to a dull street pattern”18 he didn’t have the same hatred for the street as Le Corbusier who in his earlier career, wrote That the street is “a relic of the centuries, a dislocated organ that can no longer function".19 As although the road pattern was modified the axial nature of the site was still retained. With the street transferring to
However, unlike most modernist, Gibberd was against a 'tabula rasa' approach saying "It is more than vandalism to fell a tree that has taken years to grow, or to demolish a building of fine architectural qualities; it is a destruction of the spirit of the place."16 Having the opportunity to clear the bomb-damaged 9-acre site he instead retained existing services, paths, trees (fig .6) and buildings 6
