Emma Twine Newnham College
Essay 4 10th October 2017 4,999 words excluding appendices and citations
Submitted in partial fulfilment of MPhil Architecture and Urban Design University of Cambridge -
I’d like to acknowledge and thank Lefkos Kyriakou, Ingrid Schroeder and Aram Mooradian for their input, advice and guidance. -
This essay is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text.
7
Introduction 8
Chapter 1: Architecture’s Obsolescence 12
Chapter 2: From the Local Plan to local development 22
Chapter 3: The Community Scale 37
Chapter 4: The Homeowner Scale 44
Conclusion 48
Implementation Timeline 50
List of Figures 52
Bibliography
fig. How To 4
g. 1 Timeline 5
MATRIX DRAWING
fig. 2 The New Suburban Development Collective seeks to enable a community-led remodelling of the neighbourhood through infill, gentle intensifitcation and the transformation of the neighbourhood into a new landscape: a new suburbia. 6
The thesis project Living Closer Together proposes that we need to work towards a future where we see space as a resource, not a currency. In its implementation, a new form of Development Corporation is envisioned which marries together campaign group and local government, construction company and estate agency: the New Suburban Development Co-operative. Based on the premise of community ownership and control, space is seen as a societal resource to be used as carefully and bestowed as much value as similar finite resources, such as water, will be in the near future. Private ownership of space is therefore considered less a territorial and volumetric concept, and instead becomes about a stake in the community. The ambition of Living Closer Together is to create an ongoing process of urban metabolism that reshapes the town around a reinvigorated suburban dream of domestic security, affordability and identity, confronting the housing crisis through establishing an ongoing process of sustainable, community-authored densifying development. In establishing a framework for these proposals this essay argues that architects must expand their role as spatial practitioners to encompass all aspects of space, from its inhabitation & use, to its political character & societal value. In the goal of solving the crisis of under occupation the design of how space is used is just as important as the design of the space itself. The future of domestic architecture imagined by the project is one that moves from ‘Mass Housing’ to housing by the masses, for the masses. This essay probes how the role of architects can become to offer design solutions that enable and encourage people to make better use of space, on both individual and collective levels. Beginning with an examination of the profession as it exists today, possible evolutions that might increase architecture’s societal relevance are suggested. The conditions in South Woodham Ferrers (SWF) are then considered, presenting an argument for community-led development, and setting the scene for the proposition of the New Suburban Development Co-operative.
7
Things must be pretty bad when the RIBA President-elect will go on record to decry the architectural profession’s increasing lack of relevance (Architect’s Journal, 2017). Our insignificance is laid bare in the statistics: globally, architects are responsible for as little as 2% of the built environment (Dendra, 2010). Even the most optimistic estimates suggest that a minimum of 60% of the British built environment has no architect involvement whatsoever (Parvin, 2017). Housing is even worse: according to RIBA, 94% of the current housing supply has zero architect input (2016). The example of housing sheds a light on an uncomfortable truth: architects have never been that relevant. Consider our clients: “almost everything we call architecture today is actually the business of designing for the richest 1% of the population, and it always has been” (Parvin, 2013). According to Bennie, it wasn’t until after World War Two that architects “got a look-in at all” (2017). The right question therefore may not be how architects can regain relevance, but instead, what a relevant architectural profession looks like. Architects are expected to be experts in many aspects of space: “urban design, technical detail, community engagement, cost efficiency and … lead[ing] fractious multidisciplinary teams of consultants” (Bennie, 2017). Yet the profession has traditionally avoided space’s political dimension. Some groups are beginning to revolt against this entrenched apolitical nature, such as Architects for Social Housing and Architectural Workers. Nowhere is this frustration more evident than within housing. Recent controversies include the estates regeneration programme, in which both Labour and Conservative councils have been accused of complicity in the social cleansing of London; the tragedy of Grenfell Tower which laid painfully bare the flaws of certain profit-driven modes of housing management; and the overarching disaster of un-affordability. In each of these controversies the architect is at best absent, at worst complicit. Each controversy shines a light on the most pressing questions for the profession: Who do we work for? Why do developments happen, and for whom? Who makes decisions about our cities? Bennie assigns the blame for the “architects struggle … to exert influence” to “today’s UK housing sector[’s]” “ugly and reductive cultural norm of short-term financial return on investment being prized above all else” (2017). Perhaps, then, the obsolescence Ben Derbyshire laments in fact stems from this a-political nature. 8
fig. 3-5 Groups within the profession are frustrated by architecture’s apolitical nature. 9
fig. 6 & 7 The RIBA Plan of Work is limited in relevance by its linearity. To move to a practice that considers the design of spatial use as well as the physical dimensions, a more cyclical framework is required. 10
The project Living Closer Together takes “the profession’s marginalisation” (Hurst, 2017) as a starting point to consider how the architect’s role could be reimagined to embrace how we use space, as well as how we design & build it. The hypothesis of this essay is that architecture as a profession is particularly well-poised to tackle a crisis that underpins many other societal predicaments: the crisis of space. The spatial crisis threatens our cities and society through the booming assetisation, financialisation, privatisation and, to use Ward’s definition, “decommodification” of space, meaning the wilful ignorance of its use (p. 14, Ward, 1987). The crisis of “decommodification” exists within the use and inhabitation of space. It exists within the way we consider space; the way we understand it as a market commodity, societal resource or individual right; and the way we police it’s use, either societally or individually. Possible solutions consequently extend far beyond the traditional understanding of what an architectural project looks like, and exist either outside or beyond accepted regulative documents such as the RIBA Plan of Work or planning permission. As a proposal that evolves and develops over time, such linear formats, with clearly defined and successive stages, fall short.
