Nimtim Architects and artist Katie Schwab selected to create new public squares on the Becontree Estate, marking the 100th anniversary of Britain’s largest council estate

South London practice Nimtim Architects and east London-based textile artist Katie Schwab won the contest for the commission with their proposal Squaring the Corners – a Corner Plot Commission. The project, which commemorates the estate’s 100th anniversary, will see 12 overlooked spaces across the four square mile estate in east London transformed into public squares.

Originally designed under lead architect George Topham Forrest, the Becontree Estate in Dagenham was intended to rehouse people displaced by slum clearance in the East End. The first homes were completed in 1921 and the last in 1935. The centenary commission will focus of the green spaces incorporated into the estate as part of the Garden City movement, reinvigorating them for the some 75,000 residents that live on the estate.

“Becontree set the agenda for housing that put wellbeing and typological innovation at the heart of its design. It was the originator of the cul-de-sac and most houses had both front and back gardens – unprecedented for public housing at the time,” says a statement from the RIBA, which commissioned the project with arts organisation Create London and the support of London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The public realm commission is one of four projects marking the centenary of the Becontree Estate, which includes exhibitions with the artist Verity-Jane Keefe and photographer Kalpesh Lahitgra at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place, and a schools programme directed by the social enterprise POoR Collective at the Mayesbrook Park School in Dagenham.