Wayne has designs on Maidenhead

By Jenny Minard
BBC Berkshire

Wayne Hemingway runs Hemingway Designs with his wife, Geraldine

Wayne Hemingway is more used to designing dresses than decking out people's houses.

But the former owner of fashion label Red Or Dead has joined forces with a Maidenhead housing association to revamp a 1960s estate called Evenlode.

There had been previous talk of knocking down the estate altogether.

Wayne said: "The most sustainable thing you can do is to use old things and make them into something great that new generations can use."

Wayne, who runs a company called Hemingway Design with his wife Geraldine, added: "When you go to Evenlode you realise there is a generosity of size. We should be working with those spaces and making them great again."

Hemingway's involvement with the Evenlode project started when the Maidenhead and District Housing Association asked him to work on the development following his success in a housing scheme in Gateshead.

The Evenlode project consists of 100 two bedroom maisonettes

"Evenlode is just filled with opportunity to have decent sized homes that can be brought up to modern day standard," he said.

Designs for the estate have not been completed yet but Wayne said it's more about having somewhere homely to live, not about fancy furnishings.

"It's not about flash architecture, it's not about amazing modern materials, it's about liveability.

"We will just keep it really simple, really homely, and just something we would be happy to live in.

"We don't like kitsch, oldy worldly, but we don't like brave new world.

"The best thing is, it doesn't feel like you're living in an experiment, it will feel like you're living at home."

He added: "We champion the idea that affordable housing should feel like it's been touched by the hand of an artist, a great designer and someone who cares.

"A lot of designers will only design houses for posh people; we believe that good design can go into housing for everybody."

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