In London in the late 1930's Wates built thousands of link detached chalet houses, flank walls about 3' apart with a linking arch across the front. I was told that at the time for rating purposes they had to be classed as s/d as they were unarguably joined to another house, but in terms of noise etc they were detached.
See typical picture at
If public transport were cheaper, I'd say you have a point. But it's not cheap, is it?
MM
For the sake of three hundred pounds' worth of insulation? Do you
*know* how many council houses there are in the UK?!! It would cost a hell of a lot more to replace them all with modern rabbit hutches.MM
Cheaper than a car which will only sit in traffic jam. the point is the looks: gardens are disappearing, and pollution cars bring.
Agreed. They are actually up market garden sheds, with a similar life expectancy.
Regards Capitol
< snip drivel>
Not to mention the waste in terms of energy and materials to replace all those perfectly good houses. Concrete production is responsible for a large chunk of CO2 emissions.
Then there is the track record of modern day planners and architects to consider. To up themselves for our own good, IMO. I'd hate to live in a town where every building was treated as art and made to be "challenging" to the viewer, rather than just suffering the occasional hideous construction you get now.
Mal
£300 to insulate an uninsulated house properly to currenbt building regs, never mind the 2007 regs? Get real!
They are NOT good. Most are fit for purpose. No insulation whatsoever, too small, designed for time with different values and lifestyles. Most are only fit for demolition. It usually costs more to just to get them to current building regs (which is being seriously ramped up in insulation and air-tightness soon) than to pull down and start again.
Then we have to use timber, which using planned forests absorbs CO2 as it grows. Timber houses are equally as good, if not better, than brick. A forest looks better than a brick works.
Occasionally! The place is full of appalling pastiche retros.
Q: What is the difference between new house design in Banff, Bognor, Basingstoke, Bangor, or Beaconsfield? ? A: None
No ? I?m not an architect; I am a dangerous amateur. Isn?t it telling that one has to make this admission before you write further. I have deep concerns about the built environment in the Chilterns and the architectural vomit that is thrown up in all senses by house developers in the region. Every day I see new examples of Tudorbethan, Vicwardian, neo-Georgian confused by developers as a mixture of deep south Colonial and 'Gone with the Wind' (I wish they had) blighting the Chilterns.
No one has responsibility for arresting this avalanche of design free structures, so developers go on erecting them - and the visually illiterate amongst others go on buying them. There is no choice after all. Developers are then convinced 'this is what they (buyers) want' and around we go again to the next wave of blighted applications that result in the homogenous Mocky Horror (?MH?) nightmare we see nationwide.
The CDC Planning Committee have to give good reason to refuse these applications and are to an extent between a rock and a hard place - but most members embrace these appalling offerings seemingly happy that the Chilterns looks the same as Banff, Bognor, Basingstoke, or Bangor.
The making of a MH are the additions (fake post and beam - or planks to you and me, flint swatches, colonnades and so on) applied to a cheaply erected brick lump. These are aptly known in the building trade as "Gob Ons."
An example of a MH that would benefit from the attentions of a bulldozer exists in Long Bottom Lane, Beaconsfield. 'The Thing? has been for sale for sometime. At a recent planning meeting a boisterous member of the committee complained about the 'adverse impact' a semi-contemporary application would have on the street scene in the same road. This latter application was well designed and located 75 yards from the road behind evergreens. Where was the Councillor when so needed to stop the cloyingly twee, in your face; Rhett Butler colonial eyesore that remains unsold at the time of writing. ?The Thing? received approval because presumably - in the opinion of the committee it's appropriate; doesn't adversely impact the street scene; is at ease with its site. HA! Seemingly the Councillor (and others) possess vision of scientific interest to stop considered design - but can't see what is clearly in front of them when it comes to 'pastiche retro.' Letting these proposals through planning blights the land on which they are erected, and contributes nothing to the built environment. I can probably show you at least 20 other versions of the same junk within 1760 yards radius so why do we need more?
If properties have to be the same as the one next door ("in keeping") we are going to end up living in a foul environment. All the Committee need do is look at Amersham Old Town, Edwardian; Victorian; Georgian; Tudor; juxtapose with each other and communicate comfortably. Different roof heights, pitches, materials: fenestration and finishes; it all works. What we need now are a couple of contemporary applications to keep things going - but if such a submission were made the Committee would likely have a collective seizure and end up in Amersham Hospital with its applied flint tokenism.
Regional building styles have disappeared because among other reasons we largely controlled by developers, who offer template solutions that are unacquainted with the pen of an architect. I checked, we are in the 21st Century. Domestic architecture in the countryside remains in yestercentury. There are wonderful new materials, methods, and design ideas. Of course there will always be a demand for MH?s, but if we do not progress in design and demonstrate that The Chilterns built environment is "different" we will be the same as everywhere else. What a travesty.
Gerrards Cross has been wrecked - the same blight has spread to Beaconsfield, and now it is happening in Great Missenden. We sit and watch the spread of this homogenous nightmare and do nothing. Is it only in housing that a counterfeit product is serially purchased by the public?
