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ARTICLE TITLE: The Alternate Corridor Technique in the Housing Project Between 1950 and 1970: Skip-Stop,
Doorstep, and L’Espace Pivot

ARTICLE AUTHOR: Pérez-Duarte, Alejandro F.

VOLUME: 24

ISSUE: 4

MONTH: 11

YEAR: 2021

PAGES: 550-569

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825433
research-article2019
SACXXX10.1177/1206331218825433Space and CulturePérez-Duarte and Penna

Original Article
Space and Culture
2021, Vol. 24(4) 550­–569
The Alternate Corridor Technique © The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
in the Housing Project Between sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1206331218825433
https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331218825433
1950 and 1970: Skip-Stop, journals.sagepub.com/home/sac

Doorstep, and L’Espace Pivot

Alejandro F. Pérez-Duarte1 and Luiza R. M. Penna1

Abstract
Between 1950 and 1970, large housing complexes demonstrated contrasting ways of using
the “alternate corridor” project technique. Key words such as skip-stop, doorstep, and espace
pivot were used to refer to singular spatial devices, responding to different understandings in
architecture. Based on certain convictions of the Modern Movement in Architecture, architects
were confident in promoting design innovations using this technique, initially aimed to reduce
construction costs, in efficient “access distributors” spatial systems. However, some issues
arose afterward, mainly concerning the social organization of the “territory,” intending to
better connect the diverse “human scales.” Focused on the small scale of intermediate collective
spaces, this article proposes a comparative critique of three case studies that share a common
building design technique in the alternate corridor: Pruitt-Igoe, Robin Hood Gardens, and Le-
Mirail, considered to be great achievements of that time but which nowadays have been put into
question or even considered to be complete failures.

Keywords
alternate corridor, housing, intermediate spaces, Pruitt-Igoe, Robin Hood Gardens, Le Mirail

Alternate Corridors in the Modern Movement

The term alternate corridor1 is regularly used to refer to some interior configurations—the result
of a conscious or unconscious design process. Being a premise of several paradigmatic Modern
Movement’s buildings, the alternate corridors as a technique was promoted under a collective
surface–reducing logic, supposedly capable of decreasing construction costs. It was initially
received with enthusiasm and subsequently applied in diverse proposals.
In this sense, the Unité de Marseille is one of the most significant achievements in the alter-
nate corridor configuration to have captured the media’s attention. It was explained by Le
Corbusier through scale models that boasted a virtuous use of geometry and space. These models
inspired other similar solutions and stirred several architects’ imagination toward producing
increasingly more complex designs.2

1Universidade FUMEC, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Corresponding Author:
Alejandro F. Pérez-Duarte, Universidade FUMEC, Rua Ceara 1971, Belo Horizonte, 30130-009, Brazil.
Email: apdf230174@live.com
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 551

Figure 1.  On the left, Ginzburg’s study diagram of alternate corridor models, comparing surface and
volume; Narkomfin’s section was the best result of the study, presented on the right.
Source. Movilla (2015).

Before Le Corbusier, some efforts had already been made to understand the numerous alter-
nate corridor configurations. An interesting case had been Narkomfin’s “F unit” (Moscow,
1928), developed under an almost scientific process that compared different alternate corridor
models. The F unit was, as such, identified as being better suited and more efficient for the col-
lectivized socialist way of living (Movilla & Espegel, 2013; see Figure 1). Another example of
the configuration used before Le Corbusier was the three-two system, first used in the Palace
Gate building (London, 1939), which could not only reduce corridors but also attain up to 40
flexible layouts because of its “planning in section” technique, according to Wells Coates
(Figure 2).3
Shortly after these first attempts, some specialized architecture magazines published their
models, which were received optimistically—particularly those related to the so-called skip-
top4 technique, which in turn raised speculations of the possibilities in massive social hous-
ing.5 Once it started to be used in large-scale housing complexes, the technique was
reappreciated. Modern values, linked to efficiency aspects, were the main interest no more;
instead, social and anthropological issues were now being considered. The usage of different
split levels appeared, being intended to improve the delimitation of social territories in
space.
This led to the identification and classification, in 1967, of a wide variety of sektionshaus
models by the German architect Manfred Zumpe—models that had already been built, but in
this manner, Zumpe added other possibilities that could be eventually further explored6
(Figure 3).
Summing up, from today’s perspective, the different alternate corridor models hide an unwrit-
ten history of architecture and of the way in which it was thought about. What is also important
to observe are the conspicuous space structures inside the models. Having created “access dis-
tributors,” the intermediate zone between the building’s exterior and the living unit’s interior
552 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 2.  Zumpe’s diagram, explaining different alternate corridor models. Classification was organized
considering three aspects: (1) position of the corridor, (2) access to the apartment and private stairs
(inside the apartments), and (3) social (w) and intimate (s) areas. In general terms, the chart horizontally
arranged the models according to the number of floors between corridors and vertically according to
the position of the corridor.
Source. Zumpe (1967).