11
The shape that this reimagined architectural practice might take can be tested within the contemporary context of SWF. As part of the Local Plan currently being developed by Chelmsford City Council (CCC), SWF is home to Location 8, a large Preferred Options development site, which is expected to provide 1000 new homes for the borough area (p. 166, Chelmsford City Council, 2017). This proposal is a battleground for the town’s community, causing significant trouble for the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group, as it is unable to contradict the Local Plan. The community’s dislike of the proposed site transcends NIMBYism and raises some worthwhile criticisms. Located to the north of the already busy and over-stretched B1012 Burnham Road, the site is physically cut off from the existing town, with no real solutions for how to bridge this separation. Suggestions of underpasses have been met with derision, and the community’s preference to reroute the road, which is a main trunk road out to the rest of the Dengie Peninsula including Maldon, Burnham-On-Crouch and Southminster, around the town’s expansion, is seen as unfeasible by the council. This physical separation is compounded by the distance of the development from the existing town centre, which is a 20- to 30-minute walk away. Though construction will soon be commencing on a new Sainsbury’s supermarket and NHS health centre within the area of Site Location 8, the residents are concerned that a new neighbourhood here would feel unreasonably separate from the town. Rather than an expansion to the existing settlement, to use town councillor and chair of the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group Murrough O’Brien’s words, a ‘Middle Woodham Ferrers’.
12
fig. 8 Site Location 8 13
proposed rail station existing rail station proposed major housing sites A12 improvements new road existing railway existing major roads London green belt strategic service location green wedge green corridor
fig. Chelmsford City Council’s proposed Local Plan, showing improve 14
g. 9 g planned proposed large housing sites and infrastructure ements. 15
16
fig. 10 The traditional carte blanche approach is much simpler in t
existing ownership boundaries, showing affected neighbours infill development ‘spare’ space within homes development proposed Site Location 8
0 & 11 the short term due to fewer ownerships and stakeholders.
close physical proximity to local stakeholders
17
fig. 12 Collaborative maps from the Neighbourhood Plan Visioning events call for ‘more houses here!’ 18
The benefit of this plot is that it follows the carte blanche approach favoured by large scale developers. Questions of land ownership are simple, and though technically a greenfield site, the fields are fallow and sit outside of planning limitations such as the green belt. It is hoped therefore that a large number of homes can be provided with alacrity. However, the residents of the town feel that this new significant development has been thrust upon them without local control or input. This lies not in a lack of consultation, which CCC has been legally required to carry out, but instead concerns the authorship and value judgements. Residents feel that the decision to continue with Site Location 8 is in the interests of developers and of the distant & corporate City Council, with little to no concern for the town that they care for so deeply. The brief and motivation of the developers are also problematic when presenting the development to the town’s residents. It is now widely appreciated that the main impetus behind the volume house-builders building homes is to make money for the company: the homes themselves are of little consequence or importance beyond the profit margins they provide, and the current residents of the town and the future residents of the homes are so much background noise to ignore. This breeds mistrust in the community of the developers and of new homes in the area. On the other hand, as Jeremy Potter, one of the City Council’s senior planning officers, asserted in the May meeting of the Steering Group, the town has seen negligible development since the original 1980s expansion, and as the second largest settlement in the City Council area has a responsibility to the wider area to share the load in providing the many new homes that the borough and Essex as a whole requires. In fairness, if the Objectives & Visioning events that we as a Steering Group held in August are anything to go by, this is something that residents seem to appreciate, with post-it notes on the collaborative maps featuring such contributions as ‘build houses here!’ and ‘lots more houses here!’. The project Living Closer Together proposes to take over this quota of 1000 new homes, adopting a community-based form of development that engages and empowers the residents in meeting the housing need. The need for new homes is not questioned, instead an alternative approach is proposed for how the new homes might be provided both now and in the future, with the ambition of unlocking the potential supply of residential space that already exists within the town. Though this process appears as much slower than the traditional developer-led model, it is argued that it is a much more sustainable form of development due to the continuing education, engagement and empowerment of the many individual residents and local groups. 19
fig. The traditional carte blanche approach is much simpler in t
13 the short term due to fewer ownerships and stakeholders.
