The Concept of Span

“Ever wished you lived somewhere where a sense of community still existed, where kids could play safely outside and neighbours were friends, not strangers? Well, places like this do exist: they’re called SPAN developments.” Grand Designs Magazine - 2005

Span housing was the inspiration of two young men who, during the 1930’s, met as architectural students at the Regent Street Polytechnic, London. Eric Lyons and Geoffrey Townsend both had a keen interest in modern architecture. Townsend set up his architectural practice in Richmond, Surrey in 1937 with Lyons joining him a year later. Their work was interrupted by the Second World War but they rejoined again in 1945 to set up a practice in Hampton Court, Surrey. Their aim was to build modern and imaginative buildings. In 1953 Townsend resigned the practice to set up his own development company to build Span homes.

Span, the organisation formed by the melding of architectural and landscape talents of Lyons and Cunningham and the development capability of Townsend & Bilsby built over 2000 modern homes in London, Kent, Surrey and East Sussex.

The basic tenets of a Span home are in part a reaction against the “mock tudor” so prevalent in post war architecture, part as an illustration that individually designed and affordable homes could be built in the middle ground between large council estates and mansions for the wealthy and to prove that planned estates could be genuine communities.

A typical span house used new construction techniques and featured open plan interiors with large areas of glass and would be integrated into the Cunningham designed landscape where “the architectural quality of the village will be achieved by the close relationship between building and landscape”. This relationship is protected by covenants administered by a committee of management most commonly drawn from volunteer residents.