Apartment building in Arborfield Close, off Windsor Rd.

 

If the picture looks grey and dingy, that’s because Slough usually is…

This was built around the late seventies but could pass for twenty years earlier– there are even echoes of the humourless, rationed late thirties/forties style here. In particular, the un-rendered bare brown brick finish gives it an uncompromising fifties’ prison look. Divided window panes and an attempt at breaking up the monotony of the shape by adding extra angles aren’t enough to prevent this from being a rather despondent view at the end of a cul-de-sac. It is predictability that breeds monotony, and although it has asymmetry in its basic shape the lack of variation in window size and layout reminds you that you are in grim Conformaland. Greenery consists of a few antisocial shrubs looking for a place to die. How about a landmark-size tree, or a bench, or some more interesting lighting? An opportunity to put some accessible public space before the building was missed, leaving us with a drive-right-up utilitarian feel to the building, and to the whole close as well. A precursor of the ‘mountain-block’ development we saw in the previous post.