[citation needed] He graduated in 1955 from a year that included Neave Brown, Kenneth Frampton, Patrick Hodgkinson, William Gillitt and Roy Stout.

Finch then joined the London County Council Architects Department, under Leslie Martin, where his designs exemplified Mixed Development – the dominant ideology for housing in the 1950s.

[citation needed] In his reworking of a scheme for Spring Walk, Stepney, he used space freed up at the base of the ten-storey blocks to build flats for the elderly and family houses.

[4] "The London County Council Housing Division was tackling exactly the issues I was interested in so I applied and was interviewed by Oliver Cox, (part of the Alton East design team).

Working under Hollamby, George Finch pioneered an architecture that created slim point blocks inserted on tight sites but always with communal provision at the base.

"[5] The scheme encompassed two-storey terraced houses with gardens and single occupancy dwellings for the elderly with maisonettes above, either side of a planted space.

Recently threatened with closure, in January 2013, council leader Lib Peck affirmed that "The Rec is a treasured, landmark building and is part of what makes Brixton so special and unique",[4] promising that it would be retained.

[6] Finch left Lambeth when the Brixton Recreation Centre received planning and financial approval and, a keen thespian and set designer, he formed a partnership with theatre architect Roderick Ham.

[2] It was, however, a short lived and largely unrecorded endeavour, swept away by another, very different vision for Docklands when the LDDC accepted an America consortium's offer "they couldn't refuse", to build the mega-city of today.

He also worked on several historic buildings, adapting All Saints, Lewes, in East Sussex, into a theatre; a school in Dulwich, London, into housing; and remodelling Chelsea Town Hall.

The appreciation of his work by colleagues, critics and most of all the occupants of his buildings did a lot to relieve the pain he felt at seeing the commodification of the housing he had designed to dignify the lives of everyone.