Figure 3.  Pruitt-Igoe (St. Louis, Missouri, 1954). Note. Large open spaces were created within an
internal street system. Some spaces, such as “space for the elderly” or barbecue area, were scattered
somewhat indistinctly between slabs.
Source. pruitt-igoe.com/urban-history (adapted by the authors)/urbancidades.wordpress.com (CC).

became quite atypical. According to some critics, the “intermediate spaces” represent an impor-
tant, upcoming housing issue. Today’s living unit is in a shrinking process, where an
Existenzminimum phenomenon is constantly compacting the interior private space. If the living
space in home interiors is vanishing, it should be asked as to where day-to-day activities should
take place. The answer is, according to some critics, in all semipublic, semiprivate areas and in
all collective spaces within the blocks and buildings—and that’s where new promise should be
found (Moley, 2006).
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 553

Regarding housing research, intermediate spaces and the alternate corridor buildings could be
topics of interest. Famous and infamous study cases can provide strong material for this matter.
Therefore, we propose here to revisit three high-impact and well-documented cases, focusing on
its halls, corridors, and connections and tracking the project considerations and contrasting those
to postoccupancy observations.

The Study Cases

One example is the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, originally celebrated in Architectural Forum as
a clever organization, a praise that clashed with critics from Rainwater’s (1970) Behind the
Ghetto Walls two decades later. These critics exposed the frightening daily life within the “proj-
ect”—as inhabitants called it. Three years later, Oscar Newman (1973) criticized Pruitt-Igoe’s
spatial configuration, noting specifically on the obscure and virtually hidden collective space
typical of the skip-stop. Architects began to be held responsible for this—a belief exacerbated by
Charles Jencks’s devastating comments that contributed to demonize the building as an icon of
the modern architectural failure (1977); albeit, more recently, Bristol (1991) identified a mystifi-
cation process by the mass media, which distorted some of the original events and in turn helped
create an architectural cautionary tale, inspiring the documentary film The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
(Chandra Ward, 2012).
A comprehensive description of what really happened can be found in Alexander von
Hoffman’s (1995) article, where he asked the question as to why Pruitt Igoe was built and why it
was designed in that way, suggesting that the failure was caused by a conjunction of different
circumstances, not only architectural. However, after von Hoffman, Le Corbusier’s influence and
the modern enthusiasm in high-rise housing and its innovations—such as the skip-stop—are
important factors.
Today’s question is whether architecture is an alibi or not. Suspicions seem to be raised when
looking at other similar housing cases, with similar endings. Le Mirail and Robin Hood Gardens
are two other instances, both intended to be developed in an innovative way, as shown by some
previous Peter Smithson’s publications in Architectural Design.
Regarding Robin Hood Gardens, other clues of this intention can also be found in
Architectural Forum’s detailed description, in 1972, exposing the project’s principles. Just a
year later, however, A. Pangaro declared his disapproval of the housing complex, predicting
that the corridor configuration would cause trouble. In the 1980s, J. Furse surveyed the com-
plex with interviews, exposing the oppressive environment within the streets-in-the-sky. The
complex resurfaced recently as a topic of discussion, when its demolition was made public
and well-known architects—such as Rem Koolhaas—arose to defend it as being an architec-
tural piece of historic interest, in spite of its dubious success. Le Mirail is another case recently
caught in polemic debates, considering the plans to partially demolish and rebuild it. Even if
less documented when compared with the other two case studies, it presents issues relevant to
the present discussion, being the most extensive example that organizes its intermediate
spaces under an extreme model of efficiency. Strong observations on the intermediate spaces
in Le Mirail’s are found in recent authors, such as Moley (2006) and, particularly, Martin
Domínguez (2013).

Pruitt-Igoe, Skip-Stop, and the Stigmatization of the Alternate Corridors

Pruitt-Igoe (St. Louis, Missouri, 1950-1954) was composed of 11 floors and 33 slab blocks, set-
tled facing a north-south axis, and occupying a very small area at the ground level. The complex
had 2,700 apartments and was capable of housing up to 15,000 people. It was an impressive and
bold proposal at the time (Figure 3). The Pruitt-Igoe was among the largest housing projects in
554 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 4.  Skip-stop system in Pruitt-Igoe Housing.

Source. “Slum surgery in St. Louis” (1951, p. 130).

the United States to use the skip-stop model. Architectural Forum announced “tremendous sav-
ings estimated at about 12% of construction cost”:

Elevators stop every three floors, and dwellers on the intervening levels walk up or down to their
apartments. This money-saving feature is not new; but combining it with an open gallery on elevator
stop floors in these buildings, in order to eliminate hallways and create “neighborhoods” at different
floor levels, has already been the subject of so much interest and emulation by other cities’ Public
Housing Authorities. . . . the architects’ lawyers has decided it is patentable and has filed. (“Slum
surgery in St. Louis,” 1951, p. 130)

