The Barbican

Our tour of this vast masterplan of buildings focused on the external network of spaces that create the Barbican Centre and Housing Estate. Construction started in the 1970s and the buildings in British Brutalist style were designed by Architects Chamberlain, Powell and Bon. Our tour began in the housing estate where without a guide we would certainly be lost. Beautifully brick paved streets curve around the heavy concrete sky walkways to aid the visitor in their wayfinding. The guide points out the semi-circle motif that playfully appears in many moments across the Barbican complex - as windows, as vaults, as paving patterns - see if you can spot them on your next visit. Concrete is the big player at the Barbican - hidden away in a services plant room we found panels of test insitu concrete, where different finishes were explored. The final decision was for all the cast insitu concrete to be hand post-drilled to give a heavy mottled texture - its a crude finish but boy does it dazzle like glistening diamonds in the sunlight. The Barbican sits as a large chunk in the historical City of London - its towers loom over city workers, its edges sit strongly like the walls of a fortress - it is an important part of London's urban fabric and any visitor to the city should definitely lose themselves within its network.

Red House or 'the beautifullest place on earth'

After negotiating the complexities of purchasing 5 split ticket extensions from London Bridge station the Salads were on their way to the far reaches of zone 5, to Bexley Heath. The destination for our first Salady outing was Red House, the home of the founder of the Arts & Crafts movement, William Morris. Completed in 1860 by his architect and collaborator Phillip Webb the Red house was intended to be a haven for cutting edge artists, auters and their muses of their day in the midst of the green fields of Kent (perhaps it was Victorian equivalent of Hackney Wick?). A tad unfortunately, the red house now finds itself nestled in the middle of classic suburbia. Within the context of the 1930s semi-ds and bungalows that surround it, Red house is certainly (as coined by Edward Byrne Jones) 'the beautifullest place on earth'. But in an unassuming, quirky, charming kind of way. Red house is a collection of attractive, well formed parts - the corbelled brick work, round arches, pointy turret roofs and assymetrical elevation. There is no hierarchy to how these bits come together, and the plan in general is quite free flowing, but works to intended effect. It feels like a collaborative piece of domestic architecture, embodying Morris socialist philosophy about craftsmen collaborating, using local materials to produce beautiful things.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/red-house/

Funky reverse ziggurat pier? 

Round windows, pointy roofs, love it.

Everyone loves a patterned ceiling