sambrown.blog

Read the short piece I put together on community-led urbanism for the Spring 2015 edition of the Academy of Urbanism’s Journal, ‘Here & Now’ - co-authored with Raquel Ajates Gonzales, Chair of the Rural Urban Synthesis Society (RUSS) - click image above or go here.

Lee Valley White Water Centre - FaulknerBrowns Architects

What a fantastic place.

The first London 2012 Olympic venues to be completed, on time, 18 months ahead of the Games....

Set within a landscape. Scattered parking. Public paths weave between the two courses with plenty of bridges for observation of the rafts and kayaks that skit below...

Building itself cleverly deals with levels to hide a service yard - from which visitors embark their various vessels, and sets up a great relationship between cafe and water at first floor level.

A satellite pavilion, low and elegantly detailed, has an outdoor classroom and cafe with a view of the Legacy loop of the course, not used for the Olympics, but used now by white waterers in training.

Was so impressed, I signed up for the 6-week Level 1 White Water kayaking course!

Architects' website - here

I'll be talking at House Of The Commons in Oxford (9th-12th October) on behalf of Jon Broome Architects - covering self-build housing, recent planning policy developments and precedent projects and the role of resident-controlled housing at the heart of sustainability...

19 Drawings in 19 Days - Jul/Aug 2014, China (Part 2)

19 Drawings in 19 Days - China, Jul/Aug 2014 (Part 1)

London > Moscow > Beijing > Harbin > Beijing > Hangzhou > Beijing > Moscow > London.

Some thoughts as we progress with strategic design for a 21-unit 'care-ready' independent living retirement development for downsizers in southern England...

So what are the most important things to consider when designing housing for older people?

Well, firstly, this is still housing, and as such shares qualities with any housing brief, with which we have a great deal of experience.

The priority here, simply, is to make housing that - with a fair wind - new residents will be able to stay in for the rest of their lives, and live contented, fulfilling lives that balance the need for quiet privacy with the need for a stimulating social environment. They will be moving in at a certain stage in their lives, and view the future in a certain way - and value buildings in a way that correlates to these - and so this is something that we as designers need to anticipate and allow for in our proposals. For example, this might include a requirement for peace and quiet - yet also a vicarious concern about isolation.

The 2009 HAPPI report (DoH/HCA “Housing an Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation”) becomes a key point of reference - and its ten recommendations become the canon from which design drivers are derived.

Generous internal space standards - HAPPI recommends 54m2 and 70m2 for a 1-bed and 2-bed apartment respectively[1] - are a primary aim. Older people, almost logically, will have collected artefacts throughout their years and it’s nice to be able to display these. Storage, similarly - either within the home or without it - takes on increased value to residents, allowing them to archive things too precious to throw away yet too obtrusive -or perhaps too private - to keep out.

A minimum of three habitable rooms is recommended - having people to stay (visiting relatives, for example) is often cited as an essential capacity - as well as allowing for flexibility in the internal layout to permit not only future adaptation when a spouse passes away, or overnight care become needed, but also to allow for flexibility of tenure in the management of the development and the ability to alter the mix of accommodation on offer should it become necessary to do so. This becomes as much about creating ‘care ready’ homes, rather than creating care homes - and anticipating the future trajectory of care provision, for example, towards apartments wired for tele-care and nomadic community-based care programmes that require ‘base spaces’ in retirement developments - becomes very important.

Good daylighting to dwellings is another key tenet of HAPPI principles - to connect the interior to the outside world and to bring the outside in. The benefit of good daylighting to health, especially mental health, cannot be over-estimated and becomes even more critical as people age and their ability to ‘get out more’ diminishes. Providing dual-aspect accommodation with access to a small amount of private outdoor space can help with ensuring that residents have access to good daylighting. Carrying good daylighting through to common and circulation spaces can prevent the accommodation from feeling ‘institutional’, as does avoiding double-loaded corridors as a means of access to dwellings. However, it is the detailing of windows as well as their overall size that influences the quality of daylighting in dwellings. Windows that make it easy to sit near them, for example, because they have a sill that can be used as a seat or a small shelf for a coffee cup can be a great asset in residents’ efforts to sit in the sunshine and encourage dwellers to dwell at the edge of their space, increasing the likelihood of a sense of connection to activities or places outside the home. Full height windows, for example, can welcome daylight into the full depth of a room by throwing it across the ceiling and into corners.