Additionally, Pruitt-Igoe’s skip-stop hallways in the middle floor incorporated collective galler-
ies in the south facade so that “summer shade and winter sun by the ratio of gallery depth to
height” was a guarantee (Figure 4).
Galleries were narrow, at 11 ft × 85 ft (3.3 m × 25 m), but wide enough, in theory, to incor-
porate a laundry and children’s playing area. The idea was to “move the services upstairs, where
they are handier” so that “a mother can be doing laundry within sight and hearing of child playing
in the sun. And all this is not too far away from whatever may be cooking on the apartment stove”
(“Slum surgery in St. Louis,” 1951, p. 131).
Following Architectural Forum’s description, slab blocks were an improved morphology,
“planned harder and tighter” to be capable of “undersell (the cross plan) by 16% without cutting
room sizes” (“Slum surgery in St. Louis,” 1951, p. 132). Blocks were built in variations of three
different modules to adapt to topography. Apartment units had the entrance door at a collective
stairwell—an arrangement derived of fire regulations (Figure 5).
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 555

Figure 5.  Above, upper and lower plan of the skip-stop organization; in the middle, gallery intermediate
plant, on floors 4, 7, and 10, with elevator stop; below, access plan to the slabs.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on “Slum surgery in St. Louis,” 1951, pp. 132-133).

At the ground level, between the block slabs, there were 200-ft.-wide interstices (60 m), creat-
ing a “river of trees . . . a long narrow park, more useful than a square park,” where diverse col-
lective uses were scattered, somewhat randomly: “recreation area,” “seniors,” “skateboard,” and
“games” (“Slum surgery in St. Louis,” 1951, p. 135) (see Figure 6).
One year before Pruitt-Igoe’s collapse, Rainwater (1970) published his classical sociological
study picturing “a community scandal, both because of certain unattractive design features (for
example, the elevators stop only on the fourth, seventh, and tenth floors) and because of the wide
publicity given to crimes and accidents in the project” (p. 1). Rainwater described the housing
complex as surrounded by invisible walls, which confined a harmful environment of poverty and
lack of hope, comparing it to a ghetto. A depressive and aggressive space characterized the resi-
dents’ daily life, he said, in which vandalism and crime were out of police’s control; it was “a city
within a city, and the people make their own laws” (p. 13). Residents identified it as a vast and
anonymous area:

If I do something on the outside of the project and then run into the project here, I’ll bet you that I can
come in here and knock on any of these doors and find somebody who will let me hide. Somebody is
always robbing a store or a filling station around here and then running to the project for protection.
The police never find them and they’re hiding right in these apartments all the time. (p. 16)

Why have they specified or narrowed down one of their victims to come from this project? Because
the project is a jungle. I can hide in the project, but I can’t hide outside the project; too wide open. I
can go and select a victim, assassinate that victim, and go to anybody’s house in the project that I
want to and will be shielded as long as it’s been a white man. (p. 38)

Rainwater (1970) said that the aggressive environment consequently turned all collective areas
in feared spaces, encouraging the residents’ reclusion inside the apartment units, a phenomenon
that the author strongly identified in women who “particularly find themselves confined to their
556 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 6.  Ground floor of a Pruitt-Igoe slab and immediate surroundings, such as the linear parks and
internal streets.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on pruitt-igoe.com/urban-history).

apartments, by their responsibilities for numerous children and for keeping the house operating,
and because of their suspicion of those outside.” The author calculated that “they spend no more
than ten hours a week outside the apartment” (pp. 121-122). Loneliness and desolation were
apparently frequently mentioned by residents during interviews.
It was said that the oppressive home environment affected children profoundly. Halls, stair-
ways, breezeways under the buildings were of great worry, as Rainwater (1970) explained,

Parents often take strong measures to insulate their children from the outside world which they regard
as morally dangerous to them. They seek to keep them in their apartments as much as possible, and
they worry whenever they are outside but not in school. They seem to assume that if the child can be
insulated from the outside world he will manage to grow up without its unrespectable and dangerous
potentialities rubbing off on him. (p. 74)

During the two decades, the most admired features of the Pruitt-Igoe, the skip-stop and its inter-
mediate spaces had become not only unpopular but also problematic—a target of residents’
claims:

There’s too much broken glass and trash around outside. The elevators are dangerous. The elevators
don’t stop on every floor, so many people have to walk up or down to get to their apartments . . .
People who don’t live in the project come in and make a lot of trouble by fights, stealing, drinking,
and the like . . . Little children hear bad language all the time, so they don’ t realize how bad it is. The
laundry rooms aren’t safe: clothes get stolen and people get attacked. The children run wild and cause
all kinds of damage. People use the stairwells and laundry rooms for drinking and things like that. A
woman isn’t safe in the halls, stairways, or elevators. (p. 4)

There’s so much trouble in the laundry room having your clothes taken that you just have to stay there
with them all the time. I’ve had overalls, sheets, and pillow cases stolen. You can’t hang nothing up
there without them being had to bring up these children myself without the help of a father. (p. 233)

Oscar Newman’s Defensible Space (1973) later critique began to point directly toward the archi-
tecture of the project, understanding that modern high-rise structures tended to isolate people in
“a clear gesture of retreat and indifference . . . when people care about their own protection, as
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 557

Figure 7.  Skip-stop collective circulations in Pruitt Igoe. Intermediate floors connected with stairwells
and elevators created a “vertical labyrinth,” facilitating “unwanted behaviors.” Stairs connect the floors
vertically, being the main access to apartments.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on “Slum surgery in St. Louis,” 1951, pp. 132-133).

