Details, Vol 7, New Towns, Stevenage

If there’s one thing we’ve learned makes better buildings, it’s empathy. Architecture never happens in isolation—and simply by being interested and engaged, we’ve found it’s possible to open up the conversations that connect a scheme to its clients and community.

We believe that the more constraints there are, the better the architecture. If there aren’t any constraints, we create them. Challenging sites, existing buildings and complex briefs almost always present incredible opportunities for great design.

To limit our environmental impact, we start with what is already there. By manipulating the form and fabric of a building—whether new or existing—we can work with the existing conditions of topography, light and orientation, and harness the natural energy sources offered by air, ground and water.

If a site’s constraints guide the bigger design decisions, then it’s empathy that informs the smaller, social details. These details frame the human narratives that aren’t included in the brief, anticipating specific moments in the users’ lives.

Good architecture is as much about what happens on the building site as it is about what’s on the drawing board. By working alongside contractors as well as clients we can ring-fence the ideas and details that matter, championing quality and sustainability throughout construction.

Curl la Tourelle Head

Work Studio Activity News Contact

Publication

Details vol. 7
New Towns, Stevenage

Specification

Published by The Everyday Press
120 x 170mm
304pp, x 19 16pp folded booklets
Individually printed 1 colour offset

Exhibition

Stevenage Museum
14th May – 11th June
Wed – Fri: 10am – 4.30pm
Sat: 10am – 5pm
> Weblink
> Map

Pop-up Exhibition

Stevenage Regeneration Visitor Centre
15th – 18th June
Wed, Thu, Sat: 9am – 4pm
Fri: 9am –3.30pm
> Map

Eight iconic details of Stevenage are released in the latest editions of DETAILS, bringing drawings, insights and stories into the architectural narrative of 20th Century New Towns.

DETAILS is a publication edited by Wayne Head. The series interrogates architectural details in a variety of locations across the UK and further afield. What makes a detail ‘good’ or ‘bad’? What might a detail say about a building, an architect, a place, or a movement in history? If a building can manifest how we think, how does a detail speak about the whole? Can you have good details and a bad building? Or a good building made out of bad details? These and other questions are explored in the publication, a series of illustrated risograph-printed pamphlets. Previous series have looked at The Barbican and Golden Lane Estate, Radical Essex, Clerkenwell and The City of London.

The latest edition of DETAILS compares and contrasts the first post-war new town of Stevenage with the final, largest and most ambitious new town of Milton Keynes, created 20 years later.

The New Towns Act was passed in 1946. The plan was to move people from over-crowded and bomb-damaged cities to self-contained communities inspired by the garden city model. In the end, Britain created 32 new towns, which are home to nearly three million people today.

These editions and accompanying exhibitions explore the art and architecture of Stevenage (designated as the first new town in 1946) and Milton Keynes (one of the last wave, designated in 1967). They chart over thirty years of creative and pioneering designs, reflecting the dramatic shifts in society and politics along the way.

“The great delight is that, after years of being branded for their uniformity and mundanity, the new towns are now recognised for the quality of their architecture and its details.” Elain Harwood, Historic England.

Accompanying the publications are a series of exhibitions, talks, family activity packs and essays by Historic England’s Elain Harwood, Milton Keynes arts & cultural officer Shane Downe and Curl la Tourelle Head Director and founder of DETAILS, Wayne Head.