How to beautifully separate kitchen from living room
September 9th, 2012
In brief: Fit wooden sliding doors or build a chimney breast
I do love my readers. The title of this piece is taken from a Google search from Norway and I was very taken by the phraseology.
The reader was looking at Alexandra Road which demonstrates a great way to combine kitchen and dining room while allowing separation from the living room. In the photo above the kitchen is behind the left hand partition wall.
“We was all one” – London SE1/16 remembered
September 7th, 2012
It was the singing of Jerusalem that got me, accompanied by the camera tracking past block after block of newly completed modernist housing. Here I thought is an anthem to a brighter future, a better tomorrow, a brave new world. Then as the music drew to a close the camera zoomed slowly in on a notice board and I read the word Aylesbury.
Click the photo to watch the film
Because I care about housing
May 16th, 2012
Those of you who count yourselves among my regulars, and there are a few, will be aware of the subtitle that graced this page for nearly three years. It used to say “because I care about housing and hate single aspect flats”.
Last Saturday (12th May) I was invited to join a DoCoMoMo walk around South London during the course of which we visited Lambeth Towers and some maisonettes at Cotton Gardens just along from the Imperial War Museum, among many other buildings..
How the other half live
May 3rd, 2012
Browsing the stats the other day I noticed a visit from Squire and Partners who converted the former Kensington Odeon into flats and a basement cinema. While looking at the drawings for the site, which normally contain outline images of kitchen units, sofas and a dining table, I was intrigued to notice that each of five apartments in a row, had a piano outlined. More in keeping with a music school than a residential street I would have thought or is this how the rich pass their time?
Kensington Odeon – Drawing
I regularly cycle along a street of three storey houses through whose bay windows may be seen a baby grand in a least half of them but all? Perhaps it was simply wishful thinking on the part of the architects in order to generate sales.
I have written to Squires to ask but have not so far received a reply. I’ll let you know when I do.
Is [new] back to back housing still banned?
April 25th, 2012
UPDATE: 12/3/17 What about Berkeley Homes “Urban Houses” in Kidbrooke? Aren’t they back to back? What about Barber’s McGrath Road?
One of my readers has asked the question in the title by way of Google. Here is the answer.
YES! I’m not sure
[I know about Castleford but either they’ve got forced air ventilation – yuk – or the local planning authority got it badly wrong.]
They were banned in 1909 by act of parliament for being unhealthy to live in, in fact they were first banned by several Northern cities in the 19th century . . .
Woods House correspondent?
February 28th, 2012
From time to time I get comments posted to the blog from somebody calling themselves Grosvernor Waterside resident of which this is the latest, below. I’m not allowing it into the normal comments space because I disagree with a lot of it, in fact some of it is simply untrue.
Not really, its a really nice area to live in, the nearest station is [S]loan[e] square. Quite nice. The concie[r]ge offers taxi service, drying cleaning. There is also a spa downstairs. You can also make use of the nice balcony. The noise from the railways, you cannot rea[l]ly hear it and it has a nice soft noise. For living in SW1, prime location, [W]oods house is quite cool, considering if you look at other places. Its a new development, so everything you get is brand new. christineli2007@googlemail.com
RIBA Home Season 16th Feb – 28th April 2012
February 14th, 2012
With thanks to Front Row on BBC Radio 4 this evening I am pleased to note that the RIBA are holding a season about the home with a number of events including exhibitions, film and talks. Details below.
Home Season
Explore the past, present and future of the home with a brand new RIBA exhibition accompanied by a series of talks, screenings and events at 66 Portland Place and elsewhere. The season compliments HomeWise, the RIBA’s national campaign to improve the quality of the nation’s newbuild housing.
The exhibition is reviewed here by a fellow blogger:-
A place to call home exhibition
UPDATE: I wandered along there the other day stealing time off from more serious matters in order to browse the library and see the exhibition. I quite enjoyed it. Some good reminders of well known housing schemes. I enjoyed the “five classes of Victorian terrace”. Ours is third class I’m happy to report, which could be worse.
They are in fact graded rather than classed, depending on the number of bedrooms and amount of garden (if any). Some nice models of streets borrowed from Northumbria University helped to liven it up, and all the usual suspects are represented including a shot of Southmere Lake in Thamesmead.
Sarah Beeny takes us through the history of housing from several hundred years ago to the present day, by no means concentrating on the modernist estates. They are given their due place in history but not made the main event. Well worth a look if you’re in the area.
Rosebury Avenue – former Metropolitan Water Board HQ
February 1st, 2012
On my Lubetkin visit to the capital last year, across the road from LSE Rosebury Hall where I was staying, I noticed this magnificent building, origin unknown to me until serendipity played a hand while going through some old Look and Learn magazines from the 1960s I came across this article (large graphic) showing it to have been the headquarters of the Metropolitan Water Board.
Dual aspect flats – Pitman Tozer – Bethnal Green
December 2nd, 2011
UPDATE: 18/4/14 They’re built and occupied now. I went past on the train recently and very nice they look too.
With planning approved this development includes a majority of dual aspect flats (42:25), something that can’t be said for many new housing developments in London, which seem to include them only on the corners of rectangular blocks whereas here are 42 dwellings that span the block width.
Planning reference PA/11/829
“Set back to create street”? Possibly. More likely to allow light into the ground floor otherwise blocked by the viaduct.
Rebuilding Britain for the Baby Boomers
November 26th, 2011
Maxwell Hutchinson analyses the rebuilding of post-war Britain through unique and exclusive archive interviews on the 50th anniversary of the emblematic Parkhill Flats.
An excellent programme from the series Archive on 4 of which the history of Park Hill flats in Sheffield formed the backbone, while finding time to branch off and talk about Robin Hood Gardens in East London, and the World’s End Chelsea, all against a background of the whole post war reconstruction effort.