85-91 Genesta Road are four terraced houses, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, located south of Plumstead, north of Shooter's Hill near Plumstead Common, and are the United Kingdom's only modernist terrace, designed by the architectural pioneer Berthold Lubetkin. The houses were among the first attempts to re-design the traditional English house with the benefits of concrete construction. They are listed grade II*.
85-91 Genesta Road was the first domestic project in the U.K. undertaken by Lubetkin. Built between a 19th century terrace, the site was previously an orchard and its most principal feature is its height and the dramatic, almost precipitous fall to the north, giving spectacular views far across the Thames from the rear of the property. Neighboring Victorian cottages overcome this site by having steps that lead up to a first floor, relegating the ground level to a basement. Lubetkin, however, had the ingenious plan of making the entrance on the ground floor and having a spiral staircase leading up to the living room. This arrangement thus gives full frontage to the living room and provides off street parking next to the front door.
The bulk of the accommodation is on the first and second floors. The party walls and the intermediate columns are articulated in counter play with the horizontal concrete window band that projects at living room level. Relieving curves at the entrance and the cyma bedroom balconies are typical characteristics of Lubetkin's work, occurring in other buildings such as Highpoint I.
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“Future contingents cannot be certain to us, because we know them as such. They can be certain only to God whose understanding is in eternity above time. Just as a man going along a road does not see those who come after him; but the man who sees the whole road from a height sees all those who are going along the road at the same time.”
—Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)