individuals only and not as a community, the battle against crime is lost” (p. 3). To avoid that
phenomenon, this author argued that defensible spaces could be created within semipublic and
semiprivate areas, where opportunities for “natural surveillance” could be encouraged and
enhanced, overlapping different uses in the nearby entrances. The continued presence of neigh-
bors, especially near entrance areas, could facilitate the detection of intruders, easily identified
and indirectly discouraged to enter.
Pruitt-Igoe, however, was, as Newman observed, antisystematic about all collective use posi-
tions, spreading them at ground level around slab blocks with no hierarchy or strategic planning.
What was worse, access to the blocks at the ground level could happen indistinctly from any side
of the slab, in an open hall without doors, which hindered control and prevented any possibility
of “natural surveillance.”
One of the most significant problematic spaces Newman observed was on the levels above
ground, in the skip-stop system, which pulverized vertical circulations in up to six stairwells
(Figure 7).
Passages inside slabs were complex. To get to their apartments, residents needed to go up or
down from the intermediate elevator floor, crossing dark stairwells and missing “visual opportu-
nities”—in Newman’s words. There, an enormous number of paths were generated:
558 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 8.  Smithson’s re-creation of the Five Point of Le Corbusier, appearing a third column for the
New Humanism. Alternate corridors were a suggestive premise for the new habitat.
Source. P. Smithson (1974, modified by the authors).

The labyrinthine access routes and corridors make recognition of neighbors difficult to impossible;
there are simply too many people coming and going. Consequently, residents express fear in using
the interior corridors. The many access doors to fire stairs provide almost endless opportunities for
intruders to make their way through the building. (Newman, 1973, p. 98)

Thus, it was not surprising that collective galleries at the intermediate levels became problematic
areas, devoid of inhabitants’ sights; they became an easy target for vandalism and an ideal place
for criminal behavior. They were “not used as gathering and sitting areas because they are dis-
sociated from apartment unit entries” (Newman, 1973, pp. 58-59). When maintenance became
unsustainable, Pruitt-Igoe was finally imploded in 1972; impacting images of clouds, dust, and
destruction were released into the media, creating a myth (Bristol, 1991), an architectural legend,
frequently recalled when one speaks of high-rise social housing problems (Samaratunga &
O’Hare, 2012).
Based on this, the alternate corridors, which generated the “vertical labyrinths” of the skip-
stop system, did not seem to be a good idea. At least, they should have been used differently; this
was demonstrated by later attempts.

“New Humanism” and the alternating corridors: Toulouse Le Mirail and

L’Espace Pivot
A similar sociological point of view can be found years afterward among Team X members,
when the “new humanism” was interpreting the alternate corridor technique7 differently. As evi-
dence, one can point out to the P. Smithson’s “new principles” of architecture, synthetized in a
re-creation diagram of the famous Le Corbusier’s Five Points. There, a third added column sug-
gested some kind of skip-stop system, identifying new alternate corridor potentialities (Figure 8).
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 559

Figure 9.  On the left, aerial view of Le Mirail (Bellefontaine and Reynerie quartiers); on the right, site
plan from the architect: three different typologies were created for the housing complex.
Source. Google/authors’ diagram (based on Candilis, Woods, & Josic, 1975).

At this point, it is interesting to remember P. Smithson’s doorstep notion, an inspiring figure

that helped raise awareness in alternate corridor planning on the solutions in intermediate space.
A new sensibility was intended to be raised:

There’s one more thing that has been growing in my mind ever since the Smiths uttered the word
doorstep . . . to establish the in-between is to reconcile conflicting polarities . . . Two worlds clashing,
no transition. The individual on one side, the collective on the other. It’s terrifying. Between the two,
society in general throws up lots of barriers, whilst architects in particular are so poor in spirit that
they provide doors 2 in. thick and 6 ft. high; flat surfaces in a flat surface—of glass as often as not.
Just think of it: 2 in.—or ¼ in. It is glass between such fantastic phenomena—hair-raising, brutal like
a guillotine. Every time we pass through a door like that we’re split in two but we don’t take the
notice any more, and simply walk on, halved. (A. Van Eyck, cited in A. Smithson, 1968, p. 96)

Collective corridors were, in fact, metaphorically renamed as streets-in-the-sky or street-decks,

thus being recognized as a place for possibilities of social exchange. The doorstep had the impor-
tant function of protecting a family’s life inside the living unit from the noise and undesired
sights of the outside word.
Years before, during the 1950s, Candilis and Woods had already opened discussions in the
same sense for the interior privacy and protection, introducing the “semiduplex”8 model, which
influenced Le Mirail’s slab blocks configurations.
The Le Mirail housing complex (1961) was a four-district ambitious urban plan on the out-
skirts of Toulouse to house 100,000 inhabitants; however, only half of it was actually built
(Bordenave, 2014). Its planning was based on a double layer that separated vehicular traffic from
pedestrians (Figures 9 and 10). Vehicles were to remain on the ground level, so that pedestrians
could walk on an elevated deck with a geometry that reminded of the figure of a mathematical
fractal, with derivations that interconnected different areas of the complex. The elevated deck
was later known as the dalle. Commerce and other different social activities were merged and
juxtaposed at the first floor of it, intended to reunite and intensify community life (Martin
Domínguez, 2013).
Among the other different typologies—patio villas and 2 to 4 floors small blocks—the big
blocks were the most visible, organized in a sequence of up to 14 floors of interlocked slabs
(Figure 9). For the alternating corridor technique, big blocks were a bold proposal. Elevators and
collective stairs were regularly located at slab joints, linking only the 6th, 10th, and 14th floors
560 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 10.  La Mirail’s pedestrian corridor at the first level, the dalle.
Source. Candilis et al. (1975).

