Robin Hood Gardens façade

Robin Hood Gardens was a social housing estate in east London designed by architects Alison and Peter Smithson to prioritise community life.

You are on a ‘Street in the Sky’ walkway. Julie Brown, who lived in flat 93, remembers ‘there used to be groups of us sitting on the balcony, and you could still push your pushchair past. It was community spirited. There was a togetherness.’

Residents lived on the estate from 1972 until 2024. After its partial demolition in 2017, the V&A collected a section of the west block to preserve this vision of architecture that centres community.