The London Borough of Camden is home to some of the most exciting and avant-garde post-war housing schemes in the country. The amalgamation of the three metropolitan boroughs of St Pancras, Hampstead and Holborn in 1965, made the new Borough of Camden one of the wealthiest in London. At the top of this Labour-led council’s agenda was housing, and with Sydney Cook (1910–79) as borough architect it soon gained a reputation as a leader in imaginative low-rise, high-density, high-quality developments.

Cook, who was previously the borough architect of Holborn, put together a formidable team of young talented architects including Neave Brown, Peter Tábori, Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth. He was unique in encouraging his team to come up with new ideas for housing with site-specific solutions — he rejected standardised planning — and Camden Architecture Department soon gained international acclaim.

Mansfield Road is constructed in concrete block crosswalls on concrete strip footings with concrete floor slabs; the rendered block work is painted a crisp white with contrasting stained black joinery — motifs that came to be known as the ‘Camden style’. The terrace is sunk below street level to match the height of the houses on Elaine Grove and Oak Village. Access to the dwellings is by a raised covered walkway.

The development was neither cheap nor easy to build, and to obtain a tender list, Camden had to approach sixty contractors. Only two tenders were received, both around £1.8m, compared to the estimated £1.2m. In 1974 a total figure of £1.7m was agreed. Delays and setbacks meant it would take a further six years for it to be completed.

Internally the clever split-level cross section, skylights and full-height glazing make the flats and maisonettes seem larger than their actual square footage. The quality of detailing — such as large areas of glazing, large sliding doors, flush skirting boards — is exceptional. The red tiles that dominate the walkway are also used in the interiors.

There are a total of 64 flats and maisonettes, with four variations of dwellings. The upper ‘A’ dwellings are largely two-bedroom, with some three-bedroom, across three storeys. The lower ‘B’ units are are either one-bedroom on two levels, or three-bedrooms across three levels. Each dwelling has its own front door and is given either a generous roof terrace (A maisonettes), a garden and/or a balcony (B flats).