Housing benefit – the row goes on
October 31st, 2010
Sometimes a single comment shines out so clearly that it cuts through all the wordy articles that have been written on the subject since last week. This is one such, not that saying it makes the situation any better but it does make it easier to understand the implications of the ConDem policy.
31 October 2010 7:14AM
So when there is a well known shortage of social housing throughout the land they decide on a policy of pushing people out of currently available housing into areas where there is a shortage of social housing already. Thus making the problem many times worse resulting in increased financial, health and social costs whilst people are housed in temporary accomodation and bed and breakfasts which is the worse thing you can do to a family which is trying to get back on its feet again which will cause the state more in all sorts of ways.Some help this lot are neither to themselves or anyone else.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/31/london-housing-crisis-benefit-cuts
‘Pevsner for the PFI generation’ – from the AJ
October 28th, 2010
Reading today’s email from the AJ, Owen Hatherly struck a chord when he commented on the difference in quality between todays lousy flats (of which I have much to say elsewhere) and the golden age of post war building, in an interview with James Pallister. The article begins as a review of Hatherly’s book A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain.
JP Was there a golden age?
OH No. It’s a terrible cliché but in any given period most architecture is not very good. There are periods when we hit upon a decent standard and I think one was in the late 19th century, as well as the 1950s and 60s.
To a large degree, in terms of hygiene, services, the amount of light and air coming into the flat, the amount of green spaces, the length of tenure, the best public housing built in this country occurred between 1945 and 1970 [despite the fact that] there were some very well-publicised disasters and some very poor planning. A lot of it was mediocre, though it was good mediocrity. But compared to contemporary standards, which is below Parker Morris standards, it was vastly superior. I sincerely believe that.
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/critics/-pevsner-for-the-pfi-generation/8607518.article
Of all people it’s Boris Johnson who’s doing his level best in conjunction with Alex Ely of MAE llp to bring back some standards into housing, after 30 years of much poorer quality housing in cities.
BBC Open Book 21/8/11 included a section about Pevsner, available here:- Open Book – Pevsner
Pevsner section starts at 1m 15s in, don’t be put off by the unedited section that precedes it.
More on the life of Pevsner here:-
Tackle the housing crisis . . .
October 28th, 2010
. . . by building shared flats for the young
No issue illustrates our “two-nation” problem better than this one, in that so many people are on incomes that cannot possibly gain them a private home in a lifetime, even though that is the holy grail to which all are expected to aspire.
Deborah Orr in todays Guardian tackles the housing problem from a different perspective, that of the young and advocates state owned and subsidised flats.
Two-nation Labourism must bear some responsibility for the divisive climb in housing costs that has been seen in this country since the housing market picked up at the time when Labour achieved power. Unfettered encouragement of the buy-to-let market, which allowed private landlords to step into the gap left by the lack of investment in social housing, contributed greatly to a situation in which people find themselves renting accommodation that is priced beyond their slender means, even in the suburbs they are supposed to be relocating to.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/28/deborah-orr-build-shared-flats
One of the commentators below the article writes from France with an excellent suggestion:-
Our local town in France has a wonderful building that is specifically for young workers. I suppose we’d call it a hostel in the UK (just to make it sound worse) but they are nice individual flats complete with caretaker on bottom floor. What a great idea. If we’re asking youngsters to work where jobs are, let’s make it just a bit easier, eh?
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/28/deborah-orr-build-shared-flats
Fortunately this has happened in London quite by chance. As a former Merchant seaman I have some direct experience of facilities provided for seamen by charities over the decades, for those leaving and joining ships. The following were once the home ashore of those who made their working life afloat.
Beacon House 7 Dock Street, London, E1 8JN
Single persons housing.
Prince of Wales Mission – Salmon Lane
Now private housing.
Queen Victoria Seamans’ Rest – East India Dock Road
Until the mid 1990s the QVSR retained rooms for the use of seaman on leave, but had by then long been used for overspill by the local borough council of Tower Hamlets for Somalian refugees and homeless people.
Anchor House – Canning Town
Historically a hostel for seafarers visiting the ports of East London, Anchor House today is a charity based in Canning Town that provides support to over 200 homeless and workless people each year to help them move on to employment and independent living. See the film.
Flying Angel – Silvertown
This is now being redeveloped into flats while keeping the facade onto Victoria Dock Road. The plans may be downloaded from the following link Flying Angel.
Stella Maris- Tilbury docks
This former seamans’ hostel is now 40 one bedroomed flats. Alternate document link here
There were others but as I say this is not a comprehensive list. The link to the issue of hostels above is simply that some of these former seaman’s homes have become homes for single working people. Beacon House is one such and the former Flying Angel hostel at Silvertown, another.