Orientating the building layout to chime with its surroundings can add a great deal of value to a scheme in terms of what it feels like to be inside and look outside. Celebrating an existing tree as a focal point, or introducing new gardens as part of a landscape strategy helps to imbue the development with ‘positive external spaces’ - those that will grow to be well used and loved - as set out by Christopher Alexander in ‘A Pattern Language’. Winter gardens - hugely successfully deployed by sector-specialists PRP Architects at Pilgrim Gardens and other places - can provide cost-effective extensions to the home, useable for nine-months of the year for drying washing, sitting or breakfasting and ease the transition between inside and out, whilst also providing an added layer of still air as thermal buffer in wintertime. If the whole development is as ‘car-free’ as possible, making use of shared surfaces to minimise the territory perceived as only that of the car, resident’s feeling of ownership over - and connection to - the landscape will be greatly enhanced.

Providing the right amount and type of shared space is perhaps the most important aspect of designing for older people, as it is the most direct spatial device we have to mitigate the dangers of isolation and encourage residents to interact. Not all developments are of a sufficient scale to provide a range of facilities such as gyms, pools, shops and hair salons, but common rooms designed with kitchen facilities integrated and adjacent can be hired out occasionally as function rooms, bringing people into the area from outside and injecting some strangeness to keep the place alive. Besides this, places to sit in the grounds, or on landings - and especially spaces to linger outside front doors - can be of huge benefit, and can be well anchored in a reading of Alexander’s ‘six-foot balcony’, again from ‘A Pattern Language’. As ever, management of these spaces has an effect at least as significant as any design moves made to create them. Other kinds of space - such as laundries, roof terraces or a cinema room - can serve as social hubs within small clusters of dwellings and this can be seen to be particularly effective in some of the German ‘Baugruppe’ models, where small shared spaces are often scattered throughout apartment blocks commissioned collectively by groups of people who come together to procure homes they can age well in. Cohousing, as some of these German examples are, also offers an interesting perspective on the idea of mutuality in old age - perhaps having smaller flats in return for a greater area of shared spaces, and the support of a community as you age

So it’s simple really - many of the priorities are simply the same as they are for good housing of any type.

Onwards!

Seville architect Santiago Cirugeda - and practice Recetas Urbanas - feature in Part 1 of 'Rebel Architecture' on Al Jazeera. 25mins of self-building ever week, Monday's at 23:30 CET (22:30 GMT)....

I've stumbled across a couple of data visualisation resources that I don't want to lose...

Maps.Stamen.com - looks like plug-ins you can use to style OpenStreetMap data for display.

RSA Animate videos available as high-resolution PDFs and prints!

I'm really happy to have found out that you can download an A0, high-resolution PDF (£0.99) or order a print (up to £70!) of the drawings constructed in the RSA's Animate series...

Videos - here.

Collective Custom Build Launch Party - Tonight; details here.

www.collectivecustombuild.org

@CoCuBuild

In the first of a series of model making workshops I run with first year students at the Sheffield School of Architecture, we explore how design ideas can be generated very quickly through modelling, and clever use of a camera's abstracting frame, elements that give a sense of scale and decent lighting.

The whole idea is to introduce students to the concept that architecture can be found in materials, rather than model making being merely a way to represent something you have already thought of.

Living in Bethnal Green...

I'm going to start collecting images and articles about Cranbrook Estate, the estate on which I live in Bethnal Green, east London...

The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green - after which a statute on the estate is named - is an intriguing tale, highlighted by Wikipedia here.

Cranbrook Estate

The design - and its placing alongside the architectural ideas of the day is well covered by the Inhabiting Imagination blog - here. - also which discusses the principal architect, Berthold Lubetkin, and the excellent documentary photographs by Steven Day, entitled 'Cranbrook', which can be viewed in full - here.

