Phase 1 lasted from 1963 to 1967. The idea was to create a megastructure, in the brutalist style, to accommodate a town of 50,000–80,000 people, although architecture historian John R. Gold notes that the term "megastructure" was first coined in 1964. Regarded at the time as a "milestone in urban design," the centre would be surrounded by high-density housing without shops or other amenities, with each neighbourhood connected to the structure by pathways so that residents could easily walk there. Architectural critic Wolf von Eckardt wrote in "Harper's" in 1965: