Phippen, Randall & Parkes, Architects

In the early 1960s, Peter Phippen, Peter Randall and David Parkes, who had studied together at the Royal Western School of Architecture, obtained two commissions that allowed them to set up in practice as Phippen, Randall and Parkes (PRP). 

The first of these was a housing development for the Cockaigne Housing Association in Hatfield (the Ryde) and the second was for another housing development in Crawley, (Shrublands) for the Crawley Co-Partnership Housing Association.

I met Peter Phippen in 1962 when I joined first year at the Architectural Association and he became my tutor.  Before joining the AA, I had been working in architects’ offices and attending a part-time course at Hammersmith College of Art and Building.  This meant that I had some idea of architectural practice and the preparation of construction drawings. When I met him, Peter was in the process of leaving the LCC architects department and setting up an office for PRP in his house in Surbiton.  When he realised that I could draw a straight line and knew something about construction drawings he asked me to work for him over the Christmas holidays.  The design for the Ryde development in Hatfield had been completed and I worked on the construction drawings for the community building.

I continued to work for PRP throughout my time at the AA working weekends and holidays.  When I completed the course in June 1968, I joined the practice full-time for a year before going to Zambia.  The experience that I gained at PRP through these years stood me in good stead for the rest of my career. 

In the year that I spent with the practice, I worked on Bancroft Court, a block of flats in Reigate and a house (that was never built) for John Pennell, one of the practice’s main clients and the main instigator of the housing associations which were then the practice’s main source of work. 

Bancroft Court, a co-ownership scheme for Coastal Counties Housing Association, was PRP’s first block of flats.  It was located on a large leafy site close to the centre of Reigate.  The three-storey flats faced due south and had a parking area in the semi-basement.  The design exploited a stepped section to provide wide-frontage flats with generous balconies with full-width planters at the front.   Flats were accessed by dog-leg staircases between each pair of flats.  There were also four single-storey houses each with private gardens in front of the flats.  The buildings were constructed of fair-faced brickwork with concrete floor slabs and flat roofs.  The development was finished in 1972 and gained a housing design award.

I worked on the construction drawings for the development and prepared ¼ full size details for every plan and section junction in the buildings (not a common practice at the time but one that was very good at providing information to builders and which I used subsequently on all of my projects in Africa and the Pacific).  Detailing was very simple: doors were full height with no cover architraves but with recessed joints between frames and plaster and the skirtings were recessed into the plaster again with recessed joints between skirtings and plaster.

I recently visited Bancroft Court with my friend Murray who I had met at Hammersmith College and who was a key member of PRP’s staff in the 1960s and 70s.  We were both impressed with the condition of the buildings after a period of over 50 years.  The whole development, including the planting and landscaping is being very well maintained which presumably is a reflection of the satisfaction of the occupants with their homes. We talked to two long-term residents who expressed their delight, one with her apartment and the other with his single-storey house.  The only real problem that they had had was with the flat roofs which had been replaced recently. 

The photo gallery below shows the present condition of the development.

After Reigate we moved on to Crawley where PRP carried out three developments for housing associations started by John Pennell in the 1960s.  The first was Shrublands; 72 terraced houses and a clubroom on a 6.75 acre site on the southern periphery of the town completed in 1963. The houses were planned around a central green space with 4 short cul-de-sacs serving the houses with parking in front of each house.  The house plans were based on two 12 foot bays; one bay was two-storey with a kitchen, dining space and living room on the ground floor and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor.  In the case of two-bedroom houses the other bay consisted of a garage.  For larger houses, there was a courtyard and living room behind the garage and for the largest houses, there was another bedroom above this second living space.  The houses had mono-pitch roofs and the walls were cavity walls constructed of lignacite blocks, fair-faced externally and plastered internally.

The houses have not weathered very well and the whole development is not very well maintained (with the exception of the clubroom).  Many of the houses have been clad on the first floor with horizontal boarding but whether this is because of damp penetration, is not clear.  We spoke to one young couple who had recently bought a house and they were very pleased with it especially with the size of the rooms; much larger than in anything being built now.

The photo gallery shows the present condition of the development.

Adjacent to Shrublands is Forestfield, another development designed by PRP which was completed in 1967.  Murray worked on this development and I made a model of it when I was a student.  There are 125 houses on an irregularly shaped site with a spine road that feeds 5 short cul-de-sacs that each lead to a garage court.  The garage courts have covered semi-basement parking areas that have 4 houses above with a central light well illuminating the parking below.  There is a small square with planting at each end and there are two-storey terraced houses or single-storey courtyard housing on three or four sides of each court.  Paths lead from the garage courts to the houses with a maximum distance of 30 metres to the furthest house.  All houses are constructed of fair-faced brick work with flat roofs.  The two-storey houses are wide-fronted with a Z section where the first floor accommodation has windows only on the front elevation which means that there is no overlooking of the rear gardens and the ground floor windows look onto the rear garden.  On the ground floor there is a single-storey entrance lobby at the front containing a WC and store and a kitchen and dining area, a sitting room and a single bedroom or study.  On the first floor are three bedrooms and a bathroom.  The wide-fronted Z section design was used later by PRP on a number of sites.

The development has weathered very well and the houses and landscaping and planting are looking very good although the long lengths of blank walls to the first floors of the two-storey housing on the garden side are unusual and rather striking.  The development shows that it is possible to treat cars and parking in such a way that they do not dominate the housing. The houses do not face onto the roads but onto their private gardens to the rear and onto the small squares and pedestrian routes at the front providing supervision of these spaces.  There are a lot of lessons that could be learned from this development by present day developers both in terms of the house designs, the layout and landscaping of the site and in the treatment of roads and parking.

The photo gallery shows the present condition of the development.

Our last visit in Crawley was to Broadfield Site 5; a development of 385 two-storey houses and single-person flats, again to the south of the town, built for the Guiness Trust and finished in 1974.  Murray again worked on this development with Peter Randall.  The development was notable for its use of a mix of Radburn planning (based on separating cars and pedestrians) and cul-de-sac planning.  Emphasis was placed on aspect, orientation and privacy in its design and the wide-frontage Z section house design was used again to provide private rear gardens.  The site was on a slope and had numerous old trees that had to be preserved.  Four cul-de-sacs lead to garage courts that are shielded by the surrounding housing and brick screen walls and there is a network of pedestrian routes around the development.   The houses were again built of fair-faced brickwork but this time with double-pitch roofs giving the development a more traditional appearance.

While the buildings have weathered quite well, the landscaping and planting has suffered from neglect and most, if not all of the trees that were preserved have now gone.  The large areas of blank first floor brick walls are again a striking feature.

The photo gallery shows the present condition of the development.

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Architecture in Developing Countries: A Resource

The design and construction of appropriate, low-cost buildings for education and health in rural areas of the developing world.

Nigel Wakeham worked as an architect for 23 years in Southern and West Africa and the SW Pacific working on education, health and other projects. He has since worked for over 20 years as a consultant for national governments and agencies such as the World Bank, DFID, ADB and AfDB on the implementation of the construction components of education and health projects in many countries in the developing world.​​​

​The objective of this website will be to provide the benefit of more than 45 years of experience of working in developing countries to architects and other construction professionals involved in the design and construction of appropriate, low-cost buildings for education and health. It will provide reference material from the projects that Nigel has worked on and technical information on the design, construction and maintenance of educational and health facilities and other relevant topics and these will be added to from time to time.

I am happy to be contacted by anyone requiring further information on any of the projects or resources referred to in this website or by anyone wishing to discuss work possibilities.

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