Social housebuilder Colin Dixon likes Amsterdam's best homes but would love to wield the wrecking ball on London's worst shopping mall
My wonder is Borneo Sporenburg, the Amsterdam housing development designed by West8.
I believe it is the template for how all UK social housing developments should be designed and built. It boasts all the vital elements required to create a socially seamless community, including optimisation of disused areas and the successful integration of different property types, from terrace housing to apartment blocks.
Borneo Sporenburg also demonstrates how urbanisation does not mean compromising on the size and quality of housing or personal space. Perhaps the greatest testament to it, though, is that it works: a thriving community that cuts across social divides has been created. Why shouldn't social housing be somewhere people want to live, rather than have to live?
Almost 60 Dutch and international architects were involved in the development of Borneo Sporenburg, an innovative dense urban housing scheme in Amsterdam’s docklands. It comprises 2500 dwellings and was completed in 2000.
Elephant & Castle shopping centre - the well-deserved holder of the title of London's ugliest building - is my blunder. Built in 1965, it demonstrates everything that was wrong with the decade's architecture from the crude concrete block exterior to its failure to connect and integrate with the community it was designed to serve. I'm sure it will not be widely missed when it is demolished.
The £1.5bn regeneration project that is about to start at Elephant & Castle in south-east London raises a key question. Once the shopping centre is gone, in 2010, which building will have the dubious honour of topping every list of London’s eyesores?
Postscript
Colin Dixon is managing director of social housing contractor United House
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