GLC architect Roger Walters dies aged 93
October 21st, 2010
Roger Walters, chief architect at the Greater London Council during most of the 1970s, has died aged 93.
Friends described him as a “remarkable man with an exceptionally acute mind” who was committed to a human-scale architecture at a time when modernist towers were the fashion.
Park Hill – Urban Splash
October 21st, 2010
UPDATE: 5/3/14 Park Hill today Utopian estate left to die
Color Me Goodd! Urban Splash brighten up Park Hill Phase One
For a larger version of this photograph click the image itself.
Social Housing cuts
October 20th, 2010
Government plans to slice 60% off the affordable housebuilding budget and fill the gap by asking new social housing tenants to pay much higher rents were attacked by housing groups for hitting the “poorest hardest”.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/20/spending-review-2010-key-points#Social%20Housing
Well sadly the writing has been on the wall since 9th July 2009 when Paul Waugh, then of the Evening Standard, exposed the policies of Hammersmith and Fulham council which became the flagship Tory borough from which the present government took their ideas and are now in the process of implementing them. It is not that we should be surprised it is that I am bitterly disappointed that in view of the opposition expressed they have not stopped to reconsider.
282 Goldhawk Road update
October 18th, 2010
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.
Last year the housing association Places for People put forward a scheme at 282 Goldhawk Road designed by Peter Barber architects for housing on the site of a former old peoples home, which proved to be unpopular with local residents not only for its height and potential to overlook adjoining property but for its poor design.
I wrote two articles about the intended development, one here
https://www.singleaspect.org.uk/?p=207
and a shorter one here
https://www.singleaspect.org.uk/?p=286
Tonight saw the AGM of the Ashchurch Residents Association at the Sulgrave Club, more or less opposite the site in question which was notable for being attended for its duration by Nick Johnson, Head of H&F Homes in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Councillor Lucy Ivimy and more briefly by the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council, Stephen Greenhalgh.
Design Research Unit: 1942 – 72
October 12th, 2010
UPDATE: 2/6/14 At last the photographs
Norwich University College of the Arts Gallery 30 Oct – 27 Nov 2010
Curated by Michelle Cotton
Cubitt announces a national touring exhibition about the history of the Design Research Unit.
Formed in London in 1942, the Unit was responsible for some of the most important design produced in post-war Britain. It pioneered a model for group practice, being the first consultancy in the country to bring together expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. By the 1970s it was one of the largest and most established design offices in Europe. This exhibition will be the first of its kind, mapping the history of the group and the currency of their designs. It will identify key examples of their work and document an approach that was shaped by inter-war developments in artistic discourse and post war trends in industry and communication; in particular the accelerated demand for corporate design.
UPDATE 1/11/12 I am sorry this article is so out of date. There was an travelling exhibition at the time of which I caught the last day in Norwich on a wintry afternoon in the snow. It was a fascinating glimpse into a past when design was considered more important than it is now, and a walk down memory lane to the days when Watneys owned pubs and produced plastic barrels with which to decorate their beer pumps and branded ashtrays, not to mention the 1970s plastic lettering on the pubs. Here are some photographs from the exhibition:-
My Flickr set from the exhibition:-
Design Research Unit Exhibition – Norwich
Here’s a link to the Guardian article about the exhibition:-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/12/design-research-unit-branding-britain
The British Rail design guide is online here:-
https://www.doublearrow.co.uk/manual.htm
Heard through @jacobsamwillson
Dawson Heights panorama
October 6th, 2010
While at Dawson Heights back in the summer I took a series of photographs of the London skyline which were then stitched together with the free software that Canon provide with the Ixus 95. The two links are below:-
Download panorama small 2.72Mb
Download panorama large 10.16Mb
Sorry they’re not that sharp. I have since discovered that the DSLR is a vastly different beast to the compact digital camera and that exercise above needs repeating with a decent camera, on a tripod. If you beat me to it please get in touch with a link to your panorama and I’ll post it here.
If you doubt the difference between a compact digital camera and a DSLR then look at the photograph above. I took the lower one with my Canon Ixus 95 and a friend took the upper one with her DSLR in bright sunlight. Even allowing for the difference in illumination (hers was better lit), that does not account for the lack of clarity in mine.
Now imagine what a Dawson Heights panorama would look like taken with a DSLR, and how big the resulting file would be.
You may wish to read my article about the development here https://www.singleaspect.org.uk/?p=3141