Explanation of flat types for Original Barbican
1A 1B 1C 2A 2B 2C 3A 3B 3C 4A 4B 4C 5A 6B 7C 8A 8B 8C 9A 9B 9C 10 12 13 14 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 58 60 61 63/64 67/68 70 71 72 73 74 76 78 79 80 81 84 85 86 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 118 119 120 121 F1A F1D F1E F2A F2B F2C F3C M2A M2B M2C M3A M3B M3C M3D M3E M4A P1D P2A P2B
Studios | 1 bed | 2 beds | 3+ beds | Towers | Maisonettes | Penthouses | Garden
Explanation of flat types for Frobisher Crescent
7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 9.10
Studios | 1 bed | 2 beds | 3+ beds | Maisonettes | Penthouses
Explanation of flat types for Blake Tower
Flat Types 42 45 46 47 48 49 50 52 54 60 61 65 66 67 70 71 72 76 77 78 82 84 88 93 100 102 108 137 Pen1 Pen 2
Flats LG21 LG22 LG11 LG12 LG13 1 2 3 11 12 13 14 21 22 23 24 25 31 32 33 34 35 41 42 43 44 45 51 52 53 54 55 61 62 63 64 65 71 72 73 74 75 81 82 83 84 91 92 93 94 101 102 103 104 111 112 113 114 121 122 123 124 131 132 133 134 141 142 143 151 152 153 161 162
Floors LG2 LG1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16-17
Studios | One-bed flats | Two-bed flats | Three-bed flats | Bathrooms | Kitchens | Winter Gardens | Balconies
The Barbican Estate, including Frobisher Crescent, was built in the 1970s. Frobisher Crescent was meant to be a residential block like all the others, but for some reason the City decided at the last moment to use the premises instead as offices. In 2009-10 the City in conjunction with United House turned the top three floors of Frobisher Crescent into 69 apartments.
Frobisher Crescent is a curved building, and the curve is not uniform – it extends in width, and flattens out slightly, on the eastern side. So there was not much scope for flats to be tidily uniform in size and layout. Nonetheless, while there are many one-off flats, there are also quite a number of flats which share identical configurations.
The developers assigned ‘flat types’ to all the different flat layouts. Some – like 7.5 – simply equate to single flats, but others – like 7.2 – are layouts which apply to several flats.
Frobisher Crescent flat types are easy to distinguish from Original Barbican or Blake Tower flat types because they are always a number and a decimal number – e.g. 7.2, 8.5, or 9.10.
Type 8.3 (but no other type) has two versions which only differ slightly, and so are known as 8.3A and 8.3B.
The number before the decimal tells you which floor a flat type is on. So, 7.2 is on the 7th floor (the lowest residential floor), 8.5 is on the 8th floor (the middle residential floor) and – apologies for telling you the obvious – 9.10 is on the top floor.
The ‘7’s and the ‘8’s are not all that different from each other; they are all regular flats on one level. Flats on the 7th and 8th floors with the same number after the decimal are usually quite similar. Type 7.2 and Type 8.2 are very similar, for example. The 8th floor version is usually slightly larger than the 7th floor version.
The ‘9’s are duplex flats with a ‘ground floor’ and a smaller upper floor, so they are rather different from the flats on the lower floors.