The Seager Distillery Tower

At the recent Hilly Fields Summer Fayre, BrocSoc asked visitors to their stall to vote for their favourite (and least favourite) local buildings. It was part of an exercise designed to provoke debate about the kinds of architecture that local people want to see more of. We visited in late afternoon, by which time a large number of votes had been cast. The 'likes' were fairly evenly spread, but the 'dislikes' clustered around a handful of buildings. Of these, the Seager Distillery Tower was a super soaraway leader.

So we anticipate that this will not be a popular posting, but we're going to go on record as saying that we like it. The cladding is a little plasticy and the design doesn't make our heart flutter, but as we think this photo shows, it's a perfectly decent addition to the local landscape. Building upwards means that the massing of the rest of the building is pretty modest and the developers have been able to include a decent amount of public space. We feared the worst for the curved wall on Brookmill Road, but the removal of the scaffolding has revealed a block that it quite attractive and considerably less overbearing than the brick beast opposite.

With an elevated DLR line next door and a bulky Lewisham College building (our vote for the area's worst building) opposite, this low-lying site is well-suited to a tall building and this one has been reasonably well executed. Unfortunately, by acting as a magnet for local ire, it (we) allows far worse (but shorter) buildings to get waved through in the borough without protest.

Thanks to SE9 for the photo.