"When the slabs went down on the first 21 houses Wates held a celebratory party. It was 1968, and it was a funny, crazy event. We had Swiss music, there were girls with Swiss flag miniskirts and a lot of Swiss cheese and cheddar, there was beer and Guinness…" Hans Hostettler, founding member of Atelier 5.

Atelier 5 was founded in 1955 by Erwin Fritz, Samuel Gerber, Rolf Hesterberg, Hans Hostettler and Alfredo Pini (and later Niklaus Morgenthaler). Four of the five founding members worked together in the studio of Hans Brechbühler, who had in turn studied under Le Corbusier in the 1930s. Without enough work in the older architect’s office, the group began looking for opportunities for their own designs, along with Samuel Gerber who had recently returned from studying the landscape designer Burle Marx in Brazil.

Initially, they intended to build houses for themselves and their families, but after approaching the owner of a large site on rolling countryside overlooking the Aare River just outside Bern in Switzerland, their ideas quickly turned to a larger residential project. The resulting Halen Estate, built in 1961, has become the canonical prototype for low-rise, high density housing in the last half of the 20th Century. The houses at St Bernards in Croydon, are very much influenced by this earlier design.

Atelier 5’s project at Halen is known as a Siedlung, or housing development, which speaks to Swiss modern Movement ideals as well more traditional ideas of villages and towns. In total 78 houses were finished including those for the architects themselves (some of which still live there). The design follows Le Corbusier’s Modular theory, which the members tested on their own families. They devised are two simple types of layout, which are set across three stories on a narrow four or five metre profile. With car-free walkways, the site is an urban oasis in the countryside. Two annexes, Thalmatt I and Thalmatt II were later added.

The houses follow many of the same principles of those at Halen, reproduced however in London Stock brick rather than concrete. Importantly, both groups of houses are private at a communal and individual level. The stepped levels are surrounded by mature trees that are older than the buildings, with views outwards rather than over the neighbours.