Building A Sustainable Community Based On Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House Neighbourhood

MArch Y6 Dissertation

Building A Sustainable Community Based On

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House Neighbourhood

Author / Hung-Tsung Lin Adviser / Dr. Chengzhi Peng OCT 2014

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

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MArch Y6 Dissertation

Building A Sustainable Community Based On

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House Neighbourhood

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

Contents --- P. 7 --I. ABSTRACT --- P. 8 --II. INTRODUCTION --- P. 10 --III. LITERATURE REVIEW III-1. Literature Review III-2. Terrace House in UK History III-3. The Features of Terrace House III-4. Architectural Issue of Terrace House --- P. 19 --IV. METHODOLOGY --- P. 22 --V. RESEARCH - Five Advantages About Building A Terrace Housing Neighbourhood V-1. The terrace house neighbourhood could provide a safer living community environment V-2. The density of terrace house also could target the high density as tower block building

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V-3. Terrace house is more valuable than the tower block and also cost less on maintain V-4. The resilient concepts of regenerated terrace house have more advantages V-5. To regenerated terrace house is more eco-friendly for developing a sustainable community --- P. 36 --VI. CASE STUDY - REGENERATION OF TERRACE HOUSE VI-1. Highbury, 2014, by Architecture for London VI-2. Lockwood House, 2012, by Diamond Architects VI-3. Writer’s Shed, 2013, by WSD Architecture --- P. 45 --VII. CONCLUSION VII-1. Conclusion VII-2. Further Research --- P. 48 --VIII. GLOSSARY --- P. 50 --IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

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I. ABSTRACT

This dissertation focuses on building a sustainable community based on generating the unfashionable terrace house neighbourhood, including the housing developing history and the comparison between the existing terrace house and the early tower block building. Starting with the literature review to establishing the general acknowledge of the house typology and its current development. To visiting three present regenerated terrace houses and have a short discussion with the architect or the architecture design team for clearing some design strategy, and recording those informations in this dissertation, and, meanwhile, making a short critique with the point view of the resilient concept and a sustainable community. After this researching journey, the most suitable developing strategy for regenerating the existing terrace house is the mixing use of those different housing type buildings because the citizens’ requirements are changing from the different life periods. A possible combination is with 81% of the regenerated terrace houses and 19% of the low-rise and high-rise building flats, which those percentage numbers are based on the 2011 UK population.

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

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II. INTRODUCTION

Terrace house is a very common typical housing type in the current society, especially in UK. The reason why terrace house is so popular is because of several complex reasons. Basically, two main and obvious reasons are the wider conditions of living in the urban area and the price of the house. According to one of Eurostat1 news release, there is up to 60.9% of the population in United Kingdom living in semidetached/terraced houses and there are following by 24.7%, 14.2% and 0.1% of the population living in detached houses, flats and other kinds of accommodations.2 Although the supply of new built houses is never out of the marketing, how to keep those used terrace houses continually serving and functioning well or how to regenerate them for suiting the needs of modern live style are the big issues for developing a sustainable society.

In this dissertation, firstly, the development of the housing type will be addressed. Does this old fashion housing type, terrace house, deserve to preserve? Does terrace house have the potential to be regenerated and to provide a comfortable living space? Is it possible to solve the housing crisis by regenerating the abandoned terrace house?

More importantly, is the terrace house the better housing type for developing a sustainable society?

Secondly, before making any suggestions or conclusions, the case study of the regenerated terrace houses and the observation of an inhabiting terrace house will provide more further informations with the issue of regenerating a terrace house and about the tendency of terrace housing development.

1. Eutostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg and the leading provider of high quality statistics on Europe, http://epp.eurostat. ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/ eurostat/home/ 2. “Housing conditions in the EU27 in 2009: One person in six lives in an overcrowded dwelling,�

Eurostat, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/323022011-BP/EN/3-23022011BP-EN.PDF

With the rough concept, two approaches to upgrade a terrace house are adding an extension to enlarge the interior space and cutting off a part of existed volume to enhance the condition of the indoor circulation. No matter which one is all facing the congenital defects of this specific housing type and its own individually architectural issues. Those are need to be considered in advance, even in the wider urban context.

If adding an extension in, the new building volume will not only bring the new interior floor for the property owner but also change the original relationships between itself and the terrace houses next to it. How to inset a new building volume appropriately is one research question in this dissertation. On the other hand, if the original living condition is lack of

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

the certain quality of the circulation, maybe the possible solution is cutting off a part of the existed volume and inserting a new volume to improve the living condition. However, how to insert a blank volume into a terrace house would be another research question which is also worth to think and discuss about.

In this dissertation, three main section were include: the history of the terrace house, the new possibility of the terrace and the case studies of the regenerated terrace house.

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III. LITERATURE REVIEW III-1. Literature Review

In this section, the development and evolution of terrace house is the initial and small part of this literature review and, after that, follows with a discussion of the modern urban landscape: the movement of tower block. However, in the end, the evidences showed that tower block was collapsing and people didn’t want to live in it and how to develop lowrise and high-density housing community is becoming the main issue which was worth to discuss. Therefore, to generate the occupied terrace house has the potential to solve the current house crisis.

The History of Terrace House

In 16th century Paris, people immigrate from the countryside to the city for the more work opportunities. The pressure of the housing need increase and the need of the medium-density housing was accompanying with. Therefore, the new type of housing: terrace houses were designated, which is with several common features: the monotonous design, the repetitive processes of constructing, the reduction of building materials (sharing side-walls), etc. Those characters of the terrace house are the main reasons why this kind housing type becomes popular because the price of this kind property is lower and the speed of the construction is also faster than the previous housing.

3. “Great Fire of London,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Great_Fire_of_London

Terrace house be introduced into London after the Great Fire of London, 1666.3 It’s also because the urgent need of housing during the reconstructing London city period. The following housing boom is the industrial revolution between 1820 and 1840. More and more citizens move into the city for the convenient live, for the more work opportunities, and, of course, the better income, etc. At the same time, terrace house were becoming very popular and widely spreading in several England cities due to the rapidly growing city and its affordable price.