Figure 11.  Apartment types A, B, C, and D in the Big Blocks: Big Block perspective view and section with
collective corridors and its access.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on Candilis et al., 1975).

to long corridors. Additional stairwells were created along the corridors between every two apart-
ments, opening an entrance to other apartments as well (Figure 11).
The building worked as an efficient machine “access distributor,” as Zumpe (1967) said, call-
ing it Verteilergängen system. Comparing it with Pruitt-Igoe’s skip-stop, Verteilergängen system
was an extreme version for circulation surface decrease. In all 14 floors, only three corridors
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 561

Figure 12.  Three possible variations of A and B type apartments, according to habitat évolutif idea.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on Papillault & Lusaac, 2008).

were needed, in contrast to the four or more that would be needed in the skip-stop. It represented
a cost reduction model in the same line of Narkomfin’s efficiency researches; an issue that was
already in Candilis’s concerns as some previous publications show (1965).
However, Le Mirail’s most important innovation was not exactly in the intermediate spaces
but in its connection with the living units. Along upper corridors, there were four mirrored typol-
ogies. Smaller unit types “C” and “D” were supposed to be delicately planned in relation to its
corridors connection. All entrance doors were 23 in. (60 cm) above corridor level, so three steps
interposed between interior and exterior areas. A kind of a “porch” was then created for protect-
ing the apartment’s private territory from indiscreet views, a “doorstep” device.
The split level created at the corridors was replicated on the other noncorridor floors, where
another innovative model unit appeared. As in Pruitt-Igoe, mirrored “A” and “B” apartment types
were only accessed through the stairwells (Figure 12). Its interior was split in two ambits with
also a 23 in. (60 cm) level difference. On one side, at the entrance level, was a kitchen, a living
room, and a “public balcony.” At the upper opposite side, a disassociated bathroom, one or two
children’s dormitories,9 the parent’s dormitory, and a “family balcony.”
Split level was, in Candilis’s explanations, a way defining two zones; a “gathering space” and
a place to “isolate oneself,” having its epicenters polarized by the two opposed balconies (Figure
13). In the central bay of the apartment, however, a continuum10 was created. The parents’ dormi-
tory had a sliding door, opening to the elevated platform 23 in. (60 cm) above the living room. It
was a sort of mezzanine amid the two ambits, called l’espace pivot.
According to Candilis, this curious “kneecap” device bounded the two different realms of
the domestic interior and resolved “what is lacking in almost all (traditional) dwellings for
harmonizing a family’s daily life” to maintain control over the entire household (Papillault
& Lusaac, 2008):

It is the heartland between the public part, where one lives together, and the private part, where
one needs intimacy. It is the place where the woman can do work without putting a mess in the
room where she may receive an unexpected visit. Closing the large sliding door of the parents’
room, the living room is extended in volume. By drawing a curtain between the platform and the
living room, the space of the rooms takes on a new dimension.11 (Candilis, cited in Papillault &
Lusaac, 2008, p. 187)

In present times, Le Mirail shows signs of hardship. A recent coverage described deplorable liv-
ing conditions in the “crazy stairwells, badly-shaped corridors, broken windows, lifts out of
order, heating in the harbor, cockroaches” where “tenants of the Varese building at Reynerie are
562 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 13.  Isometric view of A and B type, indicating l’espace pivot structure. It creates an intermediate
space between the intimate and the social areas in the interior of the apartment.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on Papillault & Lusaac, 2008).

reduced to this unenviable daily life . . . the claims are numerous, which affect the minimal
unhealthy of the building as much as the relocation program of the tenants” (Dubois-Chabert,
2007). The dalle, following Martin Domínguez (2013), lost many of its original uses, such as
schools and supermarkets, being little by little dehumanized and converted into a “mere foot-
bridge.” On the other side, the excessive dimensions of the dalle weakened its potential for social
condensation; “it was never ‘congested enough’, falling to provide enough ‘eyes’ for a natural
control” (p. 104).
What was intended to be vital space, with an intense neighborhood life and cohesive commu-
nity in the dalle, never worked as such. According to Martin Domínguez (2013), the upper cor-
ridors created an alternative and competing path to the dalle, reducing its pedestrian traffic and
decreasing any kind of social condensation. Today, the dalle is being completely and silently
demolished, almost without a proper academic debate for other alternative solutions. Opposed to
the dalle failure, inside the living units, l’espace pivot apparently attained inhabitant’s expecta-
tions, and Le Mirail’s “A” and “B” apartment configurations are nowadays appreciated by its
occupants (Papillault & Lusaac, 2008).

