Neave Brown, acclaimed designer of public housing – obituary

Neave Brown, the architect, who has died aged 88, was a pioneer of low-rise, high-density housing, and the only architect to have all of his British buildings listed.

Two months before his death he packed the Hackney Empire in East London, though he was in poor health and frail. About 1,300 predominantly young architects came to hear from the man who had just been awarded the Riba’s Royal Gold Medal. They gave him a standing ovation.

The award came as a result of a reappraisal of his contribution to the architecture of housing and city-making, against the contemporary back-drop of a housing crisis, an expanding city and the tragedy of the Grenville Tower fire.

He was the antithesis of the star architect. He had completed his last British building nearly 40 years earlier and in 2002 finally put away his drafting pens, transferring his formidable creative energies into painting, dividing his...