Pullman Court Streatham
September 19th, 2011
Sunday afternoon, the 159 from Brixton tube station and a 15 minute bus ride takes you to the bus garage beside which stands Pullman Court.
Fabrik Coldharbour Lane Brixton SE5
September 19th, 2011
Does London really need more single aspect flats with low ceilings, inadequate windows, surplus ensuites and minimal storage?
Brentford walk(ing) in the rain
September 19th, 2011
Some years ago one lunchtime, while working in a building near Kew Bridge [*], I took a walk along the high road to Brentford and unexpectedly came across some attractive old houses – in disbelief – because they didn’t quite match the somewhat industrial and commercial appearance of the High St.
Alexandra Road – interior
September 19th, 2011
UPDATE 19th March 2018: How I wish I had taken those photographs from 5’6″ and not 6′. Here’s a tip, if you’re photographing interiors and you’re tall, lower the camera.
The owner kindly opened her original and attractive dual aspect flat to the public for a day. Beautiful and well appointed 1970s flat flooded with light, lots of wood on display, large windows, intelligent use of sliding screens to separate kitchen / diner from living room (architect Neave Brown).
Streets in the sky – Park Hill – The One Show
September 10th, 2011
While attending the Sheffield Heritage Open Day (HOD) I chanced upon Roy Hattersley seated outside the main entrance to Park Hill . . .
Simon Gawthorpe with Roy Hattersley at Park Hill
Hope VI – or go away you’re poor II
September 1st, 2011
UPDATE 22/9/17: Now it’s Choice Neighbourhoods HT @robbins_glyn
Everything that’s happening here now with so called regeneration has been happening in the USA before with the Hope VI programme and all its negative consequences which boil down to a net loss of housing for the poor.
Some have criticized the new developments, because they do not require a “one-for-one” replacement of the old housing unit—the new unit does not have to house the same number of tenants, which results in a net loss of housing for the poor.[11]
Some critics have said that local authorities use the program as a legal means to evict poor residents in favor of more affluent residents in a process of gentrification.[13][15] They have said that less than 12% of those displaced from old housing eventually move into the replacement housing.[9][10][13]
Wikipedia? Ok I’m desperate.
The first article in the series linked below:-
Nicky Gavron on mixed estates
August 31st, 2011
“The mayor wants private, market housing to be built in areas with lots of social housing. But his plan does not seek new social housing in areas with lots of private homes.”
An article from the Guardian today highlights yet again where the Tory London administration is failing when it comes to housing policy. Nicky Gavron has been spot on with her analysis of where the problem lies and has been saying this for some time but nobody seems to be listening.
Needs based allocations – Robin Wales
August 30th, 2011
UPDATE: 16/6/11 Dave Hill has an interesting article today in the Guardian on the same theme, that needs based allocations are a disaster for council housing allocation:-
Newham-mayor-plans-olympic-regeneration
Charities condemn plans to let councils house locals before immigrants
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/home/big-ideas-32075
Old link – Man on a mission
https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/nov/30/housing.uknews
City of Towers – Christopher Booker – BBC 1979
August 27th, 2011
City of Towers is a two hour documentary made by Christopher Booker for the BBC, first broadcast in 1979 and a master class in the history of Modernism that covers its birth from ideas first put forward by Antonio Sant’Elia, Auguste Perret and Le Corbusier in the early part of the Twentieth Century . . .
. . . to its fall from grace in the latter part of the same century when its supposed beneficiaries, the people who had to live in the concrete blocks that followed the Modernist model, rebelled, and it came to be seen for what it truly was, a failed philosophy.
City of Towers – Christopher Booker BBC 1979 – film notes
August 26th, 2011
Footnotes (by blog author while writing it up)
“Under a perpetual blanket of smoke”
Ebenezer Howard – Letchworth. The Garden City 1903
Tony Garnier – What is a city for – zoning 1904
Skyscrapers early years of C20th
H.G.Wells – The Sleeper Awakes 1898 – London in 2100
Italian futurists – machines
Antonio Sant’Elia – A manifesto of a futurist architecture 1914
Russian Revolution – large buildings, skyscrapers from communism
Manhattan skyline – skyscrapers from capitalists
Germany – Mies van der Roe & Walter Gropius
August Perret – City of Towers – early 1920s
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret – Le Corbusier (crow like) – early 1920s
“Towards a new architecture” – Corbusier – 1923
“The City of Tomorrow” – Corbusier – 1925
This stupendous vision – an entirely new kind of society
Fritz Lang – Metropolis “as the most appalling nightmare” – 1920s
CIAM – avant garde architects on a Mediterranean cruise in 1933