Moreover, the widely spreading terrace house not only appears in UK but also in the British colonies, such as Malaysia, Singapore, etc.4

4. “Terraced House,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Terraced_house

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

The Appearance of Tower Block / Multi-storey Housing

Terrace houses showed up in London after the Great Fire of London, 1666, and the first tower block in UK: The Lawn,5 was built in 1951, after the second World War. The reason why the society started to need this kind of high-density residence was obvious: the pressure of supplying more houses, again, for satisfying the social need climbed to the peak after the war. Meanwhile, the development of urban plan, architectural theory and technological support met together during that particular period. (Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse, 1935)6 The tower blocks became the future of urban landscape. However, the construction cost of tower block building is almost 2.5 times of detached house. In the same comparison, the fee of one terrace house was only 0.8 times of a single house. (John Ellis, Explaining Residential Density, 2004)7

During the past three quarters of a century, accompanying with the development of growing cities, medium-density housings, such as terrace houses or 3-5 storeys residences, were replaced by highdensity housings: tower block housing, and sometime were even a new tower block replaced a decaying one. Meanwhile, the density limitation of the city population also had been replaced several different numbers again and again by the government. However, the density limitation in the inner city had also never been reached, the numbers of tower blocks, at the same time, also had started collapsing, and the size of cities continued to grow and expand. The solutions - replacing the mediumdensity housing with the high-density residence - for slowing down the growing cities doesn’t work well and also brought up the new problems: the decline of the street.

A recently report: Create Streets: Not just multi-storey estates8, points out this strange phenomena: why the number of the density didn’t go up with the original urban plan and why those wrong policies continued to exist in our society, with some explanations. Because no one wanted to live in a decaying street and no one wanted to own a lowprofit house. The tower block residence made the maximum of the profit for the developers / investors, however caused the high costs of maintain and left the minimum of the extra benefits for the owners. (Create Streets: Not just multi-storey estates, pp.54, Table 6.2)

5. The Lawn, Essex, London, built in 1951, from “Harlow,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Harlow

6. Edward Relph, “The Modern Urban Landscape,” London : Croom Helm, 1987

7. John Ellis, Explaining Residential Density [Research & Debate], Place Journal, Vol.16, No.2, Summer 2004, pp.34-43. http:// places.designobserver.com/media/ pdf/Explaining_Res_803.pdf

8. Nicholas Boys Smith and Alex Morton, “Create streets: Not just multi-storey estates,” CREATE street, http://www.createstreets.com/download/i/mark_ dl/u/4012155729/4599251837/Create%20Streets.pdf, 8 Mar 2011

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The Potential of Terrace House

In UK, 60.9% people were living in a semi-detached houses or terrace houses in 2009. It represents that those types of residences were popular and were the most common urban landscape we can see everywhere. Meanwhile, if we could refurbish, even regenerate, those existing terrace houses, this proposal has the potential to bring the streets back to live again and runs down the pressure of the house need at the same time. Therefore, terrace houses should have an opportunity to continue to service and exist before being demolished and reporting past mistakes: replacing them with the useless tower block building.

Summary of literature review

The current publications and researches, most of them were only focused on the one particular research or discussion, such as recording the evaluation / the history of the terrace house, the invention of the tower block or the explanation of the social expectations.

However, there was no reference which integrate those fragments into a whole piece to provide a clear picture of the potential of generating those existing terrace houses.

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

III-2. Terrace House in UK HistoryTerrace house is designated in Pairs 1605

1612 Great Fire of London 1666 Georgian Era

Terrace house be introduced into UK

1714 1760 1783

Industrial Revolution

1837 1840

Victorian Era

1878

Incandescent light bulb be invented

1901 1914 World War I World War II

1918 1939 1945 1951

First tower block building be built in UK

1957

Park Hill, Sheffield, be commpeted (part 1)

1961

Park Hill, Sheffield, be commpeted (part 2)

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III-3. The Features of Terrace House

No matter which kinds of housing typology for identifying the earlier architectures was more easier than the contemporary buildings, including terrace houses. However, from the previous literature review, four features / characters were showed and presented what was a terrace house was: Medium - density housing

Located at inner suburb.

Something associated with “the working class.�

Sharing side - walls

Usually terrace houses were sharing the side-walls. However, a rare of back-to-back terrace houses were even also sharing the rear wall.

Identical or mirror - image facade (repetitive and monotonous)

The most economical housing type (standardization in all sections, including developing: merchant builder and contractor and master builder; constructing: building material producing and transporting) New developmental terrace houses usually didn’t designed for particular clients and for certain residents. Usually, terrace house was designed in common use.

STAIRCASE - the most strong feature which designs / decides the interior character in a terrace house

In terrace house typology, the staircase was the most strong feature to distinguish the different types of terrace house. Because the limitation of the interior space, the location of the staircase was one of the architectural issue which was discussed often. The different locations of the staircase in the terrace houses led the different discussable architectural issue.

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

III-4. Architectural Issue of Terrace House Lighting and Air Circulation

Because of sharing side-walls, the rest two walls were the very important elevations which were with windows provided the natural light and circulating air. This was also one of the main architectural issue which was addressed a lot.

Regeneration / Refurbish / Renew

Because of the innate conditions, regenerating a terrace house was a challenge all the time. Firstly, the limitation of the open-air walls offered the possible and suitable dimensions for gaining the light and the air. Secondly, in order to maintain the beauty of the street, there were the strict restrictions with refurbishing the facade. Thirdly, because terrace houses stood with the others, any change made a difference of the previous relationship between a row of terrace house all the time and effected the original living conditions at the same time.

Based on those reasons gave above, sometimes, to refurbish an existing terrace house was may not a pleasure and easy process.

However, this was the challenge for a professional architect. This was also the main propose of this dissertation was discussing and trying to solve.

Staircase

Staircase was the main feature which decided the almost character of a terrace house. In fact, the staircase was also one of the few vertical elements / volumes in the terrace house. The staircase was the main benefit and the main disadvantage at the same time. The staircase was also the main critical and discussable architectural subject of this certain housing type.

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IV. METHODOLOGY

This dissertation is based on three main sections with three different methods to approach the final conclusion. They are: 10. the wider research of terrace house in UK from the past to now (through the literature review), 2. the present of the terrace house (by the case studies of regenerated and inhibited terrace house) and 3. the future possibilities of terrace house (comes up with the integration of the gathered information, reports, data and acknowledges.)

Firstly, in order to identify and understand this particular housing type and have a clear picture of it, this dissertation starts with a further literature review which is a journey of looking back into the past and relating to the architecture history and city development. This is helpful to find the features of terrace houses and to focus on the main subject: terrace house, which is discussed in this dissertation. Therefore, the literature review is the main method at the beginning of this dissertation.

As much as the background information of terrace houses gather from the earlier period terrace houses, the research questions will be more focused and the possible evolution of terrace house for next generation will be also provided at the later stage of this dissertation.

Secondly, case study is another method used for two purposes: 1. to visit three present terrace housed which have been regenerated and completed and have a quick discussion with the architect or the design team, and 2. to survey an inhibited terrace house for observe the live in a terrace house.

In order to gather the useful information and data for searching the disadvantages of living in a terrace house, the case study was researching with the regenerated terrace houses. Those fine projects were the integrated outcome of fixing and dealing with the problems which came from the used terrace house. What the architects were designed for and working on are the evidences of them. Those architectural issues are the basic conditions needed to be considered at the end of this dissertation.

Case study is used for having a future picture of terrace houses when regenerating them in the future. The tendency of the residential development and the needs are coming up with case study of the new built / developing terrace houses.

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

In fact, case study is a useful method for gathering helpful information and data. Therefore, this method is used in different stages in the dissertation. However, case study also needs to use with several designed conditions for focusing and targeting the sub-research questions.

For example, the case study of regenerated terrace houses needs to think about the relationship with the location. The location and position of an architecture project is very important. Even though the terrace houses is occupied every city around the world, the strategies of solving the problems are different. Therefore, if the purpose is to identify the problems of living in a terrace houses in UK, the study projects collected in London and Sheffield, UK. Of course, different cities are also a controllable condition, which are considered.

However, the second case study was to research the potential solutions for solving the current problems and to understand the tendency of the residence development. Therefore, all the terrace houses around the world were all considerable and the restrictions were the simulation between the new built terrace houses and the typical one.

Volume study in a terrace house was another method used in the last stage of this dissertation and also the main outcome. Using volume study to integrate the earlier research, to find the possible suggestion and to give the suggestion for generation of terrace houses in the future at the end of this dissertation.

There are three methods were used in this dissertation: the literature review, case study and volume study.

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V. RESEARCH - Five Advantages About Building A Terrace Housing Neighbourhood

From the previous literature review, it more focuses on the housing development is always a reflection of the society change through the time pass by. The current housing situations is developers continue to build and provide the tower block buildings for solving the house need of the society. However, because of the collapse of the earlier built tower block building and low quality living style in it, people don’t like this certain type housing property. Therefore, some recent years researches have started to rethink this phenomenon and reintroduce another approach for providing housing property by regenerating those unfashionable terrace houses.

In this section of the dissertation is a further research about what happened to the tower block building and why did the tower block building fall; what are the exactly potentials of terrace and how do we develop a sustainable community based on regenerating the existed terrace house neighbourhood?

There are five main benefits for regenerating the existed terrace houses comparing to build the new tower block building: 1. The terrace house neighbourhood could provide a safer living community environment.

2. The density of terrace house also could target the high density as tower block building.

3. Terrace house is more valuable than the tower block and also cost less on maintain.

4. To regenerated terrace house is more eco-friendly for developing a sustainable community.

5. The resilient concepts of regenerated terrace house have more advantages.

The above five benefits of building a sustainable community based on regenerating the unfashionable terrace house will be addressed more and also with the supporting arguments.

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

V-1. The terrace house neighbourhood could provide a safer living community environment Living in the terrace house neighbourhood has a closer relationship with the neighbours

It’s clear that living in a tower block house and a terrace house are two different living style. People living in the multi-storey apartment block have less connection and interaction with their neighbours, even with the nature environment. This doesn’t mean people living in the tower block are self-centred and unconcerned. It’s because the lack of the overlap and connection between each living units. For example, the children go the play field far from the living unit and, meanwhile, the parents need to company with and leave their daily works behind. The adults have some social actives in the communal space in purpose, lack of the coincidence social chance. The sequence of this is the residents living in the tower block unit may only know who is living in the next door and the nearby, however, it’s hard to social with who is living up or down stair, even the next tower. It becomes hardly to get used to due to too many unfamiliar people living together.

In contrary, people living in the terrace house have more overlap and interaction with their neighbours and the nature environment. They also have more opportunities to have interaction between. For example, while the parents are preparing the meal or doing the household works, their children can run into the garden and play outdoor. The interaction between the parents and their children in happening at the same time while they’re doing the daily duties or playing. They also have the opportunities have an eye contact with their neighbours passing through.

Of course, residents living in a terrace house also still have the same opportunities with those living in the tower block. The adult also can go out to have some social active in the community space and the children can run and trace after others children in the play ground. Therefore, people living in the terrace house or low-raise apartment are more easier to have more interactions with their neighbours. Not just the overlap living area is more for physical interaction; but also the window on the ground floor is another opportunity for eye contact or sound delivery.

Living in a terrace house or low-rise flats provides a friendly living environment for socialising and makes people really living together.

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It’s not like living in a tower block just collects people under the same roof, not exactly living together.

Living in the terrace house neighbourhood provides a safer living environment with the community

Following the pervious argument, the overlap area living in a terrace house is bigger than living in a tower bock unit and residents are exactly living together in the terrace house community. It also means the residents living in the terrace house neighbourhood have more chances to help, take care, and even watch after for each others. This is a very good start point to build a safety living area.

9. Oscar Newsman, “Defensible Space Theory,” Design Guidelines For Creating Defensible Space, Washington, DC: National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, 1976

Based on Defensible Space Theory(Oscar Newsman, 1996)9, a terrace house definitely provides a safer living environment, comparing to a tower block building. In fact, this is also a good evidence for supporting the reason why the tower block is collapsing after the long term use. In the tower block building, there are to much blind angle spaces, corridors and stair cases. They provide a hiding space for under table businesses and also cause the the communal space in the tower block building to become a dangerous space. As result, the accidents happened in the tower block building is higher than a terrace house community.

In a terrace house neighbourhood, the boundary of the property is clear, which usually is the timber fence or the brushwood. It’s also provide the opportunity for the eye content between the indoor and the the street, which basically reduce the blind angle around the property.

Therefore, the terrace house neighbourhood provides a safer community for living in.

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V-2. The density of terrace house also could target the high density as tower block building High density causes the residents unhealthy and people don’t want to live in a tower block building

A house is a machine for living in. (Le Corbusier, 1923, Towards A New Architecture) When we take this quote out from the content of the whole article, the book, even that certain epoch, we will lose everything. Think about today’s society, a house, a community, what we are looking for is more than just a machine. It will need to consider more about the a sustainable house, a long term living container. It’s also not just all about the mass production, the giant machine, industry revolution, and leave the mental health of human behind. We are human, not a non-live object. We need to consider about the living quality, the living environment, even a sustainable society in when we are imagining a liveable neighbourhood where people are going to stay in a long period.

Therefore, when we are taking about the density of a housing area, we can just talk about what is efficacious numbers of the density. We also need to think about what is good for the human need. Of course, find a good balance between is the beauty of a good liveable community comes from.

High-rise building, tower block building, doesn’t reflect the high density as the planers’ imagination

High-rise building is not always relating to the high density directly. In face, it’s correlation with urban plan, urban context, even closer. The tower-block housing is influenced by Le Corbusier. It means to stack up those wider separating low-rise houses into several highrise buildings and, at the same time, to release the land space, include ground floor space in the building, to be a communal space for public use. Meanwhile, in the building, it’s also essential to provide enough service space and service core, such as the corridors, stairs, lift, pipeline, etc. As result, the actual density of the whole tower-block building area, include the building and the communal space between the buildings, is lower than the wider separating low-rise housing. The best example is the density of the Aylesbury Estate, allocated at south London, is even only two thirds, comparing to the previous low-raise housing.

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To provide enough habitable room and unit in per hectare doesn’t mean to reach the target of the levels of density. If we always only think about what is the perfect number of the density and forget about what is the better living environment, we will get the insolvable deadlock all the time. People’s wills would knock down the developers’ and government’s ambition.

In fact, the population density is not everything about urban planning 10. Thomas Malthus, “Carrying Capacity,” Wikipedia, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity 11. Julia Layton, “Has Earth reached its carrying capacity?,” How stuff works, http://science. howstuffworks.com/environmental/ green-science/earth-carrying-capacity.htm

The carrying capacity10 of Earth or land has its limits,11 both for people living on or for plants growing on. It means there is a maximum number of the density. In order to increase the production of food from limited farmland, scientist introduces the idea of vertical farming which is creating more land space in the air. Similarly, architect uses the tower block building for increasing the population density. However, from the aspect of ecology, to grow food on the earth needs not only enough space for plants to grow but also those micro-elements in the soil for plants to consume. This becomes one main problem of the vertical farming. Meanwhile, this phenomenon also applies on the tower block building. The lack of the recreation ground for children to play and the communal space for adults to socialise will cause some health problems, both the mental or physical. Of course, there are many solutions or options for fixing and adjusting those relative problems. However, this is an endless cause and effect, an unpredictable sequence and a dangerous development. This doesn’t mean the innovations of the vertical farming and the tower block building are wrong and unnecessary.

Those inventions play the important roles in the human society, which are helping to solve the crisis of food production and the housing need due to population explosion and global immigration.

The possibility of approaching the target density by regenerating the existing terrace house first

In order to make more people could living in the city, increase the population density is the target the urban planners’ has been thinking for a long term. Placing the high-rise building is the most common strategy they have been playing with. However, the reality is complex and not that kind simple at all. It needs the citizens love to move into

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

100

M

M

100

76 units/hecture those tower block property and cooperate the government policy. If we look back to the UK history, the only housing type which reaching the target density number is the terrace house neighbourhood, such as Notting Hill, Lancaster Gate and Earl’s Court ( Nicholas Boys Smith and Alex Morton, Create Street: Not just multi-storey estates, 2001), not the tower block building. Of course, this is a debatable and discussable argument. However, if the urban planners and the government believe using the tower block building is the appropriate solution, this changing process should make it slowly with widely careful consideration. The best way to approach is step by step from regenerating the existing terrace house for the urgent demand of the house property. At the same time, placing the tower block into the existing terrace house urban context softly and making the society move forward smoothly. Don’t swipe the existing terrace house neighbour away and replace the boring tower block buildings directly. Citizens get used to the slow changing process, however, will reject the big movement immediately. This strategy will increase the population density through the time and reach the target density eventually.

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V-3. Terrace house is more valuable than the tower block and also cost less on maintain Building a valuable community, not a slum city

12. John G. Ellis, “Explaining Residential Density,” PLACES, https://escholarship.org/uc/ item/2np5t9ct, 2004

If building a single house cost is 1, building a terrace house cost is only 0.9 and a 8 storeys high-rise building is over 2.5. (John G. Ellis, Explaining Residential Density, 2004)12 This is the cost of the developer.

Meanwhile, another study shows that the profit for developers to build a terrace is around£600,000 and a 8 storeys high-rise building is around£1,200,000, and the profit for the landowner to have a terrace house is£1,200,00 and a 8 storeys high-rise flat is only£170,000.

(Nicholas Boys Smith and Alex Morton, Create Street: Not just multistorey estates, 2001) Therefore, a clear picture shows the exactly reason why the developers prefer building the high-rise building because it’s more profitable. Moreover, the land value has been transferring into paper money and taking away by the developers. The rest property value is few, and also there is less land value left. Of course, the highrise building can make more profit immediately, and, at the same time, make our city into a slum.

