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Destination 1: PLACE/Ladywell. Bit of local pride at this amazing council project providing accommodation for homeless people, just the other side of Lewisham town centre from us.
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First we watched a film about the project – good background. This was in the small screening space provided in response to local demand in the consultation for a cinema of some kind.
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The flats are all pre-fabricated off-site and then delivered in sections and joined together. They're really high-quality but also much cheaper than conventional building.
bitospud:
Lovely lounge and kitchen etc. All so nice, I'd imagine the homeless families housed here will never want to move back out to the usually inferior private rented sector!
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Destination 2: Spring Gardens, a hostel for homeless people, in Hither Green. That odd higher-up bit, The Tower, is where people preparing to move out are moved to first, to acclimatise them to not sharing a floor with lots of others, and help them symbol
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There'd been some confusion about the opening time of Spring Gardens for Open House London, with the guide saying 10.30 but the staff expecting 12.00. Fortunately when we arrived at 10.35 they still let us in and we even got a tour from the manager!
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Our next destination involved walking past this excellent recent addition to the area, a huge mural inspired by the way Hither Green is bisected by by the railway line.
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There's one of those big warehouse shows called Grand Designs Live, but Open House London is the real thing – wandering into people's actual unusually architected homes and having a good nose around.
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This home was lovely, so light and airy, lots of cleverly positioned skylights and a couple of good little bits of outdoor space, one at the front…
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No better way to store utilities in a utility room, surely. And after a 10-minute whistlestop dash around this place, we were off to central London for the Refugees Welcome march. More Open House London afterwards...
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Quay House is a sort of quirky conversion/replacement of a milk depot – now a home and architectural studio and sort of gallery, I think.
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Bizarrely we bumped into friends here, having earlier in the day not managed to coordinate to meet up! This place had tea and cake on offer, which to be frank was what swung it as our next destination when we left Parliament Square at the end of the march
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It really is a strange space. So many materials and such weird layouts and access routes.
