Cofferidge Close, Stony Stratford. Under threat?

In February I jotted down the short history of this project which started its life as a brilliant contribution to the new built environment in this historical town, now an integral part of the new city of Milton Keynes.  I pointed out in some detail  many ‘retrogressive’ recent changes which seriously undermined the original strength and qualities. You are still able to see the frail patient walking about, an occasional smile still reveals some of the original attractive charm the patient possessed.

However, recently my attention was drawn to an exhibition in Stony Stratford and this web site http://www.cofferidgeclose.co.uk/ displaying proposals for developing and improving this site and seeking public participation and involvement before submitting formal planning applications.

This apparent democratic and inclusive method has now become an almost text book approach for testing the waters and finding the best and cheapest route for most of the  developers to do what they are there for; build big, cheap, and make an quick exit with a neat profit.

The proposal is so ill conceived and poor that in all seriousness you can not even appraise it apart from saying that far from  preserving and enhancing the character of the area (a pre-requisite for any  proposal within a Conservation Area), this scheme would destroy it in all major aspects.

One sentence can adequately summarise this proposal. An attempt to insert a grossly oversized building in a beautifully crafted space in the heart of a sensitively redeveloped area. The huge mass of building is moored in a sea of enlarged  car parking and service areas, proposing to destroy the trees in the orchard which provides  pleasant walking routes through this park like well landscaped site. The directness of short cuts linking the little ally ways would be destroyed and  and the walk through the car park can hardly be compensated by planting few trees in left over spaces.

The best way to describe this broad daylight attempt of this ‘grab and run venture’ is the following analogy;

• Imagine a pretty little ornate cage in a nicely decorated front room of an old thatched cottage with a lovely little singing bird. The bird lost a few feathers after a confrontation with a house cat when it escaped the cage through an open door, but survived and continued with well rehearsed melodies and preening the colourful plumage in this handsome spacious cage.
• Suddenly the old owner of this bird was taken ill and had to go to a Nursing Home and the bird was sent to another house with a large bird cage which it was able to share happily with other similar birds.
• After a while a new owner, another bird lover, came to live in this cottage. The owner loved the lovely little bird cage in the front room, but unfortunately had a large barn owl to look after. The owl was far too large for the cage and indeed the door. It managed to get in but found it difficult to move within it. The children from the neighbourhood who knew the singing, colourful bird came and apart from the initial thrill of seeing a big bird with funny head and round eyes, they missed the colourful singing bird and wanted it back.
• The kind new owner did not want to disappoint the children and said, ” I tell you what! Tell me your three favourite colours and I would be happy to colour owl’s feathers in your favourite colour. If you like I will even mix two or three of the colours to make it even more cheerful. I also have a CD of the loveliest bird songs you can think of, and I will play it when you visit me.”

• Fortunately the children were far too intelligent to go along with this ploy. The owner also saw that the owl would never fit in the cage and thankfully gave it away to someone with proper owl accommodation. He also bought another small pretty singing bird and all was well in the old cottage.

I hope the local residents would strongly object to this outlandish proposal and ensure that this idea is killed before it is even considered as a worthwhile project for any planning permission.

Unless we learn to appreciate and protect all the best of old and recently built environments around us, opportunistic profiteers would do their best to sell us things under the guises of doing us favours. Hopefully we are now mature enough to recognize the merits of what we have and know who the real beneficiaries of these false promises are likely to be.

Cofferidge Close, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes.

Assessing last thirty years of wear and tear.

During the early growth of Milton Keynes, while the central shopping area was under construction, the two existing district centres of Bletchley in South and Stony Stratford in North were identified for growth to cater for the shopping and social needs of the growing population. The development brief for these district plans were similar but the different characters of the existing towns resulted in quite distinct architectural results.

Stony Stratford was traditional English market/coaching town on the old Roman road, Watling Street (A5), known as High Street while passing through the centre of town.

It was obvious that the growth of extra traffic on A5 was likely to suffocate the town. Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) proposed to build a bypass which was integrated with the new grid of road network being carried out for the birth of the new town.

The shop, pub and house owners also actively participated in preparing and implementing a conservation scheme which showed the great improvement potential the town possessed.

MKDC carried out many planning studies involving the community to expand the town and exploring the full potential of preserving and enhancing the character of the town.

In the end Cofferidge Close was designed, financed and built by MKDC on the land it owned in and around the High Street, the only significant scheme to include the major office and shopping development.