The community-authored development of the 1000 homes required is conceived as manifesting at two key scales: that of the individual homeowner, on whose property and in whose periphery the homes will be constructed; and at the scale of the community, from which vantage point the development will be choreographed in order to gain the best outcome for the whole town. Compared with the traditional pattern of development that Site Location 8 typifies, ‘New South Woodham Ferrers’ involves the negotiation of multiple ownerships, a vastly larger number of stakeholders, and a granular approach that the ‘carte blanche’ of brown- or green-field. Beyond the extra challenges that the project’s implementation contends with, in line with the ethical role of the spatial practitioner laid out in Chapter Two the ontogenesis of the town compels disparate aspirations and values to a conventional development. For this reason, a new form of approach is put forward: The New Suburban Development Cooperative (NSDC). The precedent offered by the twentieth century in the large-scale creation or expansion of settlements, specifically Garden Cities and New Towns, is of a central organisation. This organisation, be it a privately-established association or government-financed corporation, acts to manage the conception, planning and delivery of the new community, serving to create a cohesive decision-making body, thus streamlining the decision-making process. The organisation may then continue to manage some aspects of the life of the town postoccupation. The most successful example of this is Letchworth Garden City. As has already been discussed, if architects are to have relevance we must concern ourselves with designing the use of space as well as its form & appearance. In Letchworth, the ongoing stewardship of the town first by First Garden City Ltd., latterly Letchworth Garden City Corporation and contemporarily by private charity the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation has ensured the original ideals of the Howard’s invention are safeguarded. Most important is the Garden City financial model, where public subsidy is created through the recoup of land value gains, which is then reinvested in community facilities.
22
Currently much frustration is expressed in SWF about the ailing town centre, the misfortune of which is largely attributed to the stranglehold that Asda, the main land owner, has over the commercial life of the town. The assets resulting from the shared community benefit would be used to buy out the supermarket and place the majority of the town centre within a CLT ownership structure, with the double benefit of allowing the town centre’s commercial offer to be managed in the community’s interest. This has been proven to provide perpetual sustainability to a whole range of community services that in other similar towns, including Welwyn Garden City, have been whittled away as part of public service cuts since 1945. The community, as opposed to public, ownership and control learns from the experience of Welwyn and of social housing: that community ownership is much less vulnerable to erosion or sell-off in times of austerity and thus significantly safer in perpetuity. In comparison, though “no town building body since has rivalled the scope of the new town development corporations” (p. 38, Ellis, Henderson, and Lock, 2017), they were much less radical than the Howard’s creations, existing to enable the expedient delivery of large volumes of homes as opposed to representing a new vision for urban life. Lacking official governmental New Town designation, SWF differs from this delivery structure. The town was instead conceived by the local authority Essex County Council, and developed and delivered by the local authority in partnership with private bodies. This partnership approach was used by the ambitious council due to their lacking the borrowing and financing power of the DCs, which were “public bodies with government-endowed borrowing powers enabling them to fulfil the wide remit of ‘everything necessary to deliver the town’” (p. 38, Ellis, Henderson, and Lock, 2017). Many of the other powers are not dissimilar however, including “the power to compulsory purchase land”, “the power to prepare a masterplan” and “the power to grant or refuse planning permission” (p. 39, Ellis, Henderson, and Lock, 2017).
23
town centre primary retail secondary retail public space car park village centre civic structure employment zone major relief road formal recreation space semi-natural public space parks & gardens children’s play area allotments railway regular bus route (36A) no evening service restricted service urban boundary
fig. 14 The existing town 24
residential neighbourhoods new high streets existing community centres improved rail line major roads green spaces rail station link formed between rail station and town centre
fig. 15 The proposed New Suburban Development Co-operative Neighbourhood Masterplan 25
William de Ferrers high school Essex County Council primary school individual private ownership ASDA SW Investments, previously ASDA fire station police & fire primary care trust publicly -adopted highway town council
fig. 16 Ownership of the town centre. 26
As part of the project’s implementation strategy the partnership model is reimagined, with the key players the Cooperative and the Homeowner, in place of the County Council and private volume house builders. The NSDC assumes the role of a DC, comprising of and transcending the town council to creat a framework of local governance for the future development of the town. This organisation then enters a partnership with the local homeowners to provide the new homes the area requires, thus enabling the communitybased, decentralised and multi-authored development the project conceives. In the previous section the role of the community was highlighted. A cooperative structure offers the opportunity both to involve the existing residents within the development process, and the fair distribution of the financial benefits of development. This level of involvement is fundamentally important to the empowerment of the individual homeowners which sparks the establishment of ‘YIMBY’ culture and to the ongoing prosperity and sustainability of the town as profits are held by and consequently reinvested in the community. The development model is therefore augmented to suit the community priorities such as the politicisation of space and inhabitation as discussed in chapter one. The NSDC is envisioned as a community-owned body which oversees, supports and manages
