Reshaping the Build Environment Flashcards
Reshaping the Built Environment Primary Literature
Britain, soon the worst housed nation in Europe
- Newspaper Article, The Listener, 1985
- Housing stock shocked by the right-to-buy in 1980 - initially well received but retrospectively seen as tantamount to a housing crisis. Housing shortfall.
- Key Contentions Around Subject: Failed commitments of the government; rising expectations of living conditions
- Silences: North/South divide, role of Thatcher, Left response to crisis.
- Stylistics: Evocative imagery, (less than) underlying political tension
Reshaping the Built Environment Primary Literature
A New Face for Social Housing
Broader Historical Context: Writing during period of high-pressure upon the housing market. By 1951, 1,500,000 houses were still required. Housing was among the most fuel-inefficient in Europe - as the stock was built prior to 1973, and oil supply was considered inexhaustible.
Silences: Class pressures on housing, resource shortage, fuel demand
Stylistics: Informative, relies on data to shock readers
Summary of Source Content: Some pushback against the notion of homogenous design even at the time - Ministry of Housing (interesting that such a thing existed) emphasised that the priority was space and heat. Shortage of land was an issue. The Building Society’s dream house was one which was aspirational, though seldom achieved.
Factors considered inhibitive of new ideas for housing:
- * Out of date by-laws from the Industrial Revolution
- * Resistance from local planning committees
- * Building Society regulations, ‘union’ regulations (v tory)
- * Mortgage 12 yrs
- * Wimpy - 6000 houses /yr, £3,000 for standard house
2 - Freehold, three-bedroom house and garden considered the ‘land eaters’, accused of damaging the environment. 3 - Return concern for homogeneity. 4 - At the same time, Span housing room was not considered substantial enough - “their 12 year old son (below) has to do his homework in the living room, because his own room is too small”. 6 - Interesting lang -“decaying Edgbaston”, optimism for a “masterplan to the year 2000”. 10 - Attempt to reconsider the pre-fab, suggesting existing unpopularity.
Reshaping the Built Environment Secondary Literature
What did Ortolano conclude in Planning the Urban Future in 1960s Britain?
Outlines the importance of modernity and technology in the minds of New City architects - namely in this instance, Pooley, who hoped to use monorail technology in ‘New Bucks’ for cultural uplift and to overcome the burden of a car-owning democracy.
Reshaping the Built Environment Secondary Literature
What did Mandler conclude in ‘New Towns for Old: The Fate of the Town Centre’?
Essentially, the visions of the planners of the 1940s were neither utopian nor conservative. These plans were not those which would later be implemented however = conservatives would ultimately privatise development, which marked the point at which the British direction deviated from the Continent. Both Britain and the Continent moved away from the design direction of 1950s-70s during the late 70s and 80s, where heritage began to seep back in.