Terrace house is not that kind profitable comparing to the highrise building for the developer. However, the value of the property is left with the land and the value will increase by time. The city will be not only a city any more in the future; the city will become a valuable community for living in.

Living in a terrace house coats more less maintain budget

13. James Q. “Wilson and George L. Kelling,” The Atlantic Monthly, Broken Window Theory, March 1982

The modern tower block buildings are collapsing due to the lack of the maintain. While having an empty unit in the tower block for a long time, it will cause more blind angle in the build and lead that area to decay at the same time. This were becoming a spiral of decline: an empty unit leads the blind angle; the blind angle leads the crimes and accidents; the crimes and accidents lead another empty unit; ... . This is a The the speed of the collapsing were increasing by time. (James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, Broken Window Theory, 1982)13 While the government or the management organisation have the enough money to fix this problem, the budget was going higher and higher. If hiring a doorman for taking care the property, it becomes an extra payment

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

need to pay for. Meanwhile, this facilities in the tower block build also costs more maintain fee, too. The lifts in the tower building need the regular maintain. The water tanks on the roof consume more energy, which is following with more electric bill. If the water pipe is broken, it may becomes a seriously problem with the whole building and needs to find technical workers to fix it. All of those facilities maintain fee is increased.

In contrary, living in a terrace house also will cost a lot of maintain fee. However, normally, it’s more easy to fix and technical workers maybe is also unnecessary. The effect of the residents is one family only, not a group of families.

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V-4. The resilient concepts of regenerated terrace house have more advantages Effectively managing the developer’s estimate or the government budget

To building tower block building neighbourhood needs a amount of the developer’s estimate or the government budget to build, and, meanwhile, it takes a long period of time to complete the project. The risk management is becoming a tough issue, including where that such amount of money comes from. Meanwhile, before the whole building be completed, the residents couldn’t move in, live in and test out the design defects for modifying them before starting constructing the next tower block. Before the tower block building be completed, the project can’t be stopped because this will turn the whole under constructing structure into a giant piece of manual rubbish. The development of the tower block building has the high risk and without the resilience. It’s not the current tendency for developing a sustainable community.

In contrary, to regenerate an unfashionable terrace house has its advantage, which is regenerating the property one by one with low government budget and low impact to the neighbourhood environment and the current community. Meanwhile, the design propose is always adjustable at any time for the next project. Even though any mistake has been made, it always can be changed and fixed immediately due to a part of budget been spent on. It also has the chance to modify the design all the time. The design will have its reflection quickly.

Building a community takes ages

After a tower block building be completed and the residents move in, the new residents are starting to establish their own community or joining to the existing community directly. For the first situation, a new community takes time to form; for the second situation, they may have a strong impact on the existing local community. Both of them are not a good approach for developing a sustainable community.

In the other hand, regenerating a terrace house neighbourhood is a good approach to establish a long term community. The new residents join to the community separately, therefore, this group of

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

people won’t have a strong impact to the current community. They also don’t need to group themselves at the beginning while they just move in, and they can meet the existing local community immediately and get help directly. The existing community has the capability of reform and reshape itself through the new community numbers come with less impact. For developing the long term community, this will be a more appropriate approach which is established on the present.

The diversity

It’s impossible to convince everyone to accept living in the same tower block dwelling. Therefore, a mixed type of housing community is a better solution. A family with children may prefer to own a whole terrace house; a seiner couple and new married couple may suit to live in a low-rise flat; an international businessman may expect to stay in a high-rise block dwelling. Otherwise, the different groups of people have the different dimensions of needs which some may be the same, which can overlap and share the space together, and some may be extremely different, which need be isolated and work independently.

This is one of the main benefits for the mixed type of housing. Form the view of an architect, maybe it’s a bit of challenge to arrange the various types of housing together, however, the outcome usually is good. Form the view of the community, it’s also a better way to make people live together and help each other. This will make our society more better for living. In contrary, the low diversity of the type of people not just create a boring community but also lead the area to death.

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V-5. To regenerated terrace house is more eco-friendly for developing a sustainable community Less footprint of the high-rise building doesn’t mean less hurtful to the environment

The footprint of the tower block building is less than a terrace house neighbourhood, however, it’s doesn’t mean it more ecofriendly. The main reason is the tower block building neighbourhood still occupies a widely landscape for the communal space, such as the play ground, the wider road, etc. Those space is filled with the plants, however, this kind artificial garden is not good to the wide animals. It just looks green, but not eco-friendly at all. Meanwhile, those field spaces provide a good outdoor space for the residents to use and explore. That green environment is too over control to be a wide field. The second supporting argument is normally the fundamental of the tower block building is deeper for standing steadily. The tower block building is more eco-friendly is only an advertisement word for a beautiful and wellpacked market commercial.

Less waste be produced; less industrial material and energy be consumed

Regenerating a terrace house produced less construction waste and reduce the consummation of the new industrial materials. To reuse a building is definitely more eco-friendly than to construct a new tower block building after demolishing a existing building. Meanwhile, the refurbishment period for regenerating a terrace house is short than the construction period for building a new tower building. The effect of the refurbishment is also less than the impact of the construction, both on the nature environment and the neighbourhood living condition.

While regenerating an old terrace house, to insert the internal insulation is an economical and eco-friendly regenerating strategy for future energy performance. A lot of terrace houses are out of the time which consuming more energy for heating, comparing to a new building.

In fact, it’s normal and it’s fixable. Otherwise, in a tower building, the lights of the communal space, such as the corridor and the stair case, light all the time for the safety reason.

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VI. CASE STUDY - REGENERATION OF TERRACE HOUSE VI-1. Highbury, 2014, by Architecture for London

14. Architecture for London, http:// architectureforlondon.com

[ Name ] Highbury [ Location ] 72 Calabria Road, London, N5 1HU [ Architects ] Architecture for London14 [ Year ] 2014 [ Visiting Date ]

AM 11:50, 21 Sept. 2014

[ Background Information ] 15. Victorian House, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_house

This property is a victorian house15 in a conservation area.