the efforts of the community to achieve the required housing provision. In overseeing the evolution of the town it adopts a delegated planning role from the local authority. In the years of the town’s construction a “streamlined Committee structure” was employed with inter-departmental decisions devolved to ECC’s SWF Sub-Committee (p. 7, Neale, 1974). It is proposed that this devolved structure is reintroduced. This “extensive delegation of powers” (p.7, ibid.), here proposed to the community, has been proven to allow satisfactory Council oversight whilst maintaining“ the ability to make quick, effective decisions” (p.6, ibid.). The NSDC is therefore empowered to cultivate the Neighbourhood Masterplan, as detailed in the How To Timeline on pages 4 & 5, including developing the Spare Space Criteria and the Design Guide, discussed in the next Chapter. The Masterplan builds on the precedent set by the town’s 1980s redevelopment, in which the town was designated a “Comprehensive Development Area” by ECC. This made the site eligible for a share of the £80m loan sanction announced in 1972 by the Secretary of State to provide a “financial framework” for “land which could then be released for private housing development” (p. 3, Neale, 1984). The Neighbourhood Masterplan seeks to differentiate itself from the CDA however by reframing itself as a community-organised and -authored document. With these aspirations in mind, it is situated to take advantage of a contemporary financing 27
fig. The New Suburban Development Co-operative combin ment Corporations and Commun 28
17 nes & subverts the ECC’s partnership structure, Developnity Development Corporations. 29
initiative announced in the September of this year, this time by current Housing Minister Alok Sharma, the government is to make available a “£22.8 million boost to give power back to communities” (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2017). This funding is earmarked to “support communities, help build more homes and give locals more say over growth in their area” (ibid.). SWF residents are put right at the heart of the town’s ontogenesis through the adoption of a hybrid co-operative structure, for its “principle of one member, one vote” (Democracy Collaborative, 2017). The closest equivalent of such a proposition is the USA’s Community Development Corporations (CDCs): “nonprofit, community-based organizations focused on revitalizing the areas in which they are located” (Democracy Collaborative, 2017). These “bottom-up” organisations were introduced by Senator Kennedy in 1966 after a visit to Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood, “anchor capital in communities by developing residential and commercial property”, allow “for the possibility of direct, grass-roots participation in decision-making” and involve “neighborhood organizing, a process critical for empowering residents and gaining political power” (ibid.). However, this structure is not adopted in its pure form as, alongside adopting a co-operative and mutually owned structure, the NSDC incorporates the Town Council, thus aspiring to a much closer relationship with the local authority.
30
Where the NSDC differs from a straight-up housing co-operative and becomes a hybrid is in the structure of ownership proposed for the project’s implementation. The project proposes a reciprocity in the neighbourhood’s development. Homeowners are enabled to give the space they don’t need for development by the NSDC in exchange for improvements to their home and wider neighbourhood. The freehold for the ‘spare’ space is retained by the homeowner, but long-leased to the NSDC-stewarded Community Land Trust (CLT). An example: the sole resident of 34 Clements Green Lane, a three-bed semi, is a single, retired woman with a serious illness. Her brother and father both live in the town, and downsizing is not necessarily a financially sensible option in any situation. In this instance the NSDC offers the homeowner a quid pro quo solution to making better use of the wasted space as it provides a form of development that can remodel the existing dwelling to better suit the inhabitant as well as making space for more. The NSDC then assumes the role of estate agent and manages the new dwellings. One of the main concerns expressed by homeowners at the suggestion of sharing residential space is this question of management. There is understandably a great nervousness around sharing due to uncertainty about how a negative experience could be handled. The CLT structure allows the NSDC to lease on the dwellings to the future occupants, enabling it to protect the ongoing affordability of the town’s homes, and positioning it as middle-man and mediator between the existing homeowner and the new dwellers.
31
This development is supported through the Spare Space Criteria, which catalogues spare space such as that discussed above and brings together the enablement of the individual homeowners and the community’s prerogative to define what is and isn’t positive development. The Criteria, which informs the ongoing Spare Space Database, is a spatial criteria that defines the parameters of what is defined as ‘spare’ space, what sites are agreed by the community as suitable for development, and which characteristics of the different site categories suit them to the various typologies proposed within the Pattern Book which will be discussed further in Chapter 5. What is interesting for this discussion is not the idea of pocket or “gap sites” that Zogolovitch (p. 15, 2015), as SWF in its planning and construction as a finished article, is actually home to very few such forgotten pockets in-between the various private ownerships. However, d’Avoine’s idea of an architecture of the interstitial (p.11, 2005) and Zogolovitch’s envisioning of the built environment as “a constantly shifting pattern of solids and voids” (p. 15, 2015) is useful for considering how future community-led development could transcend the existing pattern of individual pockets of ownership and begin to consider and assess the neighbourhood as a unified landscape & societal resource. d’Avoine asserts that the pattern book approach could play a role in supporting the Criteria, as it has the potential as a strategy to unlock “interstitial sites” (p.11, 2005), through this categorisation of potential sites and the proposition of specific but still malleable typologies to suit each category. He sees an opportunity in these sites in how they “have the potential to yield a surprising supply with scarcely visible consumption of land. The potential of such sites, falling outside of the conditions defined as profitable or viable by either the state or the large house builder, has long been recognised. In the 1970s, Graham Bennett and Stuart Rutherford, two young architects carried out an extensive survey of Newham borough and concluded that such ‘pocket’ sites had the potential for “3000-5000 new homes” (p.76-7, Ward, 1987). They also appreciated the latent potential for smaller bodies to develop these sites, claiming that “‘‘the considerable contributions which householders can make have never been fully appreciated and utilised’” (p. 77, ibid.).
