Single Aspect Blog

This film made in 2003 is a potted history of the LCC architects’ department at County Hall and their designs and achievements in post-war housing, concentrating on the landmark estates and new towns, in addition to projects by others in Sheffield and Newcastle:-

BBC – Press Office

• Harlow new town
• Alton East Roehampton
• Alton West Roehampton
• Keeling House Bethnal Green – Denys Lasdun
• Park Hill Sheffield
• Tower blocks and system building
• Alexandra Road Housing – Neve Brown
• Byker Estate Newcastle – Ralph Erskine
• Trellick and Balfron Towers – Erno Goldfinger

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November 8th 2018 UPDATE: I went round Maiden Lane with a resident and two friends earlier this year to see what had been done. The new blocks are out of scale with the older blocks while mimicking them architecturally; and the sunken gardens are badly shaded.

The estate has had a coat of paint and some repairs from the profits derived from sale of private flats in the new tower.

UPDATE: Film of the estate at 12:38 Architecture_at_the_Crossroads

THE GOOD NEWS . . .

When I walked onto the Maiden Lane Estate (“by the great Scottish Corbusian architects Benson and Forsyth” – Douglas Murphy) I hated it, run down and flaking paint.  When I left an hour later I loved it, a strong Art Deco feel and the knowledge that there’s nothing wrong with it structurally, it just needs badly tidying up and painting.  Why won’t Camden Council do it up?

Click photo for larger image

I love the Art Deco towers, I don’t know what is inside them but they are reminiscent of a 1930s Odeon cinema.

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UPDATE: Nice article in the Guardian here -> having the last laugh

After a hot day walking the streets of London (3/7/2010) in search of both good and bad housing I went to see Francesca Martinez at the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank.

Robin Ince provided the introduction during which time the purpose of the screen above his head became clear.  It was translating speech into words on screen in almost real time in much the same way as the subtitles on television do; with occasional human intervention to correct words out of context.

It relayed his words very well but what was more suprising was that when Francesca was speaking, whose speech is less clear, it did an almost perfect job too, (a friend pointed out that she may have “trained” it).

When Robin Ince introduced Francesca Martinez she was assisted on stage to her chair, she has difficulty walking as a result of cerebral palsy, something she calls being “wobbly”.  She is cuttingly funny, self deprecating and charming.

Click photo for larger image

Of the many funny stories and anecdotes she related I will repeat only one.  She was once asked “Have you ever prayed to God to be normal?” to which she replied “No, because I can’t imagine any God that would make the rest of the world disabled”.

There was a lot of that. Humour directly related to her condition but not in sad or sentimental way, quite the reverse, in a spiky and incrediby amusing way.  She is immensely likeable and I’m only sorry she doesn’t appear more often in London but given the breadth of her world tours I’m not surprised.

While walking around the East End (26/6/2010) I came across the former Bryant and May factory by the Eastway. I used to pass it on the train in the 1970s when it still had the branding on the outside facing the railway lines but it has long since been converted to housing and known as Bow Quarter.

Former Bryant and May factory from Fairfield Road

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Click image for area photograph

Donnybrook is wonderful, obviously. Go and see for yourself. After all, if you import a Mediterranean housing typology into an English climate what could possibly go wrong?

This used to be a longer article. Edited 23/11/17

Who’s driving what gets built and how can we do it better?

As part of the London Festival of Architecture an event took place in the Gallery at 77 Cowcross Street on Tuesday evening 29th June.  Those speaking were the following:-

David Birkbeck, Chief Executive of Design for Homes, chaired the event and speakers included: Alex Ely, partner at MAE Architects, Sadie Morgan, partner at DRMM, Dick Mortimer, Development Director at Family Mosaic, Chris “Good Evening Glastonbury!” Brown, Chief Executive at Igloo, and finally, David Lunts, London Regional Director at the HCA.

The evening started at 1800 with an introduction from David Birkbeck followed by a short talk from each of those present beginning with:-

Sadie Morgan who talked about the difference between ideals and practice in designing flats, and showed a succession of slides outlining the path from proposal to completion and the changes therein caused by the constraints of different building regulations.

