Mount Anvil – Eagle – City Rd – £1m single aspect flats
March 5th, 2014
Still from Mind the Gap at 37:47
We can argue about whether the Eagle flats are pure single aspect flats because the windows are on a slight curve. But £1m? Shouldn’t that buy dual aspect views and a kitchen with a view? If I had £1m I would not be spending it on these. I know it’s in London but so is the Barbican and Braithwaite House (£350,000), and those are proper flats.
World Service Radio Archive prototype
October 13th, 2013
UPDATE 14/3/17: It was an experiment. They put the archive up for three years then disconnected it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/worldservice-archive-proto therefore what follows below no longer applies.
Today while searching for details of a programme recorded on cassette over twenty years ago I came across the World Service Radio Archive prototype. It is necessary to sign in but having done so you will be treated to a small archive to search, which is available to hear, and some of which is possible to download with a little manipulation.
On reaching the page of interest you can listen to the programme by clicking the arrow provided, and in addition if you right click the page to View Source and then search for mp3 you can right click the link and Save As thus downloading the programme to your computer.
Alfa Laval Brentford started on site
September 29th, 2013
Having been alerted to something going on by the increasing number of hits to my blog entry Crap flats and back to backs I’ve just done a quick web search and lo and behold work started on site in March. I’m six months late with the news but I don’t live in London or skim all my entries for updates.
The student room
September 6th, 2013
In response to:- Do student housing standards need an overhaul? from Building Design online.
A well lit student room – Fitzwilliam Cambridge
In case you haven’t read or are not able to read the article it is an exchange between Michael Chessum President of University of London Union and Dav Bansal Director at Glenn Howells Architects in response to the question in the link above.
Carbuncle Cup: 465 Caledonian Road, London
August 30th, 2013
Building Online -> A triumph for the dark side (this is not paywalled, you have only to register to read the article)
The building in its original form
To inflict on students a presumed way of life is both patronising and ignorant to say the least. A basic rule of life is “do as you would be done by” or the more pithy version from E.M. Forster “only connect” i.e. try to stand in the other persons shoes.
UPDATE: Useful link here -> https://www.le.ac.uk/manufacturingpasts
Conference organised by the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester
Deadline: 1 February 2013
9-10 July 2013
Plenary Speakers: John Gold (Oxford Brookes); Frank Mort (Manchester); Guy Ortolano (New York University); Selina Todd (St Hildas, Oxford)
During the second half of the twentieth century the towns and cities of Britain were transformed more extensively than at any period since the industrial revolution.
One Ellesmere Street – Forward to the C19th
May 8th, 2013
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”. – Audacity
The AJ from November 2012 brought unwelcome news of yet more modern back to backs passed for planning, this time in Manchester. A strong residents association in Hammersmith and Fulham successfully fought off a similar scheme by Peter Barber in the last couple of years at 282/292 Goldhawk Road but sadly a smaller version will be built in North Kensington and unless a similar group exists in Manchester these C19th dwellings will be built as designed.
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/first-look/housing-goes-back-to-back-to-back/8639039.article (paywall or just delete AJ cookies to read it)
“It’s actually a kitchen by itself”
January 7th, 2013
“It’s actually a kitchen by itself” exclaimed the delightful Krystle as she stood in the 1000 sq ft Forest Hill ground floor flat and looked around her at the space.
“We could put a table in here” said Sam thus proving once again, if it needs proving, that separate kitchens with space for a table are a practical necessity welcomed by buyers and shouldn’t be a sought after luxury omitted by greedy developers unwilling to build walls in modern flats.
Forward to the 19th Century – 1 Ellesmere Street
November 28th, 2012
This now forwards to One Ellesmere Street with a permanent link
Beds in sheds go legal
October 25th, 2012
UPDATE: Landlords solution to housing shortage live in a garage
Click photo for article (subscription required)
“Temporary structures that add low-cost housing to existing east London estates judged top in Building Trust International competition. Levitt Bernstein has defeated an 85-strong short list in the international contest to design low-cost, single-occupancy housing for urban areas. The studio’s winning proposal uses temporary structures to occupy redundant garages on housing estates in east London.”