32
spare rooms within the house spare wings or entire areas: ‘semi’ entire building: ‘detached’ prime spatious infill opportunities tight or restricted infill sites new high streets create new frontages new high streets create new frontages
fig. 18 The RIBA Plan of Work is limited in relevance by its linearity. To move to a practice that considers the design of spatial use as well as the physical dimensions, a more cyclical framework is required. 33
fig. The RIBA Plan of Work is limited in relevance by its line spatial use as well as the physical dimensio 34
19 earity. To move to a practice that considers the design of ons, a more cyclical framework is required. 35
fig. 20-22 Pages from E. L. Blackburne’s 1869 publication Suburban and Rural Architecture and Robert Lugar’s 1811 Plans and Views 36
“Our job as planners and architects is to understand just what is malfunctioning and then set it right. instead we start to design the houses ourselves … an absurd situation.” (p. 108, Correa, 2000) The project Living Closer Together proposes to put the control of SWF evolution in the hands of its residents: to make each homeowner their own ‘developer’, involved in a neighbourhood-wide process of intensification. The objective is to break the monopoly of the institutionalised volume house builders in order that alternative values can lead the building, and to reconcile regional priorities with local ambitions and knowledge. To paraphrase Colin Ward, “let’s give people a chance [to house themselves!]” (1987). This takes Roger Zogolovitch’s call of “Shouldn’t we all be developers?” (2015) one step further to assert that the ability for an individual to provide a home for themselves, and by extension for a community to provide homes for each other, is actually the natural order. As both Correa and Ward annunciate, around the world and throughout history “people … house themselves” (Ward as quoted p. 90, Birchall, 1988) and that individuals would continue to do so “if helped rather than hindered” (p. 9, Ward, 1987). Indeed, Ward condemns any other form of housing as merely an “artificial effort” (p. 11, 1987). The challenge for designers at this scale is how to help rather than hinder: to reverse this situation where “people are no longer enabled to house themselves: they have to rely on being housed” (Habraken as paraphrased p. 35, Ward, 1987). This is proposed to encompass the street as well as the individual plot, as Samuel Smiles declares in his outraged preface to the second edition of Self-Help (1866): “the duty of helping oneself in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbours” (as quoted p. 28, Ward, 1987). The designer’s role here is to both enable and inform the homeowner-developers. The pattern book model distributes design in an accessible manner that opens it up to being useful for many more people, making available “different styles of domestic design for public consumption” (p. 9, d’Avoine & Melhuish, 2005). It also provides clear case studies on how certain sites might be used. By providing home-owners with detailed and designed examples of how their spare space might be ‘portioned’ and transformed into the new homes the town requires. Hamdi uses the term “enablement” (p. 21, 2004) to describe an approach to planning in which a supportive framework is provided that provides just enough to allow individuals and communities to engage, embellish and go on to have meaningful authorship. 37
This enablement is proposed to be created using the pattern book model. Pattern books are a historic form of publication which were utilised by architects to popularise and disseminate their designs. They have their origins in the evolution of architecture in the 18th century from Classicism to the Picturesque, where the excited new profession sought to educate their patrons of the new style at a time when “all of a sudden … architecture became a matter of individual expression” (p. 22, Lyall, 1988). Though these books were for the most part intended for self-promotion, in the pursuit of monied clients, they have further significance through their creation of a popularly available repository of good design, the impact of which can be appreciated in the translation of many of these designs into builders manuals and magazines. They were the precursors “to the mail order catalogues and house plan books that became popular in the USA in the twentieth century” (p. 10, d’Avoine & Melhuish, 2005). The opportunity of the pattern book is that they allow for multiple authorship whilst still maintaining a shared design identity. Many distinctive suburban architectural styles were disseminated through a pattern book form, from source documents such as E. L. Blackburne’s 1869 Suburban and Rural Architecture. The typical suburban home, such as those in the Queen Anne style, can be seen as a collage of many common & familiar stylistic elements, thus achieving the famed suburban ‘monotony’ despite the number of small house-builders involved. The accusations of Disney-fication, an imagined Englishness and a patronising view of the average house-buyer notwithstanding (p. 11, d’Avoine & Melhuish, 2005), the Essex Design Guide was successful in creating a town of surprising cohesiveness from the involvement of over 15 different developers. However, despite several new editions and the continuing legacy of the 1973 publication both within Essex and beyond, Chelmsford Borough Council are no longer holding new developments to the Design Guide.
38
fig. 23-7 Essex County Council’s 1973 Essex Design Guide for Residential Areas can be seen as a contemporary example of the pattern book model for disseminating design ideals in a multi-authored development context. 39
40
41
42
A similar proposition for disseminating design is made by the WikiHouse foundation, with the goal of democratising design through creating “the future of homes, by everyone, for everyone” (WikiHouse Foundation, 2017a). Living Closer Together differs here in that the idea isn’t that the act of design should become everyday and done by everyone, but that designers should concern themselves with the everyday and with everyday problems: “the argument for dweller control is not about design: it is about who decides” (p.88, Ward, 1987). “Direct responsibility to the resident is the role of the professional” (p.111, ibid.). The pattern book model seeks to overcome how “in general, … people are told what they’re getting, not asked what they want” (Alan Hoyte as quoted in p.85, Ward, 1987) by putting good design in a format that subverts the “insufferably paternalistic attitudes” (p. 10, Ward, 1987) of those powerful within the current house-supplying business. The pattern book model in this instance is a tool for empowerment, intended to put the powers of development into the hands of ordinary people. By repositioning the decisionmaking power of how new development is achieved into the community, the traditional imbalance and feeling of attack or un-involvement that some believe lies at the root of NIMBYism is redressed. The call of “housing by people for people” (Parvin, 2013) or of ‘let the people house themselves’ (Ward, 1987) is is expanded to the call of ‘let people house each other’.
43
This essay hypothesises that architects can regain influence in the urban environment by broadening their work to encompass the use of space as well as it’s physical design. The thesis project explores how an entire town can be reshaped around ideals of spatial equitability. In striving for such a goal the architect’s task is reframed as an ethical role, operating foremost for societal good. By approaching architecture in this broadened sense that encompasses use as well as design, the architect is emboldened to become a political spatial agent, a new modus operandi which imbues the revitalised profession with new societal responsibilities, but also new opportunities. To a profession struggling for “respect and authority” (Bennie, 2017), the spatial crisis offers an olive branch for a new, politicised practice of architecture. The importance of this widened involvement can be seen in Walter Segal’s legacy. Walter’s Way, the Lewisham social housing experiment of homes designed by Segal begun at the close of the 1970s, is a prime example of the importance of considering the whole life of the proposal. Kareem Dayes, son of one of the original Segal self-builders and himself a community housing campaigner behind the Rural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS), stresses that though the project was revolutionary in its construction the contract signed between the self-builders and the council failed to protect the homes as social housing in perpetuity, and so after just one generation all the homes have been or will be sold on the open market. The question of the designers role in this project has therefore been considered temporally, as an interrogation of the different stages within the proposed homes’ and wider neighbourhood’s lifespan.
44
The NSDC is proposed as a multi-disciplinary organisation in which nevertheless the architect has an important part to play. This is not entirely suggested as a return to the times of the Council Architect. The ‘people’s architect’ Neave Brown’s recent win of the RIBA Gold Medal reminds us of a time when architects worked with the interests of the community uppermost in their minds, but that was a time where architect’s thought they knew best and felt they needed no instruction or input from the community. This was also a time of unparalleled state subsidy of housing provision. Whatever the criticisms or compliments one might have for the housing & architecture created during this period, it appears universally appreciated that such a political climate will not occur any time soon. The thesis project’s ambition of dispersing the agency for development from the large organisation, be it state or volume house-builder, to the individual or community is therefore timely. By enabling an incremental, ‘acupuncture’ bottom-up approach the future of suburban homes become places that will remain as an affordable societal resource in perpetuity. There is more space to house people in SWF, and the people themselves should be allowed and galvanised to do it!
45
46
47
STAGE 0: Establishing! Building the campaign and movement Identify the Key Issues and draft Core Principles & Aims.
Establish the community and forge links with the existing campaign groups in the area. Establish the Core Group and group & governance structures. Broaden the movement, invite public involvement and gather informal evidence and data through the Living Closer Together Festival, a rolling series of events, exhibitions and discussions. Conduct a community needs assessment. If necessary redraft Core Principles & Aims and consult on this development following the community needs assessment and events.
STAGE 0.1: Preparing! Developing an approach Formalise board structure and recruit board members. Draft an Action Plan and a strategy to tackle the needs identified in the Core Principles & Aims and community needs assessment. Identify a permanently affordable housing model to follow. Determining an affordable pricing and resale formula and an allocation strategy. Conduct market & feasibility analysis Develop the organisational structure and relationship between the Living Closer Together umbrella group and local groups, i.e. South Woodham Ferrers.
STAGE 0: Planning and coordinating! A Neighbourhood Plan Development of a Neighbourhood Masterplan setting out the specific ambitions for the town and key infrastructural and community anchors for future development. Collaboration with the County Council to rewrite planning policy to devolve responsibility for planning decisions within the existing urban envelope (whilst maintaining control over large new green/brownfield developments). Drafting of Town Council Planning Policy to oversee the community/participatory planning structure. Assessment and mapping of South Woodham Ferrers to identify the different areas or neighbourhoods within it. Each identified neighbourhood in SWF to develop Design Statement. These already play a recognised role within the Essex planning system, allowing small neighbourhoods to highlight their priorities, desired or well-loved architectural character and specific landmarks.
