He sought to give residents a sense of place and belonging, replicating the good relations between neighbours which he noticed in traditional Victorian terraced streets.

Unlike a flat slab or tower block, he designed Keeling House with four wings that each look onto another, encouraging contact between neighbours.

Between the central lift tower and the front doors of the apartments, tenants had to pass communal 'drying areas' for laundry and storage, where he hoped that social interchange would be as natural as in the streets below.

Lasdun, who died in 2001, visited the project and supported the plans including the addition of penthouse flats, but regretted that the building would no longer house the poor.

Its site was redeveloped by Tower Hamlets Community Homes, a housing association, and Hill Partnerships as part of a mixed-tenure development opened in 2009.