pp. 138-9
According to James Dunnett and Gavin Stamp in Works, Goldfinger's distinct achievement in his post-war work is the expression of the frame. Described as having 'a rationalist and industrial conception of the world', Goldfinger had always considered the expression of structure and materials of key importance, as, for example, his earlier Willow Road terraced houses (1938) demonstrate. He used different modelling devices, such as recessed windows and projecting bays, but stopped short of a clear expression of the concrete frame. Other devices - the use of oversized steelwork sections, façades set back from the building line, or the pavement-edge use of large surfaces of plate glass - were all elements that had started to appear in his pre-war projects, for instance in the Abbott toyshop of 1936. Goldfinger also developed a concrete prefabrication system for use on London schools in the 1950s, with a regular grid of portal frames dominating the composition, and his Regents Park Road block of flats (1954) for a housing association had two apartments per floor and was constructed with a concrete frame. Goldfinger was also an advocate of choice, and with two flats per storey the use of a frame structure meant more flexibility in the interior layouts; bedrooms could be allocated to either flat, and tenants could choose between a small kitchen and a living/dining room or a kitchen/dining room and smaller living room. 

Ernö Goldfinger's housing work dates back to the 1920s: his first designs for Philippeville in 1929 were exhibited at the CIAM 1933 conference, and his studies for kitchen designs were published in L'Organistion Menagère in 1928. He also published his design principles in Planning your Home, Planning your Kitchen and Planning your Neighbourhood, as packs of 20 cards. He designed his first daylit 'street-in-the-air' enclosed access corridors for his first local authority housing project, Abbots Langley, in 1956 for Watford Council. Intended to be an improvement on Le Corbusier’s rue intérieure, it gave access on every third floor to a two-person flat and four-person apartments above and below. This nine-storey block, intended to maintain the open space and existing mature trees, was not acceptable to the council and was replaced in the revised built scheme with a four-storey block. The idea was thus not realized until the 1968 Balfron Tower in east London for the London County Council, which was effectively the prototype for the very similar Trellick Tower built in 1972, on the opposite side of the capital. The distinctive element is the lift tower, which is separated from the main block primarily for acoustic reasons and linked with bridges at every third floor level. The concrete surfaces, slit windows and the boiler rooms and chimneys cantilevering out at the top of the tower all contribute to its forbidding, fortress-like appearance. The footprint of both buildings is generally the same, but refinements to the design at Trellick include changes to the external proportions: four more storeys were added and the row of flats with 'pulpit' balconies, which introduces a horizontal break in the regular grid of the façade, was located higher up; the corner flats have windows and balconies on the south, main, façade; and the circulation tower is rotated to appear lighter in contrast to the main block. Refinements in technology included sophisticated electrical installations and double glazing fitted throughout as standard - important because of the nearby railway line. The interiors are spacious compared with other social-housing projects of the period, above the minimum Parker Morris standards in use in Britain at the time. There are two-person, four-person and six-person flats or maisonettes, with most extending the full depth of the block. The exceptionally wide structural bays, at 6.75 metres (22 feet 2 inches) with full-width balconies facing south, make the apartments appear very light, give a feeling of openness and afford spectacular views out.