48
STAGE 1: Spare Space Database The Neighbourhood Masterplan will develop a Spare Space Criteria, detailing what space is considered as under-used and setting the foundation for how this space will go on to be developed and priced. Call for sites. Core group to carry out survey and mapping of the town to highlight sites not volunteered. Establishment of the Spare Space Database. The neighbourhood Design Statements are used to inform the development of a Design Guide, creating a community-authored document that asserts what kind of development they want to see and where.
STAGES 2 & 3: Enacting! Exhibition projects New Suburban Design Experiments exploring the new architectural, tectonic and structural identity of suburbia. Using the Spare Space Criteria as a framework for understanding the different contexts at play within the challenge of Living Closer Together, and the New Suburban Design Experiments to inform, a collaborative, live and in-progress Pattern Book is begun, documenting the different ‘recipes’ on offer for how to make better use of this space and providing a mix-and-match off-the-shelf architecture for suburban densification. Highlighting of several Key Sites, exhibiting the range of constraints within the different typologies mapped. Collaboration with the homeowners to develop the Key Sites into Exhibition Homes acting as advertising for the broader scheme and an official first test bed for the New Suburban Design Experiments. An Open House campaign celebrating the Exhibition Homes and making the project more widely visible. The testing of the New Suburban Design Experiments in the the Exhibition Homes feeds back into the Pattern Book. A series of New Suburban Products is released.
STAGE 4: Densifying! Building the new suburbia Following on from the initial Exhibition Homes, the key Core Group continues to support homeowners and neighbourhood groups in the development of Living Closer Together. Key policy documents such as the Neighbourhood Plan and Design Statements continue to be consulted upon, developed and designed in a participatory manner. The Neighbourhood Masterplan continues to be redrafted and all relevant documents updated accordingly.
STAGE 5: Continuing! Future development cycles The work is continued within South Woodham Ferrers. The project is extended beyond this first suburb and expanded, establishing LCT Local Groups in other suburbs.
49
fig. 1 Own illustration, 2017 fig. 2 Own illustration, 2017 fig. 3 Photograph by Mike Kear “People wear masks of Ben Derbyshire’s face at the Architects for Social Housing-organised protest against the nomination of dRMM’s Trafalgar Place for the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize.” Available from: https://architecturalworkers.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/ribas-new-president-our-position/ [Accessed on: 05/07/2017] fig. 4 Architectural Workers (2017) Routine Destruction. STRIKE! Magazine, The Body as: Regeneration Agent, Summer issue, pp. 40-44 fig. 5 Architectural Workers (2017) Poster for What is the Architect’s Role in the Housing Crisis? event, 28th June 2017 Available from: https://architecturalworkers.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/what-is-the-architects-role-in-the-housing-crisis/ [Accessed on: 05/07/2017] fig. 6 dgsdfgsdfgdsfg fig. 7 Own map, 2017 Data retrieved from: Chelmsford City Council (2017) Local Plan Preferred Options Consultation Document fig. 8 Own map, 2017 Data retrieved from: Chelmsford City Council (2017) Local Plan Preferred Options Consultation Document fig. 9 Own photograph, 31st August 2017 fig. 10 Own illustration, 2017
50
fig. 11 Own map, 2017 OS archive data fig. 12 Own illustration, 2017 fig. 13 Own illustration, 2017 fig. 18 Own map, 2017 Data retrieved from: Estop, R., Cole, J., Robinson, J. (2008) A Plan for South Woodham Ferrers. Chelmsford Borough Council, Supplementary Planning Document [online] June. Available from: http://www.southwoodhamferrerstc.gov.uk/docs/ swf_town_plan.pdf [Accessed on 3/10/17] fig. 19 Own illustration, 2017 fig. 20 Barrett, H. & Phillips, J. (1993) Suburban Style: The British Home, 1840-1960. Little Brown and Company; London, pp. 11 fig. 21 Lyall, S. (1988) Dream Cottages: From cottage ornÊe to stockbroker Tudor: 200 years of the cult of the vernacular; Robert Hale Limited, London, pp. 61 fig. 22 Lofthouse, P., (2013). The Development of English Semi-detached Dwellings During the Nineteenth Century. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology. 22, pp.83–98. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pia.404 fig. 23-7 Images from: County Council of Essex (1973) A Design Guide for Residential Areas. [online] December. Available from: http://www.placeservices.co.uk/media/56456/essex-design-guide_1973-all.pdf [Accessed on: 5/10/17], pp. 62, 73, 97, 106, 122-3
51