Some credentials, taken from London Gardens Online:

Site Location: Roman Road

Postcode: E3 0RB / E2 0QU

Grid Reference: TQ356830

Borough: Tower Hamlets

Type of site: Housing Estate

Site Management: Tower Hamlets Homes

Completion Date: 1961-68

Designers: Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin

And this synopsis, also taken from London Gardens Online:

"The Cranbrook Estate was built between 1961-68 for Bethnal Green Metropolitan Borough Council, and was one of the largest municipal housing developments at that time. Badly damaged by bombing, prior to post-war clearance the area was occupied by C19th terraces. The new estate was designed by architects Skinner, Bailey and Lubetkin, all formerly part of Tecton architects; it was their third housing project for Bethnal Green MBC. Berthold Lubetkin (1901-1990) had began working in Russia, moving to Paris in the 1920s and from the 1930s worked in England; he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1982. The Cranbrook Estate was his last major project before retirement. The estate was planned to provide 600 housing units in different built forms, from bungalows for old people, 2-storey terraces and 4-storey maisonettes, to its 6 paired tower blocks of 11, 13 and 15 storeys. The buildings were set within a formal, geometrical layout with two diagonal axes, pedestrian avenues that recalled the earlier street pattern. In intervening years some re-landscaping has taken place and the roadways within the estate now resemble a figure of eight. One of the original avenues led from the estate's entrance off Roman Road in the south-east to meet Bonner Road in the north-west, while the other avenue led from the south-west to the north-east corner where its line was designed to continue towards the corner of Victoria Park (q.v.). It was originally intended that there would be a direct link into the park here but the Council was unable to purchase the intervening land. As a result Lubetkin devised a means of creating the illusion of the vista along this diagonal axis through a trompe-l'oeil sculpture in the form of a series of diminishing arches spanning a tapering path, mounted on blocks that also provided seating, within a circular landscaped area. This sculptural feature has become neglected over time and, no longer having the arches, has lost its purpose and no longer creates the illusion. The estate's hard and soft landscaping was an integral part of the design and included areas of grass, tree planting such as the avenue of poplar trees on the route from the south-west corner, raised planted areas and a private, communal garden for the elderly residents of the bungalows in the south of the estate. Flanked by the bungalows to the north and Roman Road to the south, the garden has lawn, trees and shrubs and an ornamental pond overlooked by a bronze sculpture by Dame Elisabeth Frink, 'The Blind Beggar and His Dog'. This was commissioned by Bethnal Green MBC in 1957 and was initially sited in Roman Road in 1959 before moving to Cranbrook in 1963, where it is set on a stepped concrete plinth. The legend of the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green dates back to the C17th. The estate has a number of multi-use play areas for children and a Community Centre on Mace Street was added in 1993, designed by Pentarch architects. In 2009 a derelict playground adjacent to the Community Centre was converted into Cranbrook Community Food Garden, whose members are largely drawn from residents on the estate but also from neighbouring housing. Funding for the community garden was provided by a grant from Capital Growth and £5,000 from LB Tower Hamlets' 'You Make a Difference Today' fund. The allotment has numerous raised beds, seating, wormeries, a greenhouse and shed, and future plans include building a pergola."

Additionally, this entry on the UK Housing Wiki points out the controversial pending transfer of the estate to Swan Housing Association.

Alzette House

"Alzette House is a 11 storey tower block on Mace Street on the Cranbrook Estate in Bethnal Green, East London. Completed in 1957, it is of very unique design and is 47 metres tall."

Taken from UK Housing Wiki - here.

Cranbrook Community Food Garden

"The Cranbrook Estate was built for Bethnal Green MBC, designed by celebrated Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin. The estate's housing units range from bungalows for the elderly, through 2 and 4-storey terraces, to paired tower blocks, set within a formal, geometrical layout with two diagonal pedestrian avenues. In the north-east corner Lubetkin created a trompe-l'oeil sculpture in the form of a series of diminishing arches to continue the vista towards Victoria Park. The estate's hard and soft landscaping was an integral part of the design and included areas of grass, trees, raised planted areas and a communal garden for elderly residents of the bungalows. In 2009 Cranbrook Community Food Garden was established on a former playground."

Taken from London Gardens Online - here.

Links + Credits

Love London Council Housing - Some of the photos above taken from the wonderful Love London Council Housing blog.

Book - Allan, J. (n.d.) 'The Cranbrook Estate - an architectural synopsis' (chapter) IN: Allan, J. (2011) 'Berthold Lubetkin - Architecture and the Tradition of Progress', London: Black Dog Publishing Ltd.