Single Aspect Blog

Following a new report by HATC, The One Show (April 9th 2010) did a four minute segment on the problem which is no longer available

but the audio is:-

Audio on YouTube

This used to be a long article about back to backs and tuberculosis. I shortened it because most of the TB in the UK arrives from other countries.

While it’s true that Victorian housing conditions and lack of ventilation exacerbated health problems, in the UK in the C21st the vast majority of tuberculosis is brought in from outside the country by people from developing countries.

“These individuals account for nearly three-quarters of all tuberculosis notifications in the UK with an incidence that is 20 times higher than in UK-born individuals”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108102/

BCG

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/31/tb-vaccine-bcg-effective-for-twice-as-long-as-previously-thought-study

UPDATE: 28th Nov 16 – They’ve shot themselves in the foot with the most recent release of the Dublin City Development Plan which downgrades the previously high standards set for city centre apartments.

. . . we might follow. The documents linked below show clearly how Dublin has taken the lead in housing design quality and why England lags behind.  I can cite several examples of single aspect (and|or) cramped new housing developments in the UK, some linked from this website, how refreshing it is to find someone somewhere doing it better.

“Single-aspect dwellings must be avoided where possible and no Northern or Eastern single-aspect dwellings are allowed, thereby requiring new apartments to be dual aspect and eliminating corridor developments at a stroke.”

CABE has been saying similar things for some time but nobody appears to be listening . . . read on

and the document they refer to  Sustainable Urban Housing

I’ve been looking at the plans for 282 Goldhawk Road by Peter Barber architects and recently reading the Hansard transcript of the second reading of the 1909 Housing Act.  Despite the passage of just over 100 years, the English is clear and the reasoning beyond question.  Dear Mr Barber where do the children play?

“England is not so destitute of land upon which to house its poor that they should be housed in working class tenements without a backyard in which to chop the wood and put the coal, and in which the children can play whilst the mother is able to keep a friendly eye on them through the washhouse window, and at the same time continue to carry on her domestic duties.

All this is impossible in back-to-back houses, where the children have only got a stuffy room for a playground; and in the days of rapid traction you have no right to relegate children to play in a small front garden, or in the road or street, when the community is rich enough to provide the humblest garden in the majority of cases, and some measure of a backyard in which the youngsters can play whilst the domestic duties in the house are being carried out.

This can be done better in through ventilated houses with a backyard and a garden than is possible in the case of back-to-back houses.”

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1909/apr/05/housing-town-planning-etc-bill

Peter Barber architects have visited my blog:-

A visitor from office.peterbarberarchitects.com (81.149.180.109)
arrived from www.google.co.uk 282 goldhawk road cameron 1-10,
and visited www.singleaspect.org.uk/?cat=5
at 15:50:58 on Friday, June 4, 2010.
This visitor used Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB;
rv:1.9.0.19)Gecko/2010031422 Firefox/3.0.19.

That’s something to celebrate. They won’t change the design though, sadly.  They have already got planning permission the project has been stopped.

UPDATE: I went to look at it yesterday 23/6/2010 and things are looking up.  There are indications that the plans may be reviewed, for details please contact the Residents’ association at ashchurchresidents@hotmail.com

UPDATE: The residents’ association plans are moving on, I received this today 11/9/2010:-

Following Harry Phibb’s newsletter mentioning plans to include 292 and 280 Goldhawk Road in our favourite development, we have now met Nick Johnson, the council executive who Cllr Greenhalgh asked to review the 282 plans back in May.

He assured us the 282 development will not go ahead as planned, and that our many concerns have been taken on board. The development may include the 292 site (on the corner of Ashchurch Park Villas), which Mr Johnson thinks will enable them to deliver a better development which respects the local area. He said 280, the old surgery on the corner of Ashchurch Grove is not included in this development.

We expect another update before the meeting , so come and hear more and have your say.

Other business will include

• – election of officers – we are looking for someone to take on Neighbourhood Watch
• – agreeing a constitution and subscrpition for ARA
• – update on our FOI on the trees on the 282 site – we have a victory to report!
• – antisocial behaviour on 282 site
• – drugs, dangerous dogs etc
• -issues relating to Ravenscourt Park
• – developments in Askew Road

and the Starch Green event in July –  for more on that see below.

REMEMBER THE LOVE YOUR STREET EXHIBITION : AN INVITATION

If you were one of the 300 or so people who attended the very successful all day event at Starch Green on 26th June. The architects promised they would put together a summary of the many exciting ideas contributed by those that attended for improving the Starch Green area.

They now invite you to come  review the Exhibition and enjoy a glass of wine.
When : Tuesday 21st September 2010 from 6  8pm

Where : The Mayor’s Foyer at Hammersmith Town Hall (Courtesy of the Mayor)

Please email Melanie Whitlock (whitlockmelanie@hotmail.com)  if you’d like to come, they need numbers in advance.

Many thanks

Fiona Anderson

Chair, Ashchurch Residents Assocation

UPDATE: October 2016 Similar crap to the original Barber plans now going up in Kidbrooke, see Crap Flats for details on Urban Houses – spit.

UPDATE: 10/3/14 Work on site at Ashchurch Villas

UPDATE: 3/12/12

The two plots 282/292 were subsequently sold to First Base who short listed four practices of which two are known to be PTEa and MAE, the project was given to PTEa after each practice gave a presentation of their intended plans.

“25% of the apartment is stairs….”

Click the image for full site plan

Sometimes it feels like 1937 again. Allow me to explain. Within the last few years, following a conversation with my Father (an architect) about Quarry Hill in Leeds, which he had studied whilst training, I bought a second hand copy of Model Estates by Alison Ravetz and devoured it in order to continue the exchange.

