O Community, street and inhabitation

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Community, Street and Inhabitation

Adapted from ‘The Form of Housing’ by Neave Brown, Brown writes that continuity is the inescapable characteristic of housing. Housing, or inhabitation, is not just a collection of houses, but rather, the concepts which hold it together -- the circulation system which holds the area together and establish contact. This circulation system refers to ‘streets’. ‘Only a web, a continuous texture of contacts, can provide the immediacy and proximity of each house to its sustaining environment’. When trying to re-imagine Alexandra Road estate, the focus was brought to its brick red road. This main thoroughfare had much to with the estate’s identity, way of life, community spirit, manner of inhabitation, criticism and praises.

REIMAGINING Alexandra is a playable toolkit for the investigation into the relationship between the ‘street’ and inhabition inthe listed Alexandra Road Estate by Neave Brown.

NB

A condensed guide to Neave Brown’s ideas on housing & community.

from: The Form of Housing Neave Brown

On the built environment in general

New and old must exist side by side, both assuming similar relationship to the reorganised circulation systems on which both depend.

our economic suitation is unlikely to allow us to conceive of house as ephemera, what we do now with both old and new is here to stay

on existing models and flexibility

19th century terrace houses aligned parallel to the streets are the most successful mode. Even at its worst, it produced a certain immediacy of relationship between house and neighbourhood.

Systems such as 18th century terrace house can cater to all types with only minimal and essential differences in form. (flexibility)

on post war housing

English post war housing : unspecified open space as ground for new urban pattern

ideas of street, neighbourliness and continuity is brought back by the Smithsons in Golden Lane project.

reaction to high rise living

living high is bad, living low in a high block is no better

low rise housing

a characteristic difficulty is the ordering and structuring of the pedestrian route, without systematic control, they easily degenerate into a maze of alleys, susceptible to abuse.

on typology for housing

housing is an unsuitable material for physically prominent buildings as it is composed of a vast agregate of small cells.

sequences which require immediacy of contact: house to private open space, house to communal open space, house to pedestrian system, to car parking, to attendant functions, with a continuity of ease of movement seem to favour horizontal organisation rather than vertical

only a web, a continuous texture of contacts, can provide the immediacy and proximity of each house to its sustaining envrionment.

key points on housing

housing is the most extensive single element of the city

Continuity is the inescapable characteristic of housing

Housing is not just a collection of houses. It is the concepts which hold it together - the circulation system which hold the area together and establish contact

on domains on privacy

Peter Tabori

Neave Brown public private

public semi-public semi-private private

Serge Chermayeff & Christopher Alexander

urban public urban semi-public group public group private family private individual private

Winscombe St

Fleet Road on his London works 5 houses with a street A community

Alexandra Road Estate A piece of city