The Robin Hood Gardens and the Doorstep

In a 1959 article, P. Smithson showed excitement about the Le Mirail planning, describing it as
an antagonist to Le Corbusier’s Unités “vertical garden cities” that “isolated and desolated” peo-
ple. In contrast, Le Mirail had a “sense of connection,” considering important issues such as
“walking distances.” Still, the innovative project made him express doubts, asking if “the effect
of the Saturday and Sunday regional shoppers be nice or nasty for the people who live in Le
Mirail all the time?” responding that it was “too early yet to say.”
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 563

Figure 14.  Aerial view of Robin Hood Gardens (London, 1972): On the left, original site plan for the
housing project.
Source. Einsenman (1972).

Robin Hood Gardens (London, 1972) seems to follow similar approaches. It had 213 apart-
ments and accommodated up to 700 residents, a small complex compared with the other two
observed study cases, yet equivalent considering the cultural impact, an iconic example capable
also of creating an architectural myth. The project was organized in two face-to-face strips
formed by concatenated slab blocks, joined in “zig-zagging” angulations. In this way, the monot-
onous deep perspective, typical of modern corridors, such as Narkomfin’s, was avoided (Figure
14). Intending to protect the apartments, corridors were at the exterior side of the block, opening
view to the city streets, but not to an interior central area, where a grass elevation land art piece
was placed.
In 1972, the same year after its opening, Architectural Design published a comprehensive
article about Robin Hood Gardens, revealing one of the project’s premises in the use of “type-
form elements” which could “provide a literal separation between the public and private domain
. . . an articulation between public deck and private cell” (Einsenman, 1972, p. 588). Apartments
in the upper floors were variations of a basic section composed of three levels, having the corri-
dor level in the middle; an alternate corridor model close to Pruitt-Igoe’s skip-stop, but differing
in the access system. Robin Hood Gardens had concentrated entrance doors at the intermediate
floor, so that pedestrian traffic was canalized in corridors and not on the staircases, reproducing
the idea of street-in-the-sky; units were understood as row of dwellings in front of a typical city
street. Vitality and social exchange were expected to happen (Figure 15).
Inside, apartments incorporated a private staircase that led the rest of the apartment, above or
below. Space structure created two well-defined ambits: a public area at the entrance level and an
intimate area upstairs or downstairs.12
One of the features was, precisely, at the entrance doors, a recess in the front; a niche at the
corridor level with a particular function

is intended [the niche] as shielded “pause places” before entering the house—a stoop rather than a
doorstep. These spaces offer themselves naturally for potted plants, flower boxes, etc. . . . they are the
equivalent of the yard gardens of the Golden Lane project, providing the identifying elements of the
individual dwelling. (Einsenman, 1972, p. 569)

Following the same logic, internal staircases were strategically positioned to elongate social
distance, functioning as a filter:
564 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 15.  On the right, drawings contemporary to the project, indicating how corridors were
supposed to interact with people and its surroundings. On the left, a diagram indicating the different
types of apartments and the connections in-between floors, with the corridor only in the intermediate
floor.
Source. Authors’ diagram (based on Einsenman, 1972).

[Private stairs] does two things: first, its parallel location [to corridor] creates a space and sound
buffer between the public and private zones, second it creates a zone of space in front of the entry,
which acts as a transition from public to private. (Einsenman, 1972, p. 590)

Inspired by the doorstep principles, the arrangement worked as a mechanism that met the “real
needs of space for family life, especially for children . . . each one needs a little space covered in
front of their door, as an extension of their dwelling” (Einsenman, 1972, p. 590).
What is astonishing is that, despite all of P. Smithson’s efforts to delicately organize the social
space, improvements never had the desired effects postoccupancy. Few years after its opening,
signs of maintenance problems appeared. Inhabitants had not formed an integrated or cohesive
community, and complaints of undesired behaviors and even vandalism became more and more
frequent. Just 1 year after it was built, A. Pangaro, an architectural critic, precociously criticized
those “pause places” as allowing “no definition of private territory or any sense of belonging to
individual occupants”:

Neither the streets nor the dwellings accommodate activities useful for supervision or socialization.
The wide access galleries are primarily circulation spaces and are only incidentally available in a
neighborhood exchange. The outdoor areas adjacent to the dwelling units miss their chance to serve
as front porches or stoops because they allow no definition of private territory or any sense of public
ownership. The dwelling units are all but disconnected from the “street” (imagine the difference if
there were only a kitchen window on it, and a real stoop), and turn away from the link to the rest of
the estate. (Pangaro, 1973, p. 36)

Ten years later, J. Furse (1982) registered various inhabitants’ testimony’s, observing that the
“empty street-decks give us most cause for concern: as we see it this is the fundamental failure
of Robin Hood” (pp. 190-191). Instead of being a place of a vital social life, corridors were feared
places, especially at night:
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 565

I know that there are lights—but I still don’t like it out on my own. Don’t really know why—
nothing’s ever happened to me, but I feel nervous. It’s not that I . . . it doesn’t frighten me but it’s not
. . . I can’t really say why—you know what I mean. (Robin Hood tenant: Female 19, cited in Furse,
1982, p. 155)

