Rachel Waller

The Winstanley Park Estate is a social housing residential scheme, re-imagining the on-going regeneration of the Winstanley Estate in Clapham, London. It is looking to explore themes of architectural pleasure alongside the consequences of the English picturesque being transplanted into an urban setting.

The scheme aims to protect London's green space through using its housing as a 'wall'. The form's shape and chequerboard articulation were chosen to reflect on the varying neighbourhood typologies surrounding, as well as to create a definite signifier and backdrop of, and for, the internal park space.

Pleasure is the feeling of satisfaction, enjoyment, and happiness. It is generally experienced through events, appreciation of objects, social interaction, etc. and is often associated with having more freedom, time, and opportunities, alongside less responsibility, or a larger support network. The amount of pleasure someone might feel throughout their life, therefore, could be considered as having a correlation with their cultural background, economic/employment status, living arrangements, etc. 

Finding and creating pleasure within architecture can be considered as a polarising topic, often because of its difficult connotations with regards to classism, wealth divides, racism, sexism, and more recently, the environmental crisis. 

Architectural pleasure can remain undefined, as something unable to be put into words but caused by specific choices in composition, proportion, and atmosphere. This kind of architectural pleasure is not necessarily out of reach en masse, but is made by good, often deliberate, architectural intervention, which might be a privilege in itself to own or afford the services of. 

Does pleasure have a place in architecture, outside of exorbitant wealth and excess? And what are the benefits of its inclusion?

Alternatively, it can be said that when creating architectural pleasure there is a tension between designing for necessity and luxury, which can manifest in an excess of material use, frivolous detailing, a disregard for efficiency, and/or high cost. Even something as simple as being able to buy land in a desirable area could be considered as a privilege. 

If arguments are made for pleasure within architecture, it must first be considered that pleasurable architecture is currently not the standard of building. 

Can pleasure be made more conscious of its current prejudices? Can it be distilled to core elements to be made more accessible?

In domesticity, the politics of pleasure and the tensions between are incredibly forthright. This is because the experience of space is not pure formal appreciation but also ethnographical, which includes the relationships between the inhabitants, each other, and the dwelling. Much of a person's well-being and health relies on a healthy, supported home, which takes into consideration both the physical and perceived/felt attributes of the space.

Is there a way to transplant methods of provision of pleasure from isolated examples into the more common residential vernacular?

In order to supplement my research into architecture pleasure in the context of Lutyens', a discussion of how the English picturesque created aesthetic and cultural ideals was undertaken in written form, becoming my History and Theory Studies essay. The abstract for this essay is found below.

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In the late 18th century, the picturesque movement emerged as a popular choice in aesthetics of landscaping, architecture, writing, and the arts. In England, the picturesque was most obviously seen in the garden design and landscape paintings of the time, and the cultural impact of the movement has lasted the lifespans’ of its inspired works. The architect Edwin Lutyens’ early domestic works of architecture can be positioned alongside the methodologies and indicators of the picturesque, as well as alongside the cultural and societal consequences of the movement, some hundred years later. Both the picturesque and Lutyens’ works have been criticised as hiding a quiet violence behind gentleman-like, structured, forms – violence in the forms of discrimination, class division, etc.

In current times, Lutyens’ domestic architecture, and consequently the culture of the picturesque, is still seen as desirable to inhabit. This text will analyse the English picturesque and its modern-day consequences through analysis of the Lutyens’ project Lambay Castle, its story, structures, and aesthetics.