The Hopkins House at 49a Downshire Hill is the common name given to the high-tech home and workspace in Hampstead, London (1976), designed by architects Michael and Patty Hopkins. [1] [2] It has been described as a "genuine icon of the High Tech movement". [3] The house won a RIBA Award for Architecture in 1977 and a Civic Trust Award in 1979.
Though the house has no formal name (simply a street number 49a) [3] it was the first project of Michael and Patty Hopkins' architecture practice, Michael Hopkins and Partners (now Hopkins Architects), founded in 1976. [4] It remains their "calling card" over 40 years later. [5] The couple believed at the time architecture would soon combine with engineering and increasingly favour prefabricated, ultra-lightweight construction. [3] Design of the slender post and beam structure is attributed to Anthony Hunt, who worked closely with the British High Tech Architects during the 1970s and early 1980s. [6]
The building was designed as "a machine for both living and working in". [2] It was a simple two-storey glass and steel box, with few permanent interior partitions, only occasional plastic panels for privacy of the bathrooms and sleeping areas. The steel frame structure is left clearly visible. [2] Patty Hopkins describes the technique as "really very basic 16th-century engineering", though replacing crafted timber joints with sophisticated metal joints, rods, and tension cables. [3] The house is reached from the street by a 'drawbridge' entering at the first floor level. As such, the house appears to be only one floor in height from the street. It easily gained planning permission because the site was already expected to have a much larger four-storey building developed at that spot. [4] The couple paid £30,000 for the site and a further £20,000 to complete the construction. [4]
The house was used as the offices of Michael Hopkins and Partners for the next eight years [5] (until the practice outgrew the space and moved to Marylebone). It served as an advertisement for the company's work and clients would be keen to visit. [4] The Hopkins family also lived in the building and their three children grew up there. Defying convention, there was nothing to physically distinguish the work space from the living areas, other than the fact the family generally stayed on the ground floor and the work was carried out above. [5] All the same, Patty Hopkins recalled having to hide the bed to make the work area look more professional. She also found it easier to reinforce the children's behavioural boundaries when business was regularly being conducted nearby. [5]
The couple continued to use the house as their London home. The Hopkins House was designated a Grade II* listed building in 2018. [7]
Ernő Goldfinger was a Hungarian-born architect and designer of furniture. He moved to the United Kingdom in the 1930s, and became a key member of the Modernist architectural movement. He is most prominently remembered for designing residential tower blocks, some of which are now listed buildings.
Sir Michael John Hopkins was an English architect.
The year 1976 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Arthur Beresford Pite was a British architect known for creating Edwardian buildings in Baroque Revival, Byzantine Revival and Greek Revival styles.
High-tech architecture, also known as structural expressionism, is a type of late modernist architecture that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture grew from the modernist style, utilizing new advances in technology and building materials. It emphasizes transparency in design and construction, seeking to communicate the underlying structure and function of a building throughout its interior and exterior. High-tech architecture makes extensive use of aluminium, steel, glass, and to a lesser extent concrete, as these materials were becoming more advanced and available in a wider variety of forms at the time the style was developing – generally, advancements in a trend towards lightness of weight.
Hopkins Architects is a prominent British architectural firm established by architects Sir Michael and Patricia, Lady Hopkins.
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The Ossulston Estate is a multi-storey council estate built by the London County Council on Chalton Street in Somers Town between 1927 and 1931. It was unusual at the time both in its inner-city location and in its modernist design, and all the original parts of the estate are now Grade II listed buildings.
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Patricia Ann Hopkins, Lady Hopkins is an English architect and joint winner, along with her husband Sir Michael Hopkins, of the 1994 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture.
William Mortimer (1841/42–1913) was an architect working in Lincoln from around 1858. He also played for the Lincolnshire County Cricket team.
Norah Aiton (1903–1988) was a British architect who was an early proponent of the modernist style. Around 1930 she and her partner Betty Scott set up the architectural practice of Aiton & Scott. Their best-known work is the office building for the Aiton & Company pipe manufacturing company in Derby. This was remarkable both as a striking early example of modernist industrial architecture and also as a building designed by two of the small number of women working in architecture at that time.
Princes House is an office and residential building in the centre of Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. The prominently sited building, an example of Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel's "inimitable response to Modernism", was purpose-built as the headquarters of the Brighton & Sussex Building Society, forerunner of the Alliance & Leicester. The office was later used by Norwich Union, another financial institution, and now houses a restaurant and flats. The steel-framed structure is clad in red bricks with inlaid mosaicwork, forming a carefully detailed façade, and the corner elevation has an arrangement of brickwork and windows which suggests "the pleated folds of a curtain". The building is listed at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
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Moreton House is a detached house on Holly Walk in Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It has been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) since December 1969.
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British high-tech architecture is a form of high-tech architecture, also known as structural expressionism, a type of late modern architectural style that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture grew from the modernist style, using new advances in technology and building materials.