The niche solution never got to create a defensible space. Newman would have probably pointed
out the lack of a “symbolic language,” such as a real step, important for a clear delimitation of a
different territory. In fact, “lack of privacy” was regularly noted:

I like to see what’s going on—you can on the inside—look down into the garden across the way. I
don’t like to open the front-door to look—the window is no good—can’t lean out. You hear them at
night talking—not kids. You can’t see who it is. (Robin Hood tenant: Male 35, cited in Furse, 1982,
p. 144)

Furse’s (1982) conclusion was that the

streets—the decks—are certainly as the Smithson’s intended, we see them as sensibly conceived but
ill-used. . . . they are used as little more than access-galleries: they cannot be viewed as “extensions
to the dwelling” in the sense that they were meant to be. (p. 161)

Other practical issues could be also addressed. Corridors at the Robin Hood Gardens were
probably wrongly placed; instead of opening the view to the central collective green area, where
eye contact would probably promote social encounters, they were situated on the opposite facade.
The center grass elevation created a visual obstacle at the ground level, and the distance between
the two strips mostly overpassed the 25- to 30-m limit necessary for facial recognition necessary
for “natural surveillance.” Even looking from the city street, corridors were not possible to sur-
vey. Banisters were made of prefab concrete and textured glass, obstructing clear view (Fernández
Per, Mozas, & Ollero, 2013).

Final Discussion
Throughout the early Modern Movement, it is possible to observe significant efforts to under-
stand alternate corridor technique or—using a timely expression—planning in section models.
Its use was initially experimental, mostly focused in physical aspects such as efficiency and cost
reduction issues. Improvements led to an extensive use in the 1950s and 1960s, applying it in a
large scale to massive housing complexes.
“Section” models survived modernity criticisms and, moreover, were used even more
intensely, apparently responding to anthropological and social interests, like territories delimita-
tion. The Pruitt-Igoe project was still very tied to modern values as cost reduction was a priority-,
but Le Mirail and Robin Hood Gardens were intended to have a different approach. However, the
results were all similar. Something went wrong in all cases, or maybe, there are still aspects of
the technique and the intermediary spaces configurations that it creates that need to be under-
stood. At first sight, a return to the original intentions seem to be healthy:

Smithsons (Robins Hood Gardens) and Candilis (Toulouse-Le Mirail) abused the stem idea, confusing
it with endless corridors that advanced like streets-on-the-air, and do not manage to create articulating
pieces of the different social scale spaces”13 (Moley, 2006, p. 121).

Following Moley (2006), Robin Hood Gardens’ “deck-streets, without human scale or true
threshold, cannot convince of their social virtues” because they were “unconnected, they also do
not constitute an urban structure qualified as stem”14 (p. 119). Therefore, models used in the study
cases should be reobserved.
566 Space and Culture 24(4)

Figure 16.  Aerial view of Riverbend Houses, “Zone B,” with slab blocks facing each other. Corridors
were meant to be used as social condensers, where collective life and “natural vigilance” was
encouraged.
Source. Google Maps/housingprototypes.com.

With opposite results, one could appoint another alternate corridor model, in D. Brody’s
Riverbend apartments (New York, 1967), in fact a study case that gained Newman’s attention in
his book. It is composed of two face-to-face five floors slab blocs, with duplex units inside—a
piggy-back row houses organization (Figure 16). Considering that the distance between slabs did
not exceed 82 to 98 ft. (25-30 m)—the limit for facial recognition—the generated patio was a
place of intense crossing sights. A wide opening at the corridors, equivalent to two-floor height,
facilitated continuous and mutual surveillance from each opposite block (Figure 17).
In front of apartment’s entrances, three steps were interposed, forming a platform that emu-
lated a traditional porch. Steps clearly defined territories: “Anyone ascending the steps and enter-
ing the patio space intrudes into the territorial bounds of a particular family; a stranger’s presence
in this area requires immediate explanation” (Newman, 1973, p. 124). Another feature was at the
entrance recess, where sights from the duplex second floor were allowed. Direct view over the
semipublic area contributed toward surveillance: “Anyone entering the courtyard is also easily
seen from the interior of the unit” (Newman, 1973, p. 124).
Riverbend Houses showed new possibilities. Intermediate spaces could be constantly moni-
tored though a cleverer arrangement of an alternate corridor model. To Newman, the low crime
rates registered in Riverbend were directly related to architecture. From his point of view, other
successful organizations should be researched, keeping an eye on all intermediate areas in his
view is the only way to understand the alternate corridor technique and its social effects.
Pérez-Duarte and Penna 567