Follow the Chiltern Planning Design Guide to which the Chiltern Society contributes, and whilst rightly encouraging preservation of that which exists, it nullifies progress. It is therefore a promotional document for the visually and developmentally inert. Aspic country.
If we wish the Chilterns Built Environment to be identifiable from elsewhere a policy needs to be developed that promotes variety. Developers need to be convinced there is a market, and proactively encouraged to experiment. The buyers are there ? but why should developers change when they can get approvals easily and sell the junk they build?
© Tom Perry 13 October 2002.
There is no need to keep everything up to the current regs. Time will gradually result in replacement of buildings. Artificially accelerating the process is wasteful. If they last an extraordinary amount of time, that says more for their fittness for purpose than any paper argument.
You already know my feelings on air tightness etc.
BTW, where do you propose to find the army of builders required to construct all these replacement houses, and if you do get them, what will they all do once they have finished?
I have no problem with that, although I wonder about the longevity of such buildings in our windy and damp environment. I know they have a lot of wooden buildings in the US, and it certainly rains there, but is it quite as damp as Britain? And as windy? Mind you, I quite like traditional American style wooden house, but it would be hard to build one here because everyone would say it was out of character (after what you have posted, you couldn't use that argument without being hypocritical, but you would still object, probably on the grounds that it is "old" ).
"challenging"
construction
True, but then practically all buildings are a pastiche of what has gone before.
So? There isn't going to be a local style these days. If you were to build a house from scratch, how could you make it recognisable as a house from a particular part of the country. Any new design that you would favour is going to be distinct from it's neighbours, and therefore not localised.
snip rest of cut-and-paste rant.
Mal
Not in this daft country they will not.
I repeat they are NOT fit for pupose. They are designed for a time with different values and lifestyles.
They have lasted because of circumstances, not because they were though good or valued in some perverse way.
You mean you haven't a clue about it or controlled ventilation.
The older buildings the start to come down. One of the basic cores of the economies of the USA and Germany is the construction business. In Germany and the USA they don't think it is anti-eco to build fine spacious homes on green field sites, despite both having larger green movements than the UK, especially Germany. Well they don't have the vested interests of large landowners having green propaganda fronts, like Friends of The Earth, to brainwash people to leave the countryside alone and live all bunched up on top of each other in small super expensive boxes. No one converts barns in Germany. They think it a silly idea .
In 2001 the UK only built twice as many new homes as Ireland. UK = 60 to 62 million; Ireland 3.3 million. An absolute disgrace!!! No wonder Prescott is threatening with his left hook. I hope he uses it.
The oldest timber building is an Church in Essex from the 1200s. Whole town centres in places like Ludlow and Shrewsbury are timber houses.
Yes. Seattle has a higher rainfall than Manchester, and a very UK climate.
If someone wants to build a US style house, let them. If someone wants a pastiche piece of junk, let them.
That is the problem. We have this forced down out throats.
The big brother style police planners, should not be involved in style. Not their business. In designated areas like the York's Dales yes, elsewhere, they should mind their own business.
But it is obviously not cheap enough. Belgium is in the process of making all commuting journeys by train totally free. This is what I call a really far-sighted move.
MM
Do not be surprised! It is IMM's standard response when he is at loss for words.
MM
How much then?
MM
That is a stupid idea. All it will do is encourage even more commuting into a city centre. If you did that here, commuter and tube trains would be even more overcrowded than now.
Commuting needs to be discouraged, not encouraged. It's the only way to stop London sucking up the entire UK economy.
Mal
No.when confronted with drivel.
Get the loft to at least 250mm and have an insulated sealed hatch door. Have sealed double glazing and insulated exterior doors. Fill the cavities with insulation. Dig up the floor and insulate under and then relay. That is just to get it to today's standards.
Well they're doing a damn fine job for something that you think is unfit.
They have lasted because they are well built. The bad ones have been or are being demolished anyway.
What is the point of putting all that effort into sealing a room, only to then spend more money blowing air into it? That's the peverse logic of the eco-retard.
Energy conservation is a red herring. All the fossil fuel will be burnt in the end. Even if we cut consumption to 25% of the current level, it will just be burnt over the next 200 years instead of the next 50. All that CO2 is going into the atmosphere eventually - doing it slightly slower won't help the climate. In fact, it would be better to burn it all now, so we can have done with these stupid arguments, and shortsighted single-issue dumbasses supporting regulations that mean everyone is supposed to live in an airtight shoebox.
Why should the Dales be protected any more than another part of the country? Because it fits *your* personal aesthetic? Everyone else can just shut up and suffer the local modernist eyesore, I take it.
Mal
In my old BCO patch 1950's Council-built houses were probably the best.
The fact is that most people do not have children in the 3-13 age bracket and regard larger gardens as as much as a liability than an asset. A house with a larger garden than its neighbour may be more sellable but is unlikely to fetch more money.
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