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Architecture Week for Schools:

The Estate

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The Estate: Background Information Resource

This information was compiled by the photographer. The series of photos that comprises the Estate was shot by Boris Stout, in 2001, in a London inner city tower block built in 1967.

Like any community the block is steeped in history - as I photographed them, residents told me stories of the past some of joy and many of loss but all of which related to home - which is the block. It struck me then that in many senses the tower-block is an urban village but with so much that is transient it seems to be one that will be locked eternally in a struggle to define it's identity.
Boris Stout, Photographer

The building

The building is 15 floors high and has a cloverleaf pattern of 4 identical (mirror image) flats per floor, it has a central rubbish chute on each floor, a set of separate access stairs that run from the ground to the top and two lifts; one that serves odd and the other that serves even floors. Front, back and side doors as well as the lifts and lobby areas are monitored by CCTV's. The feed is split between the foyer desk and the city's massive security headquarters in the city centre.

The residents

The building is roughly 55% privately owned (a very small percentage of these have been sold on to housing associations) and 45% are still owned and maintained by the local authority.
There are a handful residents still living here from amongst the first generation of tenants, elderly and white, they live on the fifth floor or below. The rest of the building is given over to an astonishingly ethnically diverse group of residents from:

The Philippines
Ethiopia
Serbia
Croatia
Eritrea
Somalia
Sudan
Nigeria
Romania
Ireland

Colombia
Lebanon
Bangladesh
Spain
India
Greece
Iran
Romania
Iraqi Kurdistan

The very first wave of residents were those with abiding roots in the locality, they were offered a choice of which floor to live on and invariably chose to live on the fifth or below (an attempt to replicate the life they were leaving behind). The next wave was of lower priority tenants who were given whatever flat was available (on whichever floor), a practice which frequently resulted in dissatisfaction. This social, historical and ethnic indicator reflects the historically deep distrust of the tower block by the white working classes. In short it was this that caused the brisk turnover of tenants above the fifth and has only slowed during the last decade because of housing shortages and longer waiting lists. It is only very recently that tower blocks have gained any social acceptance (mainly amongst the urban young) in Britain. A change that is not yet reflected in the financial institutions, many of which still refuse to offer mortgages on flats above the third floor.
Unpredictable cliques form in such a building beyond the obvious ones of race, culture and language. It is worth noting that the easiest and most natural cross cultural bonds exist amongst Muslims - or more precisely Arabic speaking peoples, which are a dominant minority in the block.

The environment

Those that live facing the north - persistently receive higher heating bills, poor or no satellite TV reception, enjoy greater proximity to the rubbish chute (noise and smell) and much less sun - some say they are all miserable.

Occasionally some traditional class polarization flares up between leasers and tenants (although in truth the 'enemy' is within not without i.e. 40% of the leasers are white working class) over expenditure issues like the concierge and dÈcor in public areas.

Communication/bonding is better within each of the odd/even lift segregations than across them simply because each group spends more time together. Many of these patterns have been modified in recent years by the presence of a highly popular concierge (a Sudanese Muslim) whose presence from 4 p.m. to midnight at a 'foyer desk' hasn't just melted the bleak utility of the entrance hall but has had an impact on the whole block. Forms of communication have been dramatically altered; his desk provides a meeting point for all-comers, everybody talks to him (even exchanging names) while waiting for the lift and now residents make bonds with each other through a 'shared appreciation' of him.

Never is this more evident than during Ramadan, the concierge arrives on duty just as the daylight fast is drawing to a close. Suddenly there is a festive traffic in food and sweetmeats - gifts from the residents to him, a generosity that is not solely confined to Muslim residents either. He often sheepishly accepts a pork-pie etc. from a well intentioned resident rather than cause offence.

In fact the presence of the concierge is perhaps worthy of a study in itself. He provides security and help (with shopping etc.) for the elderly, he polices any youthful deviancies and is advisor and psychologist to countless others. He also possesses a unique moral hold over all the residents; silent witness to everything, from the banal - how much fast food which residents eat, to the illicit - a youthful kiss stolen on the lifts (via CCTV) or a sloppy drunk or a bored 'escort' visiting her client.

In fact the only escape from his watchful gaze is on the access stairs which have become the unspoken refuge of youth - where Asian boys and girls exchange an illicit whisper and other teenagers smoke their first cigarette or share a weekend spliff.

Like any community the tower block has its self-appointed functionaries: the lady who always collects money for the floral tributes for the funerals of residents who have died, the activist who spent three years self-publishing 'The Concierge News' which documented his struggle with the council to get the concierge installed. There are also a couple of self-styled handy men who do minor repairs for the elderly residents - if the job is major for token payment if it is minor (a light-bulb change) for food. The much-loathed 'phantom-pisser' who serially urinated in the lifts (both odd and even to exacerbate) abandoned his practice with the arrival of the CCTV cameras. There is also of course a well-worn gossip corridor down which passes the news of who is in hospital and who is prison and whose children are delinquent.

Two principal emotions unite all the residents; one is a hatred for the council and the other an equally ardent love for the concierge. On one fateful occasion when the council pitted itself against him over a wage dispute the result was incendiary. With residents in their 80's barking four-letter obscenities at the sheepish local councilor who was attempting to justify the action - the council case collapsed in less than 30 minutes.

Individual issues can serve to either unite or divide the community. Under attack from an almost Biblical scourge of ants two summers ago, the council, after months of delay was finally poised with the exterminators when it was suddenly decide that entomologists needed to research the genus of the ant before war could commence. Residents were asked to collect live samples and deliver them to the estate office - the ants prevailed, the 'village' was in collective despair.

The illicit traffic in calor gas bottles - the use of which is strictly forbidden by the estate office but favoured in the culinary practice of some ethnic groups - continues to vex many. Those needy residents have to sneak their bottles late at night up the access stairs - beyond the gaze of the CCTV cameras though not always out of earshot of other residents. Perceived as a dark and arcane practice by many it seems to promote distrust and disunity.

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