Because of the original kitchen on the rear of the ground floor is only 2.1 meter high and darkness, the architect team removes the ceiling of it and integrates the original two rear room, the kitchen on the ground floor and the room on the first floor, and the backyard into a new bright high-ceilinged social space, include the kitchen, the dinner space and the outdoor artificial tidy garden.

In order to create such a wide and big room in an old terrace house, they change the structure entirely, which also include a part of the original structure brick wall. Therefore, they insert a new reinforced concrete box, which not only support the above existed brick wall but also provide a fluent family space on the whole ground floor.

Meanwhile, the architect team make a sky window above the kitchen facility for gaining more national light into the kitchen and dinner space. Using a bespoke polished stainless steel chandelier decorate and highlight the whole new designed room. The ground of the backyard covers with the concert floor which is the same level high and material with the interior floor. A bespoke timber fence with planters in limestone is placed around and a one piece modern stainless door furniture which combines a table and two long benches, is featured in the centre of the backyard garden.

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[ Critique ]

The architect team has a big ambition to regenerate this property. Although this is property is a victorian terrace house in a conservation area, they create a whole different atmosphere and feature another character into a conventional British terrace house, which is turning the ground floor into a free social space and, also, making the dark kitchen become a bright family space fulling with the natural light.

From this aspect, the architect team solve the congenital defect of terrace house which is the dark and damp room on the ground floor.

However, this design strategy has became very common solution dealing with those type architectural issues in terrace house today.

Meanwhile, they removed the ceiling of the original kitchen, the original floor of the first floor, away and inserted a reinforced concrete box to integrate the original separated spaces into one. However, this also means they bring serval new architectural issues in. Firstly, the room numbers, habitable rooms, are decreased. They bring the modern living style in, people living in this property have more bigger communal space in this house, however, the carrying capability of it is also decreased at the same. If this is the trend of the solution for regenerating the terrace house, it means we will need to build more houses somewhere for the demand of the house. Secondly, this refurbishment of the old house seems a eco-friendly approach at the beginning, but, in fact, it’s not at all. Moreover, the big space consumes more energy for heating in the winter. The tiny rooms in a house are not modern but they are easy for separated use. Thirdly, this big ambition design approach needs more funds to support, more money to build. They bring a nice result to their client and make an impress to the visitors, however, they also push the construction budget higher and the maintain fee increased. Fourthly, the new garden covered with the concrete is easy to manage but totally lack the infiltration capacity of the land. It’s too artificial. The whole project is only a beautiful design project, however this is not the best regeneration design for a sustainable community development.

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VI-2. Lockwood House, 2012, by Diamond Architects

16. Diamond Architects, www. diamondarchitects.co.uk

[ Name ] Lockwood House [ Location ] 2 Bevan Street, London, N1 7DY [ Architects ] Diamond Architects16 [ Year ] 2013 [ Visiting Date ]

AM 10:00, 20 Sept. 2014

[ Background Information ]

Lockwood house is a Georgian style townhouse with the basement and two storeys in the conservation area. In order to increase the room numbers for the client’s need, the architect put a roof extension, a new attic, to replace the original butterfly roof.

Because this property is location in the conservation area, the architect face the strict regulation for adding a volume on the top of the original building. Meanwhile, to consider the structure issue, the architect remove the original butterfly timber roof away and make the attic floor lower than the original roof level, decrease the original high of the second floor, and put the mass steel beam on for the new attic room.

This design strategy is not only for the requirement of the structure but also for the reduction of the entire volume. Otherwise, to leave a narrow balcony behind the front parapet. Therefore, in fact, the citizen won’t see this new adding room from the street view. The architect preserves the uniform front elevation and keep the front look of this row of terrace house in the origin. [ Critique ]

This is a clever design project for the generation of the old terrace house. It responds to the strict regulations of the conservation area, which make the new attic invisible and keep the uniform facade.

Although it is visible from the back, only the neighbours living in the back of the house can see the change of the skyline. However, it’s tiny

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

volume, not a giant room.

This design strategy can be duplicated and apply to the neighbour terrace house or the similar project. It’s also a good approach to increase the carrying capability of the terrace, which is increase the habitable room number with the same footprint. Meanwhile, it’s also a possible solution for the need of the increase family member and maybe boost the value of the property at the same time.17 However, this approach needs to be carefully considered in advance because of the structure. Moreover, should this the kind of renovation project be copied widely and put on the roof top everywhere? This should be studied circumspectly.

17. Christopher Middleton, “Phil Spencer’s top 20 ways to add value to your home,” The Telegraph, www.telegraph.co.uk/ property/buyingsellingandmoving/7906602/Phil-Spencers-top20-ways-to-add-value-to-yourhome.html, 23 Jul 2010

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VI-3. Writer’s Shed, 2013, by WSD Architecture

18. Weston Surman & Deane Architecture Ltd., www.wsdarchitecture.com

[ Name ] Writer’s Shed [ Location ] 53 Greenwood Road, London, E8 1NT [ Architects ] Weston Surman & Deane Architecture Ltd.18 [ Year ] 2014 [ Visiting Date ]

PM 4:10, 20 Sept. 2014 [ Background Information ]

Writer’s Shed is an additional room space for a Victorian terrace house, located in the backyard of the property. The client expects to have a extra room for his working space which is isolated and work only. Therefore, the architect team design an independent shelter which standing in the backyard, building in lavatory. The main structure is timber and covered with the back-lit cedar facade and shingle cladding.

The interior atmosphere be created with the log store and wood burning stove. According to the client’s words, this shed has very good energy performance. It only needs two hours wood burning in the morning and the shed can trap the heat for the rest of the day.

In order to gain the comfortable natural light and the view with the outdoor environment, the shed built with an angle gable roof facing to the North for the most beautiful natural light coming into the interior and, meanwhile, the bespoke sliding door and frameless glazing for the comely garden becoming such an extension of the indoor space.19

19. Writer’s Shed / WSD Architecture, archdaily, www. archdaily.com/482026/ writer-s-shed-wsd-architecture/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_ campaign=Feed%3A+ArchDaily+%28ArchDaily%29&utm_content=FaceBook, 4 March 2014

Another fact of this project is this is a self-build build by the architect team with the council planning permission. This shed is built by three young practical architects and takes 6 weeks to complete. The totally commission price is end with £31,000, which is one thousand pound more than the original budget. This price includes the simple lavatory, however, it doesn’t include a self-independent septic tank.

