This is great news for residents and Brixtonites alike. Channel 4 is doing a show about the Resident’s Hall in Southwyck House (aka the Barrier Block) which will see the place being refurbished and turned into a real community resource.
The programme is themed on how things can get done on no money (blagging, essentially!) with the main filming taking place next week.
Being interviewed above is the remarkable Solomon, a Brixton resident who has been running a soup kitchen in the Resident’s Hall for homeless and vulnerable people – and paying for it out of his own own pocket.
There will be a call for people to get involved and help out – I should be able to post up the full details tomorrow.
Related posts:
The singular beauty of Southwyck House, aka the Brixton Barrier Block
Derelict house on Coldharbour Lane. Is this Brixton’s longest abandoned house?
The Living Bar becomes the Market House, Brixton
Brixton’s lost Eel And Pie House, Coldharbour Lane SW9
The curious artwork by the House of Bottles, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton
A trip to the Dead House underneath Somerset House
Somerleyton Road, Brixton redevelopment and Oval House theatre: provisional plans released
A very, very thin house, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, SW9
I have to say that Residents Hall looks a pretty grim place at the moment. OK, bright colours, but plastic chairs, bare walls and hard floors- it hardly looks like somewhere for a chill. I’ve occasionally used one in council block in Derby and it at least has carpets and wallpaper.
It’ll be interesting to see what they make of it- in the absence of meeting in the street or over the garden fence, something like this is the next best thing in a tower block for meeting your neighbours.