Figure 17.  Diagram illustrating the interaction between buildings and between apartments and the
corridors.
Source. Authors’ diagram.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or pub-
lication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes
  1. Roger Sherwood (1990) has defined “alternate level corridor—an access system where the corridor
does not occur at every floor; also referred to as “skip-stop,” in “Housing Prototypes,” 2002. Another
less known name is Glendinning and Muthesius’s “sectional design” (1994).
  2. Like the one by Patrick Hodgkinson who, after visiting the Unité de Marseille, created his own pro-
posal adapted to the English tradition of the mezzanines and the Great Hall, cited in Mark Swenarton’s
“High Density Without High Rise: Housing Experiences of the 1950s by Patrick Hodgkinson” in 2014
(chap. 12).
  3. As pointed out by Wells Coates, the configuration had the potential to facilitate the joining of rooms
between neighboring apartments—both overlapping and juxtaposed—and could generate up to 40
configurations, with apartments with one to five bedrooms: Flexibility was introduced as another pos-
sibility, in the context of the possible advantages in using the technique. Palace Gate has now shown
some of these possibilities put into practice. A query to the sales records of a real estate agency shows
two superimposed apartments united (rightmove.co.uk).
  4. See “Skip-Stop Elevators Permit Low Rent,” Architectural Forum, Sepetmber 1946; “Eastgate: A
New Plan Type,” Architectural Record, January 1949; L’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui, August 1952;
“High Apartments or Low,” Architectural Forum, January 1952; “Skip-Level Elevators and Duplex
Apartments Cut Construction and Operating Costs,” Architectural Forum, January 1950.
  5. See “Cost of Multi-story building can be cut,” Architectural Record, December 1951.
  6. From the morphological point of view, it is clear that Zumpe (1967) assumes here the use of the
laminar block as a standardized form, and thus, tower models or any other architectural form must be
classified and studied differently.
  7. It is important to remember numerous space and behavior studies developed around this decade, such
as E. Hall’s The Hidden Dimension (1966) and R. Sommer’s Personal Space (1969). Evidence of
all these influences could be found also in times lexicon: “space” was replaced regularly by “place”
or “environment,” terms closer to anthropological approaches. Also “dwelling” or “ling unit” was
replaced by “habitat.”
  8. Case studies related to the technique can be found also in Giancarlo de Carlo, R. Erskine, and J.
Bakema. For the Bakema and van den Broek’s Hansaviertel Tower (Berlin, 1957) case study, see
Pérez-Duarte, 2014.
568 Space and Culture 24(4)

  9. Two geometries composed the “A” and “B” apartments interior: lengthwise they were formed with
three different width bays (2.75, 3.00, and 2.25 m). The opposite bay to the entrance door was also
capable of attending to the habitat évolutif principle: It could be transferred from the neighboring
apartment or acquired from it in case of necessity, so there could be created up to four dormitories
apartments.
10. Another important issue was l’espace transversant principle of the double facade orientation, exposed
in the série de Trèfle (Papillault & Lusaac, 2008).
11. Original text by Candilis, as cited in Papillault and Lusaac (2008). “C’est la chermière entre la partie
publique, là où l’on vit ensemble, et la partie privée, là où on a besoin d’intimité. C’est l’endroit où la
femme pet travailler sans mettre em désordre la pièce où elle peut être amenée à recevoir une visite
impromptue. Em fermant la grande porte coulissante de la chambre de parents, le séjour s’agrandit
de ce volume. En tirant un rideau entre la plate-forme et le séjour, l’espace des chambres prend une
ampleur nouvelle” (translation by the authors).
12. The living room was, however, grouped upstairs or downstairs with the dormitories, approaching more
to the notion of a “family room” instead of a traditional “living room” with public and representation
social functions. Maybe, a configuration that would intensify family life.
13. The stem meaning, according to Smithson, was a territoriality problem. They described all natural
ambits in three: dwelling, street, and block, so the challenge was to solve interconnections between
different ambits, proposing three geometric figures according to territory scale: web, stem, and door-
step. Original text by Moley (2006), “seus deux réalizations notoires et probantes sont d’ailleurs à
l’echelle d’um bâtiment, tandis que les opérations urbaines dès Smithsons (Robins Hood Gardens) ou
de Candilis (Toulouse-Le Mirail), trop basées sur une idée de stem confondue avec d’interminables
coursives avancées comme rues-sur-l’air, ne parviennent pas à passer pour des ensembles articulant
diferentes échelles d’espaces sociaux” (translation by the authors).
14. Original text by Moley (2006). “Les deck-streets, sans échelle humaine ni véritable seuil, ne peuvent
convaincre de leurs vertus sociales. Non reliés, ils ne constituent pas non plus cette structure urbaine
qualifiée de stem” (translation by the authors).

ORCID iD
Alejandro F. Pérez-Duarte https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5500-9828

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Key Online Resources

Housing Prototypes: housingprototypes.org/glossary
Planejamento em Seção [Planning in Section]: PlanejamentoEmSecao.wordpress.com

Author Biographies
Alejandro F. Pérez-Duarte graduated in architecture from the UNAM (National Autonomous University
of Mexico; Cd.Mx. 1997) and received his PhD from the UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia,
Barcelona, Spain, 2005). Currently, he is a professor at the Universidade Fumec (Belo Horizonte, Brazil),
coordinating several research projects related to housing and alternate corridors named Planejamento em
Seção (2013-2018).
Luiza R. M. Penna is an undergraduate architecture and urbanism student at the Universidade Fumec (Belo
Horizonte, Brazil). Graduation expected in June 2019.