The septic take is shared use between the main building and the shed, and otherwise, all the electric wires comes from the main building. This is the possible reason why this addition building only costs with this cheap price.

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House

The last architectural issue the architect team also considered in advance is the impact of the additional structure standing in the central backyard, which may have an effect of the sunshine on the neighbours’ garden. The solution with this is the considerable design and study on the roof angles, the hight of the shed and the distance between the finished facade and the timber fence. [ Critique ]

Writer’s shed is a very trick design project for being a case study of the terrace house regeneration, because the architect team put another building volume in the central backyard and doesn’t really focus on the original terrace house. However, it still represents one possibility of the terrace house regeneration in the society. It’s may not the good approach to provide a generated terrace house neighbourhood, but it can presents an experimental regeneration of terrace house.

Firstly, this additional room in the property is may a inhibitable room and is may not because the planning permission comes with a condition which this is a working space, not a living space. In the council regulation, the client can only use this shed for working, but he is not allowed to sleep in. It’s one possibility for increasing the room number in a terrace house, however, the inhibitable room number doesn’t increase. This approach only is providing more space in a tiny terrace house.

Secondly, even though this shed only places on the ground softly without any hurtful foundation digging into the earth, the design strategy of adding volume in the garden still increase the footprint of the property.

Thirdly, the materials in the project come up with an interest debate. The architect team didn’t use the reclaimed construction materials because using the industrial material directly can save the labour cost. The balance between the price of the industrial and reclaimed materials and the cost of time and labour has a subtle relationship. From this same architect team’s previous experience, they used the reclaimed materials to build and realise their first practice project: royal college of art student union cafe20 with a lower budget on the construction materials cost. However, they spent more time, more

20. Royal College of Art Student Union Cafe by Weston Surman & Deane Architecture, designboom, www.designboom.com/readers/ royal-college-of-art-studentunion-cafe/

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labour work, on dealing with those recycled materials, and, as a result, the cost of labour went high. Based on the previous practice experience they gained, they made an exchange on building this tiny shed. “The finial result hasn’t too much different between,� said by one of three architects. Therefore, the management between the labour and the materials cost is an issue of building a architecture, which is worth a very careful and planning consideration.

Fourthly, to have planning permission for any construction building is important. However, the design proposal from architects, of course, needs to face the regulation, and, at the same time, more importantly, the good relationship with the neighbourhood is also an essential condition for getting the planning permission. For having the planning permission, the council will not only go through the design paper documents but also consider about the construction effect on the environment and the neighbourhood, include the consultation with the neighbours. Therefore, this may contains a part of mysterious process in between. The point of this presents socialising with the community is important.

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100

M

M

100

terrace house: 50 units low-rise flat: 16 units high-rise flat: 34 units 90 units/hecture

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VII. CONCLUSION VII-1. Conclusion

In this dissertation, it starts with some basic background information about terrace house, the housing development in UK and the current housing situation. Trying to find the possible solution for building a sustainable community based on regenerating the unfashionable terrace housing community. From the government’s point of view, UK government hope to building more high density residence area for the increasing housing demand. From the developers’ points of view, building high-rise building not only have the chance to increase the population density which currently the government is expecting but also is the best investment which is the most profitable housing type, comparing to others housing types, such as the single house, terrace house and low-rise flat. Meanwhile, from some researchers’ points of view, regenerating the existing terrace house is the best option for residents living in and landowners having the increasing land value.

However, the best option is mixing use: building a sustainable community based on regenerating the unfashionable terrace houses and inserting some low-rise flats and adding few high-rise building.

The main reason is the needs of the residents are changing through the different life stages. For the new couple and the new family with a baby, the most suitable house type is a flat unit. For the family with children, they should live in a terrace house or a flat unit which is located under fourth floor. Those property is good for children playing around and growing up with the health mental. After children grow up and move out, the senior parents should move back to a flat due to the difficultly of the physical body. If a community is a mixing housing types neighbourhood, the residents could stay in the same community during their whole life and have less defence about this serial changes.

21. Office of National Statistic, www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html

According to the survey from National Statistics21, there are around 6.2% children who are under 4 years old and about 11.8% senior citizens who are older than 70 years old. Therefore, those numbers should be reflected on the proportion of the housing types. Combining with the number of the density which the government expects, which is 75 units/per hectare, there should be at least 14 flats for the new families with a baby and the senior citizens. Of course, this number should be recalculated and changed all the time for the future society need.

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VII-2. Further Research

The ideal proportion of the sustainable terrace housing neighbourhood is a possible research question for the further research with more data. In this dissertation, to provide a terrace housing neighbourhood by generating a decaying terrace housing is one possible solution for developing a sustainable community and offering a better living environment for citizens. However, this conceptual idea should not just a paper research, an impractical solution. This research needs to be pushed forward and meet the need of the modern or future society live style. One key issue should be clear and more addressed on is what is the better number proportion between the numbers of remaining the original terrace housing and the numbers of generating into the new facilities for community. Meanwhile, keeping the density to function the community facilities, such as public transport, is the basic principle which should be considered and sticked with.

How to keep the whole community fabric in one piece is one main issue while the generation of the old community is taking in place.

Meanwhile, the whole process of upgrading should be also a part of learning how to live in a modern society. Lead the residents to the future society through the process is also an interesting subject to think more.

Bringing the residents on the board to the future society.

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100

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76 units/hecture

VIII. GLOSSARY Terrace Houses 22. “Terraced house,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Terraced_house

Terrace houses are also called terraces, row houses, linked houses, townhouses or patio houses, which are a type of mediumdensity housing in cities and which originated in Europe in the 16th century. This type houses share the side-walls with the houses next to them and, at the earlier period, usually have the uniform facades and the same height.22 Now, terrace houses are the most common housing type in UK. Row Houses

Row houses which are a serial of houses lined up together usually have the different facades and even have the different heights.

