Wyndham Court Including Raised Terrace and Ramps Wyndham Court Including Terraces and Ramps

Details

SU 4112 SOUTHAMPTON COMMERCIAL ROAD
(South side)
983/1/10009
Wyndham Court including
Raised terrace and ramps

II

See Under: Blechynden Terrace, Wyndham Court, including terraces and ramps
Block of 184 flats, three cafes or restaurants and thirteen shops. 1966-9 by Lyons Israel Ellis, E D Lyons partner in charge, Frank Linden and Aubrey Hume job architects. Hajnal-Konyi and Myers, consultant structural engineers; G Minter, builders. Reinforced concrete, with carefully detailed white board-marked concrete finish with narrow horizontal painted bands between windows and partition walls of balconies. Six storeys to Commercial Road, seven to south (Blechynden Terrace) on pilotis, reflecting changes in level, over underground carpark developed from earlier basements and which forms terrace to south. Shops and restaurants mostly to north and west (Wyndham Place), where service road to basement also situated, in main block set round private garden over carpark. To east an L-shaped spur flanks a public terrace, the frontage to Commercial Road on pilotis with dramatic wing breaking forward to Blechynden Terrace with tall piers to the corners. 61 one-bedroom flats and bedsits on first (facing Blechynden Terrace) and second floors (over whole of site), with 122 two and three-bedroom maisonettes reached by access decks and one flat over, reached by high-speed lifts, whose motor rooms are expressed as prominent vertical features in the composition.The irregular facades are sculptural and expressive, particularly of the changes in function of the ascending floors with the access decks on the third and fifth floors, with distinctive parapets to their balcony fronts, and more solidly detailed private balconies on the fourth and sixth. The lift towers recessed and denoted by small windows, a contrast to the casement windows set in horizontal bands as part of the composition. Originally these had regular vertical glazing bars, but when the windows were mostly renewed in UPVC during Spring 1996 a more square form of window was adopted. Access ramps and public terraces finished to the same exemplary standard as the building, with similar balustrade details. Shopfronts to Commercial Road largely renewed, save that to the 'Hobby Lobby', which retains its 1960s frontage and signage little altered. Interiors of the shops not of special interest; those of the flats not of special interest. The prestressed floors contain underfloor heating. The internal courtyard landscaped in 1970 to a revised design by Lyons. HISTORY: Southampton City Corporation was one of the most enlightened commissioners of public housing in the post-war period. This is the finest of three estates developed by Lyons Israel Ellis, and was carefully designed to fit a sensitive site close to E Berry Webber's civic buildings (also listed). which dominate the city centre. For this reason a relatively low building was suggested, though the brief was for something urban in scale. The use of white concrete was the architects' response to the wish for something sympathetic to the older building but which had a strong urban character, and is one of the most successful uses of the material anywhere. The design won an Architectural Design Project Award in 1966. When completed in 1969 the flats and maisonettes were leased at 'economic' or above average rents, a reflection of the prestige nature of the development; Lyons Israel Ellis specialised in the design of educational buildings, for which they established an enviable reputation confirmed by the listing of key examples of their work. This is their most successful housing scheme.


Listing NGR: SU4255313582

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

471937

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Forsyth, A, Davis G, Ed, Lyons Israel Ellis Grey Buildings and Projects 1932-1983, (1988), 28. 166-71
Southern Evening Echo in 16 December, (1968)
Architectural Design in April, (1966), 178-179

End of official list entry

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