Walter Segal

Segal-designed apartment building that replaced an earlier building destroyed in the Blitz, Knightsbridge, 1957 Walter Segal (15 May 1907 – 27 October 1985) was an architect who developed a system of self-build housing, the Segal self-build method. Based on traditional timber frame methods modified to use standard modern materials, his method eliminates the need for wet trades such as bricklaying and plastering, resulting in a light-weight method which can be built with minimal experience and is ecologically sound. The roofs tend to be flat with many layers of roofing felt, which allows the creation of grass-covered roofs. Foundations are minimal, often just paving slabs, the strength coming from the geometry of their construction. Segal houses have been compared to traditional Japanese houses. Early life Segal was born in 1907 in Berlin, Germany, and grew up in Ascona, Switzerland, as the son of the Romanian Jewish painter Arthur Segal and artist Ernestine Chavas. Walter Segal studied architecture among the pioneers of the Modern Movement in Berlin and Delft, Netherlands, and received his first commission in 1932 from a patron of his father, Bernhard Mayer, to build a small wooden holiday cabin in Ascona.

He moved to London, UK in 1936 where he met and eventually married Eva Bradt, a student at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. He taught at the school, wrote in trade journals, published a couple of books and had a few small architectural commissions. He worked on commissions for furniture and interior design and during the war he designed air raid shelters and hotels for the Ministry of Supply. roused considerable interest and led to a number of commissions using a similar style around the country. As the system developed the clients were able to do more and more of the building themselves.

In the 1970s Lewisham Borough Council made three small sites, unsuitable for mainstream housing, available for people to build their own homes using the method. Due to the success of these a fourth site was later made available.

Legacy

After his death in 1985 the Walter Segal Self Build Trust was set up, and his methods have gained in popularity. A Segal house at the Centre for Alternative Technology has helped in spreading the system. At least six of these buildings and schemes have won awards, ranging from the prestigious Housing Project Design Award to Green Building of the Year. The dry-trade construction used in Segal method houses allowed such a building in London, constructed in 1988 and by 2012 scheduled for demolition, to be dismantled and re-erected on a new site.

As of 2016 there were approximately 200 Segal self-build houses in the UK.