Politics, Planning and the Urban Street-scape

 

              'Planning' isn't working. If it were, the built environment would be better than it is: An application is submitted, fees paid, sometimes amendments agreed and permission granted or declined. This often produces an urban environment that is a variation on something like the above photograph. Something is wrong, for the time, investment and aggregate learning of all the professionals involved, surely the end result should be better and more humane. This is not a matter of lack of funds: £25,000 was spent installing seats, one of which can be seen in this photo – but, would you want to sit there? It could have been useful as a waiting area, only there are yellow line restrictions and concrete bollards to prevent this. The pavement was extended, only it uses the same surface as the road and with the bollards and yellow lines this has the effect of simply creating a dead zone. This is no accident, someone planned it, authorized the expenditure and instructed someone else to carry out the works and all of this was done with your money. When you are told there is no funding for essential services, think about the waste that removes funding from where it is needed most. £10,000 was spent on installing the metal polls with empty flower baskets - also in the photograph. If there had been plants in those baskets, they would be supposed to survive suspended next to a traffic intersection with no water supply. I am being unfair, there is a water supply: more money is spent on a van that travels around watering the plants – most of which drains onto the floor around the seat. This means that the plants die and yet more money is spent regularly replacing them. I am not a fan of the phrase 'less is more', but in this case it really does apply. Those seats, plant polls and tarmac required minerals and power to make the steel that is sprayed with some polluting polymer coating. They required petrol and diesel and created traffic for their installation, all of which contributes to the degradation of the environment. How was this environment created? Because somebody delegated, to somebody who delegated, to somebody who picked a spot on a map – not because something was required, but because “there seemed to be space and it wouldn't get in anyone's way”. What you see, your urban environment, is not the result of lack of money, it is the result of a lack of care, of lack of thought, and everybody suffers as a result. The businesses are closing as there are no customers and this is hardly surprising as the environment that has been created is uninviting. If the businesses close, they will no longer pay the business rates that provide the money for the street clutter that has been sprinkled in front of their windows and it doesn't have to be like this.

            With a little bit of thought, planters could have been built on the ground so that the plants could be where they would naturally be and so require less upkeep. This would protect the pavement area making a more humane pedestrian environment. Short stay spaces could be provided in the 'dead zone' so that cars can pull over and access the businesses whose trade forms a large part of the economy. Sustainability includes economic sustainability, it is a fundamental part of that ecosystem.

            As it is, the tar-mac pavement is a false economy as metal barriers are then needed to differentiate between pavement and road and signs are required to direct traffic towards parking areas, that are not near the shops. Surely this is where 'planners' are desperately needed, not just on impressive master-plans, but on the small scale, everyday local environment. For all the talk of 'enhancement', local area plans, conservation areas and the importance of 'scale and mass', this is the actual result. Would not planning be of better use to Society, not as a judge of individual designs, but as a visionary act that is concerned with the spaces around the buildings as an aid to a better urban environment?

            You might have thought that in a time of austerity such wasteful practices would end. Well, think again: Oak posts have recently been placed at the end of each parking space in the local car parks and as this might damage the cars, signs have appeared stating that the Council cannot be held responsible for damage to the cars. To pay for this terrible waste of trees, the parking charges have increased. To avoid the increased charges people park in the surrounding streets, causing congestion and pollution as they cruise around looking for a space. Those that would tax you on the basis of your carbon footprint seem to be ensuring that it remains high.

           Instead of chopping down trees to stick in the ground at the end of each parking bay, would it not have been better to plant them? Planting trees is good for the environment both ecologically and visibly. If we breathe in our environment with all our senses we should not dismiss the importance that such small actions can make. I would suggest that planning departments might have their focus re-directed as curators of the street-scape with access to the funds that are currently used to litter the place with street junk. This is a different kind of occupy movement, one that is concerned with the space you already occupy, but which nobody seems too concerned about.

            With a little thought and care, the funding that Council's currently waste could be used to create a more attractive, more enjoyable, more ecologically sustainable urban environment. This will attract people and help the economy. All it requires is a little care and attention, is that too much to ask?

Alex King is an architect and his design 'Santiago Townhouse' won the British Homes Awards in 2011 - Alex King Design / Designalexable, examples of his latest work can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGQhlRz8mc

A Home of your own

It has been known for a long time that countries can kick start their economies through building, it therefore came as no surprise that the budget offers a stimulus package to encourage 'housebuilding'. Along the river Thames, huge residential developments are being built in places such as Vauxhall and Battersea, however these are for the most part bought as speculative investments by overseas buyers. That helps the economy, even if these developments are empty most of the year. Therefore, there is not a lack of accommodation, but rather a lack of financially accessible accommodation.

The problems in the housing sector are not new, even the concerns about space standards have been around a long time.

A 1932 cartoon by Heath Robinson

   Previous affordable housing solutions include Buckminster Fullers' Dymaxion house, designed as mass-produced aluminum housing units, in an attempt at industrializing housing production in the same way that Henry Ford had industrialized car production. Some forms of prefab housing are a descendant of this form of approach.

    In the UK, Walter Segal proposed self-build timber-frame housing in Lewisham, South East London. Segal’s method allowed inexperienced self-builders to build their own homes quickly and efficiently and Segal is often cited as the first architect to practice a truly participatory approach – in an era before public participation and user collaboration were accepted as viable or even thought possible. The early success of this development was helped by the physical act of self-building, as the self-builders developed friendships, helped each other and built a strong and lasting community. The methods and ideals of Walter Segal’s approach continue to be promoted today by the Walter Segal Self-Build Trust.

Walter Segal self-build housing, Lewisham, London.

 English timber frame houses from 1250 onwards were essentially prefab kit buildings, assembled by two people and if you examine the beams at the junctions you will find that these are numbered for easy assembly.

 

       Television programs such as 'Grand Designs' have made the concept of self-build more acceptable in recent years and in a time of economic uncertainty, maybe we need to seek to transform the nature of economic and civic participation by changing the way affordable housing is produced.

   Self-build could provide an opportunity to house those people with the most difficulty starting out on the housing ladder – with less financial risk. However, it would be daunting to embark on a self-build project if you had never built anything before, so what is built and how it goes together is very important – although if a kit house from 1250 can change hands for 600K today, then it is not difficult to see the potential benefits. As with the original timber frame house, the building would need to be easy to assemble, adaptable and subject to continual improvement, rather than conceived as a finished design.

 

 Lustron prefab housing. Ohio 1949

       At a time when many architects have 'less work', I would like to encourage the RIBA to promote a policy interventionist social approach to architecture that seeks to invigorate practice with solutions for affordable housing. This might take the form of a competition to design a self-build kit house with a selection of winning entries for variety. I would suggest that the judges include one or two prefab panel manufacturers – who could promote their products via the competition. The National Self-Build Association (NASBA) should be represented and if possible someone from Government encouraged to participate. If the 'competition was run in two stages, the winning entries could be determined by public vote – helping to engage the public with the Institute. The winning entries could be exhibited at the RIBA, published in the RIBA Journal (who can run an article on Walter Segal's housing – then and now) and be introduced to the prefab panel manufacturers to see if they can bring their designs to the market.

I am sure there will be people who will dismiss this proposal as whimsical – and yet such a proposal holds at it's heart that change is possible and if things can change for the worse, then why not for the better? Design is a way of making things happen and in the end it might not even be about the success of such a proposal, but of finding new ways to practice and to provoking change within the field of architecture.