Moderate rapture

Architect-led large-scale public housing schemes were common in the United Kingdom from 1946 right up to 1981. However, over the last twenty years, there has been little significant architectural input into the private sector's large housing developments. Buschow Henley's competition-winning entry for St. Mary's Island (arq5/3) is therefore one of the first schemes of its kind — and of particular interest to an older generation of architects who virtually specialized in housing. In this short review, BILL UNGLESS who, with his partner, Michael Neylan, was responsible for some of the most humane and successful housing projects of the 1960s and '70s, appraises the St. Mary's Island scheme.