The varieties of the facade and the height are the biggest difference between row houses and terrace houses.

Townhouse

A townhouse (town house) usually is a term used in North American, Asia, Australia and South Africa for presenting a type of medium-density housing. In United Kingdom, the most of townhouses are usually called as “terrace houses.” Meanwhile, townhouses in UK represent the large terrace houses in the town, which are usually belong to the nobilities who most of the time live in another property in the countryside.

Terrace Street

23. “Townhouse,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townhouse

The terrace street is a street with two roe of terrace houses. This type street scene were the most common street view in the residence in UK.23

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Back-to-back Terrace houses

The back-to-back terrace houses presented a street block filled with the terrace houses. Usually, it’s the rear of a row of terrace houses faces another rear of a row of terrace houses. This type of terrace house usually had a yard behind the house in UK. Therefore, they still had the certain privacy because there were two rows of back yards between two row of terrace houses. However, in some case, the volumes of two row of terrace houses were next to each other with a narrow dark lane.

Sometime, they even attached together with a jointed wall due to lack of the space and cut down the cost of the construction materials. Of course, this caused this type of terrace house usually had the bad condition of the circulation indoor.

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Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY TERRACE HOUSE “London Terrace Houses 1660-1860,” English Heritage, www.englishheritage.org.uk/publications/london-terrace-houses-1660-1860, 1 February 1996 Stefan Muthesius, “The English Terraced House,” New Haven; London : Yale University Press, 1982 Günter Pfeifer and Per Brauneck, ROW Houses: A Housing Typology, Basel: Birkhauser GmbH, 5 Oct. 2007 “Terraced House,” UK Housing wiki, http://ukhousing.wikia.com/wiki/ Terraced_house Chris Trueman, “Life in Industrial Towns,” History Learning Site, www. historylearningsite.co.uk/industrial_revolution_towns.htm, 2008 Avi Friedman, Town and terraced housing : for affordability and sustainability, New York: Routledge, 13 Jan. 2012 Christian Schittich, in DETAIL Semi-detached and Terraced Houses, Birkhauser GmbH: user GmbH, 23 Jun 2006 Peter Guillery, The Small House in Eighteenth-Century London: A Social and Architectural History, 4 May 2004 Finn Jensen, Modernist Semis and Terraces in England, Farnham: Ashgate, 2012 URBAN / CITY Nicholas Boys Smith and Alex Morton, “Create Streets: Not just multistorey estates,” CREATE streets, www.createstreets.com/download/i/ mark_dl/u/4012155729/4599251837/Create%20Streets.pdf, 8 March 2011 “Low Demand Housing and the Historic Environment,” English Heritage, www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/low-demandhousing-and-historic-environment/lowdemandhousing.pdf, January 2005 Edard Relph, THE MODERN URBAN LANDSCAPE, London: Croom Helm, 1987 Kris De Decker, “The solar envelope: how to heat and cool cities without fossil fuels,” LOW-TECH MAGAZING, www.lowtechmagazine. com/2012/03/solar-oriented-cities- 1-the-solar-envelope.html, 24 Mar. 2012 Anna Rybkowska and Micha Schneider, “Housing conditions in Europe in 2009: 30 million people in the EU suffered both lack of space and poor housing Conditions,” Eurostat, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_ OFFPUB/KS-SF-11- 004/EN/KS-SF-11-004-EN.PDF Department for Communities and Local Government, “English housing survey homes report 2011,” GOV.UK, www.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/211324/EHS_HOMES_ REPORT_2011.pdf

49 DENSITY John G. Ellis, “Explaining Residential Density,” PLACES, https:// escholarship.org/uc/item/2np5t9ct, 2004 SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY Saffron Woodcraft, DESIGN FOR SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY: A framework for creating thriving new communities, London: The Young Foundation, 2011 RESILIENCE Doina Petrescu and Constantin Petcou, “R-Urban Resilience,” Atlas: Geography, Architecture and Change in an Interdependent World, February 2012 Michael Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros, “Toward Resilient Architectures 1-5,” METROPOLIS, www.metropolismag.com, 22 March ~ 20 December 2013 MODERN ARCHITECTURE Katharine G. Bristol, “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth,” Journal of Architectural Education Vol.44 No.3, www.jstor.org/ stable/10.2307/1425266?origin=crossref, Taylor & Francis Ltd., 1991 Ebenezer Howard, GARDEN CITIES OF TO-MORROW, London : Faber and Faber, 1946 Jeremy Till, “Modernity and order: architecture and the welfare state,” wwww.jeremytill.net/Articles_files/2006%20Modernity%20and%20Order. pdf, 2006 Peter Buchanan, “THE BIG RETHINK: PLACE AND ALIVENESS: PATTERN, PLAY AND THE PLANET,” Architecture Review, August 2012 Le Corbusier, “Towards a new architecture,” London : Butterworth Architecture, 1989 REGENERATION Anne Power, “Housing and sustainability: demolition or refurbishment?,” Urban Design and Planning Volume 163 Issue 4, www. ice.org.uk/ice_web_portal/media/events/housing-and-sustainability.pdf, 2010 “Microgeneration and the Historic Environment,” English Heritage, www.climatechangeandyourhome.org.uk/live/content_pdfs/576.pdf, June 2013 Natasha Brinsmead, “Extend and Remodel Terraced Homes,” Homebuilding & Renovating, www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/existinghomes/extending/extend-remodel-terraced-homes, July 2008 Clive Fewins, “Basement Pros and Cons,” Homebuilding & Renovating, www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/existing-homes/ converting-basement/pros-cons, February 2003 TAKE A PART Open House London, www.openhouselondon.org.uk 4x4 Making Places: Where Will Our Grandchildren Live?, www.4x4makingplaces.info

Regenerating An Unfashionable Terrace House OTHER GĂźnter Pfeifer and Per Brauneck, TOWN Houses: A Housing Typology, Basel: Birkhauser GmbH, 30 Oct. 2008 Miles Glendinning & Stefan Muthesius, TOWER BLOCK: Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, London: Yale University Press, 1994

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