‘ The site, derelict backland in the centre of Stony Stratford, has been developed for  a wide variety of functions including offices, shops, housing, car parking and service access not only to new development but to many adjacent High Street traders, reducing congestion in the town’s busy High Street. The layout provides eleven points of pedestrian access and pays great respect to its historic context, particularly to its choice of materials and breaking down the scale.’ (* abstract from Derek Walker’s book ‘Architecture and Planning of Milton Keynes’)

Terry Farrell (Partner of Farrell/Grimshaw Partnership at the time) wrote a detailed critique for the building study of this project for Architectural Journal of 1^st November 1978. His opening remarks dealt with architects’ role in ‘mixed/divided economy’ are quoted here:

“The example of Cofferidge Close defies those who pursue a ‘divided economy’. It demonstrated how through human co-operation, in a delicate process, architects living and working locally produced a catalyst of quality to act as an example to the town and all letting agents, estates departments, valuers, developers and their architects”

He concludes “If balance is the key to success in urban replanning Cofferidge Close achieves this in two ways. Unlike a lot of work done under Derek Walker, Cofferidge Close achieves a balance of old and new urban fabric consistent with the original consultants’ intentions for all Milton Keynes in their masterplan. Stony Stratford has also obtained the right balance of public and private investment due to Cofferidge Close. It is ironic, though not surprising that it takes a New Town to do something so positive for an old town.”

While the new development in Bletchley District Centre took the route of modernism in traditions of Mies, using glass, steel and prefabricated plastic elements, the work in Stony Stratford tried to adhere to a Mies like architectural discipline but the local conditions were acknowledged by use of a red rustic brick. A cathedral like series of roofless colonnades, entirely covered with red bricks, formed a unifying skeletal backbone element to visually link all spaces of the development. Eight bays of this two storey high colonnade emerged in the High Street to announce the presence of a modern but polite new development to the town.

The modern interpretation of a ‘cathedral close’ and retention of an architectural purity, with references to Leon Krier, was not letting the introduction of roof to the colonnade muddle the purity of the concept, which we all considered a bit far fetched and difficult to justify. The design team maintained this was due to the limited funds.

The shops were not visible from the High Street and even within the Close were partially hidden behind the raised planting beds, a fact not appreciated by the letting team.

A bold colourful, coordinated signage system throughout the development welcomed you to enter the arcade, running at right angles to the High Street and led you to the Close. The hard and soft landscaping was of the highest calibre and the feeling within the close was more akin to a park or garden with some car parking. The two storey roofless arcade you saw in High Street was now addressing the quiet close/car park and a single storey version of this went under the building to reappear to form an edge to the existing orchard surrounded by car parking, service road and yards. The clever design stitched these arcades with well defined pedestrian routes in red coloured mono-paving and brick, entering the close from various parts of the town and creating little points of interests using arches, pergolas, sitting alcoves, steps in grass forming amphitheatre like forms.

Terry Farrell also expressed his concerns about the lack of roof, was full of admiration for landscape detailing and consistency and said “My only query is whether the whole effect is not a bit too rich a menu of cosmopolitan goodies—the landscape is almost sub-tropical and the ‘Shirtsleeves’ signs are more Kings Road than Stony Stratford. On other hand Habitat and Kings Road taste is becoming universal and this is after all part of a New Town.”

All the above mentioned was conceived and carried out more than thirty years ago and as usual the rigorous test of time has played its unforgiving role to shred lots of original lofty ambitions to tatters. It is beyond my capability to dissect and lay bare the forces in play here but I simply would draw your attention to the actual ‘wounds and gashes’, amounting to acts of vandalism, and sheer lack of understanding and any empathy with the original concepts shown by the parties supposedly helping to improve this ailing project. The changes over a period are expected and inevitable but these have to be carried out with intelligence and with some respect to the original design and concepts.

However, the strength and sophistication of the original design was robust enough to take it on the chin. One or two limbs missing, the original ‘dress’ in tatters, bruises and sticky plaster clearly visible, the scheme still posses qualities which most contemporary schemes lack.

The easiest approach is for me to list few of these ‘alterations/changes’ this project has experienced and let you reach your own conclusions.

• Four middle bays of High Street colonnade and two of Orchard single storey colonnade have been removed.
• All unified signage has been replaced by usual multitude                              of disparate sign systems.
• The Car Parking spaces have been increased by ‘re-arranging’ the original   planting, realignment or removal of footpaths and planting bays and landscape features. The original impression of a car in a Park has been rejected with wholesale ‘butchery’.The prophecy or ‘inevitability’ of a roof in or over the colonnade has taken place and a most insensitive roof design with some further  small circular steel posts and beams extending the  two  storey brick colonnade are the most insensitive  and damaging addition. The ubiquitous chain saw gang (also known as landscape team) has ensured that all species of plants are democratically treated and receive the essential ‘crew-cut’ treatment.

I hope my photos of the scheme scanned from old slides taken soon after its completion, with some old b&w photos from AJ, and the recent digital images give a flavour of the ravages of time over last three decades. This comparative unknown example of a mixed development and another contrasting shopping and leisure development called Agora in Wolverton, a few miles away are outstanding examples of urban design carried out by MKDC in its heydays. I hope to cover Agora in a separate Blog to show an entirely different architectural approach for a Victorian railway town.

I hope that Terry Farrell will note that architects may have been able to suppress the letting agents, estate departments, valuers of this world  for a while   but it did not take them long to come back and occupy their normal positions  with expected results.