While out on a ride across London one of those happy accidents happened. We discovered Rowley Way. From one side it looked like a stadium and inside it felt like a concret valley. Unsure what to make of it, located in Swiss Cottage coming into it from Abbey Road it’s not a particularly bad area but it was quite the intimidating environment.

Anyway, turns out it’s quite iconic (as it should be) being used in many a film and TV programmes as a back drop and also with it’s own documentary created by the residents. Worth a watch to get their varied opinions about life within the estate.

Between November 2009 and April 2010 a group of residents living on the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate (often know as Rowley Way) in NW London worked with the arts and education charity digital:works to make a film about their estate. The incredible Grade II* listed building features frequently in TV dramas and architecture journals and the intention of the film was to give residents themselves the opportunity to explore the ideas behind the design of the estate and to examine people’s actual experience living on the estate related to those ideas.