David Parkes, one of the UK’s foremost housing architects and founder of Phippen Randall & Parkes (now PRP), died last week at the age of 77.

As an architect at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in the early sixties, Parkes designed the UK’s first sheltered housing scheme at Stevenage, in Hertfordshire.

In 1963, he played a central role in Phippen Randall & Parkes’ first scheme, a group of single-storey houses in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, which is one of the few grade II-listed post-war housing schemes.

After retiring in 1993, Parkes was instrumental to the Housing Design Awards.