Holding on to arcadia

摘要

In 1977 a radical architecture experiment quietly took place down a hidden cul-de-sac in suburban south London. The houses built in Segal Close, followed in the '80s by more in Walters Way, were the first examples of Walter Segal's now-famous self-build method, whereby future occupants designed and builttheir own homes. The Segal Method was low-carbon and sustainable, the houses' timber frames sitting lightly on stilts with no need for vast amounts of concrete or steel. And it was an architecture of degrowth: the antithesis of profit-driven, carbon-hungry, large-scale development.