A Walk Around the New Developments on Railway Terrace, Part 1

 

 

New developments along Railway Terrace, central Slough

 

Panoramic view of the new developments behind Slough station. The complex on the left was built by Barratt Homes and is made up of one and two-bedroom flats. The tall grey block and the smaller one next to it, built by Metropolis Apartments a few years ago, consist of commuter-bait apartments for leasehold sale or rent that are sky-high in price as well as elevation (there’s a two-bed flat currently listed online for £290k, if you’re interested).

 

It’s Xanadu converted to flats for dozens of mini metropolitan commuter Citizen Kanes. It is the kind of deliberately un-subtle display of ostentation and flaunted status that’s usually at home in the Gulf, and when placed in Slough becomes an uncomfortable and inescapable reminder of the dividing process that is happening in the town: the separation of the moneyed, upwardly-mobile city-job commuter class away from the lower-paid, socially-stuck and stagnantly-mobile oiks that make up the bulk of Slough’s population.

 

One thing is obvious: it is for this affluent class that Slough’s ‘reinvention’ is being designed. The council’s obsession with attracting young, tech-savvy, business jargon-spouting upwardly-mobile iPad-eating airheads to the town, with suitably crass, unsympathetic (but “modern”, of course) developments dangled as a kind of down-lighted, laminate-floored, glass and steel carrot to lure them in, shows the town leaders’ dismissal of the ordinary subjects of Slough. The council’s aim is not to improve the Slough that exists, but to attract new, richer (read “better”) people to the town in the hope that everyone else will obligingly fuck off, and the town will be bettered by default.

 

 

‘Lexington’ apartment building, Railway Terrace

 

And so the revived trend of high-rise, high density building reaches its ultimate expression, literally reaching its most excessive peak. At 15 storeys (not counting the observation projection at the top) this is Slough’s tallest and most terrifying new building, a little bit of Dubai in East Berkshire. With its combination of staggered, asymmetric peak, grey, slate-like finish, steep drops and sheer bloody size it is the very definition of a ‘mountain-block’, a term created by this blog to describe the new species of development that we’ve seen cropping up in Slough lately; genealogically, it is the bloated grandchild of the 1960s’ experiments with high-rise-- modern residential development exposed to cosmic radiation and mutated to gargantuan size, like a battery chicken pumped full of growth hormones. It’s a block of flats on steroids.

 

The image is complete when gulls and crows, reduced to specks by the distance, sweep around its summit, giving it the look of a modern, mechanised, haunted castle on a hill, a bit like something out of a Tim Burton film. Parked amongst a skyline of similar buildings it would fit right in, but here it’s as out of place as an iceberg; if it were half the size maybe, it would still be large but would be perhaps forgivable. ‘The sky is the limit’, it proudly proclaims on the building’s brochure, a mantra the architect has taken all too literally.

 

 

‘Lexington’ apartment building, as seen from Platform 4, Slough station

 

Unlike its social housing forebears, the modern high-rise has been reinvented for the affluent. With its flats commanding eye-watering prices, and with the South-East’s housing shortage and hysteria over the supposed boon of the coming Crossrail project (an imminent plan to augment the rail links to London) pushing them up even further, it’s little wonder the project was built so large: every storey means lots and lots of extra cash. It was cynically built right up against the station in an obvious attempt to attract affluent city commuters, whose dull, Apprentice-watching minds would then be able to make the astounding cognitive leap that if…you…live…here…then..you..can..go..to..the..station…there… Meanwhile, Slough’s housing problems persist unperturbed, despite the sheer size of such developments.

 

It looms arrogantly over Slough’s historic railway station building, which is now sadly lost to the sheer number of hulking brutes that have been built all around it, all trying to cash in on the fact that if the station’s just there, then it’s only twenty minutes to London, and if you close your eyes really hard you can pretend that it is London. But this attitude does nothing for the town in the long run, as despite its proximity to the capital Slough is not a suburb.

 

 

New 'West Central' Apartments, Stoke Gardens

 

 

‘West Central’ development, seen from Stoke Gardens

 

Remember the scaffolded development in this post? Well, this is what hatched: a pair of joined six-storey cuboids containing apartments of varying size and  going under the suitably generic name ‘West Central’. The building was erected by Barratt Homes, who in the past earned a reputation for bland, uninspired, low-quality housing; this development clearly seeks to be a more modern, chic approach to er, bland, uninspired housing.

 

Echoes of the 60’s tower blocks we looked at in the last few posts are clear (even if these aren't as tall): flat roofs, geometric design, minimalist colour scheme, rendered finish. Variation in window size and subtle asymmetry prevent it from being too stultifying, although the awkwardly-included, poorly-positioned and stingily-proportioned little oriel windows poking out of the side give the development a rather cold, almost institutional feel– oriel windows are meant to be fun, not sharp, mean and intimidating. Some good weather above works well with the colour scheme in this shot, but the building is not so fortunate when Slough’s usual drab climate takes over.

 

So, nothing to write home about; another dull design and another instance of high-density developments being squeezed into the central ward of Slough. Two-bed flats were advertised online at £236k, with one-bed flats being listed at around £170k in November of last year; even at these eye-watering prices I’m sure every last inch will be snapped up, such is the demand in Slough at the moment– dull homes and desperation get on like a Barratt house on fire.

 

 

‘West Central’ development as seen from Grays Road.

 

Following from the last post, here’s the new West Central block development as it appears as part of the neighbourhood. Here’s a fun game: compare this view with the one in this post. In that picture, Tower House, a minimalist multi-storey cuboid, looms over its low-rise neighbours and is scheduled for demolition, finally erasing the last traces of the unpopular 1960s experiment with high-rise high-density housing; meanwhile, the brand, spanking new West Central, a minimalist multi-storey cuboid, er, looms over its low-rise neighbours and heralds the first chapter of a brave new world that we’ve, er, seen before and rejected. Like a game of whack-a-mole the moment one goes down another pops up somewhere else, identical to the last, and the town’s housing policy seems ever more absurd.