Alex Ely showed slides of projects in Germany and the Netherlands where good design had been achieved with a minimal design brief and one I think in England where the brief had been 143 pages and turned out to be blue and ugly.

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Some time ago, earlier this year while I was doing some internet research about Hammersmith and Fulham I came across a table showing the salaries of the Chief Executives of Housing Associations.  They are substantial. A few weeks ago on one of my many architectural trips into the capital I met a couple on the train, quite posh, retired who were about to dispose of a copy of that weeks Private Eye.  Understanding it was headed for the bin I said “would you mind if I read it instead please?” to which they agreed and on p.3 I found this article.

Ministers were quick to reveal that 50 housing associations pay their chief executives more than the prime minister. But they may be a bit slower to do anything about it.

Associations are classed as private sector organisations despite receiving billions of pounds in development grants and housing benefit payments from the taxpayer. That enables them to raise billions more in private finance to build homes without any impact on public borrowing, and to style themselves as independent businesses that have to pay the going rate to attract and retain the best people.

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UPDATE: 20/3/18 I’d feel happier about this block in rapidly gentrifying Brixton if https://www.frendcastle.co.uk/developments/ weren’t taking an interest in it. Are others too?

UPDATE: 7/2/14 I heard yesterday that Southwyck House has been refused listing by EH and so we can no doubt look forward to London’s only barrier block being “redeveloped” at some stage for the benefit of an increasingly gentrified Brixton.

While going to see Peter Barber’s Donnybrook this afternoon (26/6/2010) I came across the longest line of single aspect houses I’ve ever seen, 270m according to Google Earth, and less than 200m from Donnybrook.

Taken from the footbridge, click photo for larger image

It’s like a smaller version of the Byker Wall in Newcastle, built to shield the residents from a dual carriageway, the motorway was never built.  Not having studied it myself I am informed by a commentator today (3/10/2010) that the flats have windows overlooking the road (see Comments below). A quick Google of the road adjacent shows it to be Lefevre Walk.

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UPDATE: 14/9/12 – Firefighters rescue woman from Pimlico flat fire

This dreadful building by MAKE stands between the private residential waterside block (Bramah) and the railway lines into Victoria.  It has mean narrow pinched windows and consists almost entirely of overheated single aspect flats without balconies  (the corner flats have adjacent windows facing at 90°).

Click photo for larger image

Woods House shows its western face, limited fenestration is the technical term

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From time to time while researching housing matters I come across such erudite and informed articles that I treasure them and what follows is one such which encapsulates the both the recent history of and present crisis in housing. It covers so much of what I think is presently wrong with the housing situation in this country.

oldonmk2

13 Jun 2010, 12:06PM

Subsidized housing is not simply council housing, or housing assn properties. Many houses built in the private sector from 1945- 79 benefitted from tax relief on mortgage interest payments!

In what is now Milton Keynes an employed person with a £6000 mortgage in 1973 had the same tax relief as a person with six children of school age. And the bigger the mortgage, the greater the tax relief.

The problem is that around 50% of the population had wages which would not allow them to buy a house back then, and that figure has probably risen to 70-75% today. Then the building of council houses – flats made it possible for people to have a reasonable life. The alternative was private sector housing in bedsits which typically took more than 35% of the average wage in rent for one dilipidated room without running water, and any security of tenure.

There was also those houses lost by bombing, and thousands of men returning from the forces, or as my parents did, having to move from a requisitioned house we had been parked in because my father was required for war work in a factory design office out in the sticks. These displaced persons did not have the cash to buy property, [forces pay for the rank & file rarely exceeded £3 per week! They were the majority! Not much to risk your life for.

Council housing before “right to buy” was largely self financing, the asset lasting near a century or more, would ultimately pay for itself. Right to buy wrecked this system. Which up to the time of Thatcher was largely accepted by both parties. Indeed some of the most pleasant council estates were erected by Tory councils in semi rural areas. Thatcher set out to destroy local govt, by “reform” of the rating system, and planning control. She largely succeeded. Now we have the consequences of Her and her acolytes Major, Blair and Brown.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/13/cuts-threaten-affordable-new-homes

Lastly if you’re wondering where Right to buy I is it’s linked here

UPDATE: This from the Green Benches

https://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/10/tories-sold-320bn-of-council-homes.html