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One Croydon — the iconic Richard Seifert building formerly known as the NLA Tower — could be turned into residential apartments. It may also get listed.
The polygonal building — a sci-fi totem of Croydon's days as a corporate boom town in the 1960s and 70s — has become an iconic part of the town's skyline. Nicknamed the 'Thrupenny Bit' or the '50p Building' owning to its unique shape, it has appeared in everything from the interactive Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, to the comic zine Ad Astra Per Croydon: The Lost History of London’s Forgotten Spaceport.
With a continued decline in its use as office space — not to mention the fact that Croydon is going through a severe housing crisis — the building's owners of eight years, reports the Twentieth Century Society, have now submitted an application to Croydon Council to adapt the building to feature 250 self-contained flats. The outcome of the application will be decided by 24 September.
Colm Lacey, managing director of Soft Cities and former chief executive of Croydon Council's now-defunct housing developer Brick By Brick, told Architects' Journal that the plans look like 'an interesting conversion of a much loved local landmark', but that potential issues include the 'apparent absence of affordable housing tenures'.
If given the green light, One Croydon — with its stunning views of London/the North Downs, not to mention close proximity to the well-connected East Croydon station — would surely become a seriously hot property. I, for one, wouldn't mind living there.
The Twentieth Century Society, whose bread and butter is celebrating and conserving buildings like One Croydon, support the move, saying "a conversion to residential use is... an obvious and wholly reasonable proposition in principal." Meanwhile, the Society has also applied to have One Croydon listed, something it was previously unsuccessful with back in 2013. Reasons the Twentieth Century Society: "the understanding and appreciation for the commercial architecture of the mid-late 20th century, and in particular the work of Richard Seifert and Partners, has evolved immeasurably over the past decade."
Though widely mocked for its abundance of high-rise office blocks, appreciation for Croydon's modernist skylines has swelled in recent years, with the likes of the Twentieth Century Society, and even the National Trust running talks and tours focussed on some of the town's unique structures.
Another former high-rise office, St George's House, aka the Nestlé Tower, was in the middle of being converted into flats, when it was hampered by a Chinese property crash, and left in limbo.