More about Quarry Hill may be read here https://tinyurl.com/22wmmwg or here

Quarry Hill from Leodis

and should this ever change or be removed then you may read the same material here

Discovering Leeds – Poverty and Riches

Early on in the book the author points out that despite the 1909 Act outlawing the building of back to backs, they continued to be built in Leeds until 1937 because the authorisation for those had already been agreed prior to the act. Now more than 100 years after the act of 1909 we have plans such as the following being passed now “pending decision” (21/6/2010) with little or no comment, until just the other day.

Ravenscourt Park 282 – 288 Goldhawk Road London W12 9PF

Ref: 2009/02757/FUL

Going to:-

and typing the application numbers will enable you to look at the planning application in detail. The above was just an introduction to what I want to say.

If you view the “Associated Documents” for 2009/02757/FUL and select PROPOSED GA 1ST FLOOR PLAN you will see that the layout is that of “back to back” houses last built in Leeds in 1937 [citation Alison Ravetz Model Estate]. The flats are four stories high in some cases and have three party walls, and are single aspect.

Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: Now 1 Ellesmere Street Manchester multi-storey b2b

But Cabe’s chairman Paul Finch revealed the design watchdog’s misgivings in an article published in the Architects’ Journal last week.

He wrote: “I was truly shocked to see designs for back-to-back housing (two storeys, three party walls, single aspect) being given permission and Kickstart funding.

“The Planning Act of 1909 was introduced to make this sort of thing illegal.”

https://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3159609

If you ever had any doubt that left to their own devices and without regulation, architects would revert to the hell-holes of the past then let this be a lesson to you.

There’s more . . .

Always happy to follow policy, architects with an interest in sustainability are today proposing eco-back-to-backs as “affordable” housing. The housing form that John Burns opposed is re-imagined as the future for subsidised housing, crammed into expensive brownfield sites. (15) These homes will get planning permission. Architects will happily delude themselves that they are designing a double-density world devoted to an age of “eco-equality”.

Read on

UPDATE: 13/11/25 It became QMU Aspire Point Stratford

UPDATE: 14/8/16 “A former Esso Petrol station is set to become a thriving student complex and arts centre thanks to Alumno Developments. Start on site Spring 2016″ – allegedly.

So a site I visited six years ago is happening without the single aspect flats I complained about below because the developer has changed and all the rooms will be single aspect as student rooms.

More single aspect flats

This scheme for Stratford passed for planning on 9th September following acceptance of the S106 agreement, depresses me because there are much better ways to design flats and avoid the problems of single aspect dwellings.

https://pa.newham.gov.uk/online-applications/search.do?action=simple&searchType=Application

Planning reference: 09/01746/LTGDC

Drawing number: 2841_L102

Enlarge it to 150% and take a look at typical floor (3-7 & 10-23).  1 bed s/a facing SW. 2 bed s/a facing SE.  2 bed s/a facing NW which will have an intimate view of James Riley Point and its inhabitants. [No they won’t.  James Riley Point is going to be demolished – Ed.] These are emphatically not back to backs.  If the owners desire a change of air they can always open the front door and through ventilate the flat but it’s not ideal, and no choice of view.  There are seven flats on each floor and of those three are single aspect.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Building Design magazine

Cabe was employed by fellow quango the Homes & Communities Agency to assess the £360 million first round of Kickstart last summer and analysed every short listed housing scheme using the industry’s Building for Life [BfL] standard.

But for the larger £550 million second round — which is ongoing — Cabe’s role has been slashed, with it only examining private sector projects and not the affordable housing schemes.

The Pippins is an estate of 52 private and affordable homes on a former power station in Rugeley, Staffordshire, which received £507,000 from Kickstart round one.

Planning officer Ros Robb then revealed that the final scheme was never scrutinised by councillors but was approved under delegated powers after members had agreed to a previous, less intensive, development.

Robb said: “It was much nicer before. But they have increased the density and watered down the design to get a scheme they felt they could market.”

Read Jonathan Glancey’s take on the situation here

“More than ever we need a new generation of local authority architects departments”

At the end of 2008 a film was rediscovered featuring Sir John Betjeman in Leeds talking about buildings.  In it he visited the then semi-derelict Marshall’s Mill which is now the subject of a renovation project by Urbed who talk about the difficulties of converting former mill buildings into flats.  I can only quote a short section here but the document is worth reading in full or at least the chapter 3D Masterplan – Blocks.

In city centres it is more common to develop flats as corridor blocks or ‘double loaded’ blocks. These involve single-aspect apartments off a central corridor and tend to be 20-25m deep. This is the way that many conversions of warehouses have been undertaken. However for new-build schemes there can be problems with corridor blocks. Because the apartments are single aspect, there is a need to provide space around the block to achieve privacy, natural light and solar gain. There is also the problem that some apartments end up with a single northern aspect. It is therefore necessary to space blocks 20-25m apart. This is fine on large city streets (The Briggate for example is 20m wide). However it makes it difficult to create residential accommodation onto narrow urban streets.

They go on to say that despite building some flats as single aspect off a corridor they did build some scissor maisonettes as well.

The remainder of the blocks are dual aspect and are accessed by balconies on the internal face of the courtyard. This balcony is linked to the corridor of the double loaded apartments and is accessed by cores that access both the street and the courtyard. The aim is for the courtyard to become the main means of access to the apartments. The block layout suggested by Bauman Lyons (opposite right) is based on similar principles except that the east west blocks are designed as ‘scissor flats’ (shown in blue). The east /west apartments could also be designed as walk-up blocks with individual staircases serving each pair of apartments.

Read the rest of this entry »

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