Barbican Living
Description of Thomas More House
Thomas More House (completed in September 1973) is a terrace block running east to west along one side of Thomas More garden, the largest of the Barbican gardens. The living rooms of the flats above Podium level look south across the tennis courts and landscaped area behind the City of London School for Girls, while the view north is over the garden, whose other sides are formed by Seddon House on the left and Defoe House opposite.
The Thomas More Highwalk (the section of the podium around Thomas More House) has eight huge concrete containers for plants, each about Portabin-size, which have all been shoved up against the edge of one parapet wall. It looks as if someone left them for the removal men to cart away and they have been forgotten. Nothing seems to grow in them but ivy. Since there is nothing else to enliven the residents’ route home, they really ought to have them positioned at intervals along the highwalk and filled with attractive plants.
There are 4 very similar terrace blocks: Andrewes House and Speed House which face each other over the lake; and Thomas More House and Defoe House, which face each other over Thomas More Gardens. Each block runs from east to west and their flats generally go the whole depth of the block from the front to the back (so residents look out of their windows north and south). Since each flat takes up the depth of the building, there is no central corridor. Instead, there are separate stairwells (with lifts, of course) at regular intervals along the block, and each stairwell has two flats on each floor. It's just like a series of terraced houses, each converted into flats. They each have penthouse flats at the top, 'garden' flats below the Podium level, and 6 floors of flats in between.
It contains 155 flats (numbered 1-155) ranging in size from 1 to 4 rooms. Above podium level there are 6 storeys of flats and 1 of penthouse flats. Most of the flats are Type 20 or Type 21 (with Type 19 flats at the end). On the top floor the penthouses are Type 23. This is virtually the same layout as in the other three similar blocks.
There are 3 storeys of flats below podium level. There is an entrance off a cobbled road at the back, and gates directly onto the garden which provides access from the gardens. The flats on the lowest garden level are studio flats, mainly Type 13 (but with a Type 12 and a Type 14). Above, are two upper levels of larger garden flats of Type 16. All have living rooms facing onto the gardens as opposed to the flats above the Podium which are oriented the other way round.
