Walk down the slightly shabby King’s Cross Road, past the kebab shops, barbers and traffic, and you might stop at a small shopfront, its window stuffed with layers of white, model houses. Some look like delicate icing, others like models of Sana'a or old Baghdad.
But the models are not about the individual buildings; they’re about the streets. And it’s typical of Peter Barber — whose name appears on the shop sign above in a modestly Modernist typeface — that his office should be right on the street, hard up against the pavement.
This week, Barber was awarded the Soane Medal, an award organised by Sir John Soane’s Museum in London for those who have contributed to the culture of architecture — previous winners have included Marina Tabassum and Rafael Moneo. He is a rare kind of architect: one who specialises in social housing. An architect who is widely admired within the profession and one about whom I don’t think I have ever heard an unkind word. This, in a world rich in unkind words.