Oral history audio recordings with Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) staff.
A collection of oral history audio recordings of interviews with Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) staff (architects, engineers, surveyors and managers) about the development of Central Milton Keynes (CMK). It also includes one interview with a local farmer whose land was compulsorily purchased by the Development Corporation. The interviews were carried out by Roger Kitchen and edited by Marion Hill.
Creator
Living Archive
Extent
32 digital recordings
Contributor
Roger Kitchen
Reference number
CMK/001
Records in this Group
Following work as an architect at Runcorn new town, where he worked with Fred Roche, Frank Henshaw and Derek Walker, David applied for a post as architect for South MK at Milton Keynes when Fred was appointed General Manager. He notes that he made a point of seeing the Walter Bor Masterplan of MK ...
Syd Green describes how he came to be an architect, and talks about working in private practice on developing a large covered shopping centre in Luton. He gained valuable experience on this complex project, but but then moved applied to Milton Keynes; in January 1971 he was interviewed by Derek Walker and appointed to ...
Syd comments that the rectilinear grid design of the Shopping Building made life easier for detailed design; he produced working drawings like a series of maps, with grid references. He notes that the sites for all the services were included: ‘…ventilation …electricity … drainage, everything’. He comments that normally ‘contractors do the detailed design ...
Syd recalls early discussions about building height in CMK and concerns about increased density and the effect on traffic management if high rise buildings were permitted. A key fact which led to the decision on building height was the Fire Brigade requirement for sprinklers, and the need to bring the water from Bow Brickhill, which ...
Trevor describes his education and early training in architecture, in Leeds and then at the Architectural Association (AA). He talks of AA influence on him and on MK: ‘I think Milton Keynes was heavily influenced by people who were all at the AA …in the early sixties and most of them were qualifying in ’62 ...
In part 2, Trevor describes how the City Centre housing structure plan was drawn up by a small, young team of about six over a period of eighteen months. With possibly a thousand houses per grid square, there was nothing on this scale being produced elsewhere. He comments: ‘…the three-storey townhouse type was ...
Robert says that he has: ‘a passionate interest in the interaction between the way in which people use buildings and the built artefact’. He notes that his view, as a graduate of the Cambridge School, was different from many other CMK architects, who had studied at the Architectural Association: ‘the Cambridge School was particularly interested ...
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