Single Aspect Blog

This is the record of a live blog conducted by Su Butcher of https://www.justpractising.com/riba-housing-2011/ at the RIBA Housing Conference at Robinson College

Creative housing development solutions – Richard Owers, NRAP Architects and Simon Payne, Cambridge City Council

Workshop speakers : Richard Owers of NRAP Architects and Glen Richardson
Thursday October 13, 2011 2:56 Su Butcher

The Workshop on how architects and planners can influence volume house builders to meet the needs and desires of the next generation.

Audience is about 1/3 non-architects.
Thursday October 13, 2011 2:57 Su Butcher

Richard Owers – 20 years ago was working in Berlin on a housing scheme to a Rob Krier master-plan in Kirkstiegfeld near Potsdam. The project was a partnership between a developer and the city.
Thursday October 13, 2011 2:58 Su Butcher

The master-plan allowed more than half a dozen architects to work on the housing, governed by a series of design codes within a strict, rather post-modern layout.

“This isn’t the approach we’d take today perhaps but there are some elements that we can learn from”
The strength of the master-plan is that ‘ordinary architecture’ can contribute to the public realm.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:00 Su Butcher

Su Butcher:
Ten years ago Richard was working on a Penoyre and Prasad master-plan in Gravesend for Gravesham Borough Council. The project stalled after a Stage C level of detail (paid for by the council). The money made by disposing of the site was all to be reinvested into infrastructure for the site.
The project delivered phase 1 but then stalled. The architecture of the phase that was built avoided pastiche but stuck to a traditional street pattern.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:02 Su Butcher

Since then, Richard hasn’t had a sniff of an urban-intervention project. All the housing schemes worked on are small infill sites, corner sites, back-land sites. Not a single volume house-builder client.

He posts a list of top house builders sorted by awards (which are inverse to the profitability of the same developers).
He assumes that boxes with porches and a good sales team have made them a lot of money – but he finds this quite depressing.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:05 Su Butcher

“Realistically Priced, Reassuringly Familiar”

Richard refers to Upton, Northampton, as mentioned by Peter Studdert. With a good master-plan you can design ordinary housing much better.
How do we deal with the lack of quality, and lack of good space and lack of choice?
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:06 Su Butcher

Richard’s suggestion: We need more planning, not less.
What if the planning system was removed and we had a free-for-all? Cedric Price proposed the same thing in 1960, calling it ‘Non-Plan’.
Price said the planning system compensates for unevenness. We make value judgements about certain buildings in certain contexts. Price suggested that taking away planning restrictions would take away that value system and create unevenness.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:09 Su Butcher

Glen Richardson is head of Joint Urban Design at Cambridge CC and South Cambs DC.
They held a charette in Cambridge with six formers about what their aspirations for housing were, along with a series of architects and volume house-builders. The students were asked to help the architects unpick the needs and requirements. How would they raise their children? What would matter to them?
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:11 Su Butcher

The charrette was reported in the Cambridge Architectural Gazette in the autumn of 2010.

Students said –
We want a home, not a ‘house’ and not a ‘box.’.
A home must be efficient – save you energy and money.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:13

Students said
We want to be able to walk to buy a pint of milk, a newspaper, some food, the pub. Not be car dependant.

We want our space to be flexible and adaptable to changing lifestyles. This challenges standards of volume housebuilding.
There needs to be ‘space to swing a cat’

Private outdoor space – place to have your own space for your own family activities and undertake them in some degree of privacy.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:15
The charette project was called 2020 – not a reflection on the country, but the local young people’s view.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:16 Su Butcher

Talking to house-builders –
What does good design MEAN?
We need to have a fairly lengthy dialogue with planners.
We need very flexible master-plans over a number of years
Get a good architect and retain them (but planners have no authority to require this – which is frustrating)
Planning laws – planning is almost over-planning. Many of the standards are derived from health standards dating back many years and perhaps there is some over-kill.
Some of the key parameters need to be retained, perhaps in building codes.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:19 Su Butcher

Glen Richardson – in Cambridge the jury is out and there is considerable development going on where we’re trying to up the game. In other parts of the country things may be different.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:20 Su Butcher

Comment by architect on working for a developer – ‘we aren’t involved in pre-planning stage, only on working drawings’
Another -‘ we won an architecture award and a developer client said, take that off your email footer, it might put your clients off’
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:23 Su Butcher

Glen suggests the CABE Document – the Value of Housing Design and Layout and other publications suggesting that value and good design impacts are not that clear cut.
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:24 Su Butcher

Su Butcher:
Breaking up into groups, back soon…
Thursday October 13, 2011 3:24

Small group discussion very interesting – looked at a scenario about how to convince housing developers to adopt higher standards. No easy answers but some ideas. Will pick up on these later.
The conference is now having a tea break, reconvening shortly…
Thursday October 13, 2011 4:13