Archer, J. (2008) Suburban Aesthetics Is Not an Oxymoron, In: Blauvelt, A. (2008) Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscape. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Walker Art Centre. p. 129-146 d’Avoine, p. and Melhuish, C. (2005) Housey Housey: A Pattern Book of Ideal Homes. Black Dog Publishing, London Bennie, C. (2016) Bring Planning out of the Town Hall and onto the High Street - AF Manifesto for London. Architecture Foundation, [online video] Available from: https://www.wearemunicipal.co.uk/thinking/2017/3/6/ bring-planning-out-of-the-town-hall-and-onto-the-high-street-af-manifesto-for-london [Accessed on: 06/09/2017] Bennie, C. (2017) Claire Bennie: How Architects Can Win Back Trust and Influence. Architects Journal, [online] 6th September. Available from: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/claire-bennie-how-architectscan-win-back-trust-and-influence/10023104.article?blocktitle=news-feature&contentID=17135 [Accessed on: 06/09/2017] Birchall, J. (1988) Building Communities: The Co-operative Way. Routledge & Kegan Paul: London Broome, J. (1995) The Self-build Book: How to Enjoy Designing and Building Your Own Home Chelmsford City Council (2017) Local Plan Preferred Options Consultation Document Correa, C. (2000) Housing and Urbanisation: Building Ideas for People and Cities. Thames & Hudson: London Democracy Collaborative (2017a) Overview: Community Development Corporations (CDCs). Community-Wealth.org [online]. Available from: http://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/cdcs/index.html [Accessed on: 25/09/17] Democracy Collaborative (2017b) Overview: Community Land Trusts. Community-Wealth.org [online]. Available from: http://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/clts/index.html [Accessed on: 25/09/17] Democracy Collaborative (2017c) Overview: Cooperatives. Community-Wealth.org [online]. Available from: http://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/coops/index.html [Accessed on: 25/09/17] Dendra, D. (2010) Open SimSim. TEDxBerlin [online video] 6th December. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBWf6vHlPzY&app=desktop [Accessed on: 17/09/17] Ellis, H., Henderson, K., Lock, K. (2017) The Art of Building a Garden City: Designing new communities for the 21st Century. RIBA Publishing: London Haenlein, H. and Patel, H. (2017) Design-led procurement: linking design process with procurement of construction projects. In: University of Reading, Professional Practices in the Built Environment. University of 52
Reading, UK, 27-28/04/2017 Hamdi, N. (2004) Small Change: About the Art of Practice and the Limits of Planning in Cities. Routledge; London Hurst, W. (2017) New RIBA boss Derbyshire pledges fightback against profession’s marginalisation. Architect’s Journal [online] 5th September. Available from: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/10023112.article?search=https%3a%2f%2fwww.architectsjournal.co.uk%2fsearcharticles%3fparametrics%3d%26keywords%3dben+derbyshire%26PageSize%3d10%26cmd%3dGoToPage%26val%3d2%26SortOrder%3d1 [Accessed on: 27/09/2017] Ijeh, I. (2017) Talkin’ bout a revolution. building.co.uk, [online], 28th July. Available at: http://www.brydenwood.co.uk/storage/documents/17.07.28_Building_Magazine_open_source.pdf [Accessed on: 11/09/2017] Lao Schaffner, K. (2014) What is a Community Development Corporation (CDC)?. Keystone Crossroads [blog] 22nd August. Available from: http://crossroads.newsworks.org/index.php/local/keystone-crossroads/71864-what-are-community-development-corporations-cdcs [Accessed on: 25/09/17] The London Co-operative Housing Group (2017) Co-operate not Speculate. Co-ops for London: London Lyall, S. (1988) Dream Cottages: From cottage ornée to stockbroker Tudor: 200 years of the cult of the vernacular; Robert Hale Limited, London Murphy, J. (2014) The Semi-Detached House: Its Place in Suburban Housing. 2ha Magazine, [online] February/March. Available from: https://issuu.com/2ha_magazine/docs/issue_06_art_small/2?ff=true [Accessed on: 11/09/2017] Neale, C. (1984) Planning & Development Case Study 3 South Woodham Ferrers. RICS Surveyors Publications; UK Parvin, A. (2013) Architecture by the people for the people. February, TED, [online video] https://www.ted. com/talks/alastair_parvin_architecture_for_the_people_by_the_people/up-next [Accessed on: 06/09/2017] Parvin, A. (2014) Architecture (and the other 98%). alastairparvin.com [blog] 4th December. Available from: https://www.alastairparvin.com/single-post/2014/12/04/Architecture-and-the-other-98 [Accessed on: 11/09/17] Rural Urban Synthesis Society (2017) An innovative approach to Community-Led Housing. Available from: https://www.theruss.org/about/our-vision/ [Accessed on: 25/09/17] Ward, C. (1987) When We Build Again, Let’s Have Housing That Works! Pluto Press; London WikiHouse Foundation (2017a) Home. [online] Available from: https://wikihouse.cc/ [Accessed on: 26/09/17] WikiHouse Foundation (2017b) About. [online] Available from: https://wikihouse.cc/about [Accessed on: 26/09/17] 53