I live in social housing....in a grade 2 listed building. This early 1800s lodge was acquired by the housing association after a previous oroject to convert it into flats went bust. 5 families live in a beautiful, spacious, high-gothic building. But then, we are very lucky, and the issue about affordable housing is very important.
I lived in Singapore for 12 years public housing can definitely be beautiful and it also can be maintained and loved if there is personal ownership or even shared ownership between state and individual. Unfortunately public housing gets a bad rap in the UK
Now the problem in the UK is: Can working class afford living in beautiful houses? Council tenants for years live in better conditions than working poor, working immigration etc.
These regenerations are typical of the squeezing out of working people. The so-called "affordable" label is really nothing of the sort for those in relatively low pay.
Retrofitting buildings is indeed great and sustainable, but the fact that what was once social housing is now privately owned is depressing. Private landlords are very quickly acquiring the last bit of council owned homes and will soon squeeze everyone financially
I live where a privately owned small 1 bed flat costs from £400,000+ and they are truly as ugly as sin. The outside modern building is growing green mold on the outside. They can't get that right so I doubt the councils can put the effort in to maintain them with the basics of clean water , safe electrics and heating so to make them look pleasing to the eye as well is beyond the capabilities of most councils. Sadly it shouldn't be that way. A group of seaside tower blocks had a total outside makeover costing millions. They could have gone with pastels or seaside colours instead they went with vomit yellow which within 6 months is staining green and brown! A total waste of essential money.
End right to buy, at least for new social housing. It is beyond madness that you build it for all and then flog it a vast discount never to be used again as social housing. It totally defeats the object and acts as a massive obstacle to councils.
I don’t understand how someone could look at something so depressing and say “yes let’s give it an award”. Utterly ridiculous that you have to make something do horrendous to make it “affordable”. Avoiding brutalism is not expensive.
European post war architecture is just ugly in my eyes. Lifeless concrete blocks. Same creativity than a 10 year old playing Minecraft and building the same.
park hill is beautiful. I love mid century buildings, we used to design buildings to actually be used by humans. what we didn't do though, is the upkeep. which is a shame. because now that architecture gets a bad name and now we have no ambition to provide anything good or decent it's all just numbers.
If you think this is beautiful then you really need to go to Specsavers. Brutalist architecture is ugly, expensive to maintain and for modern buildings relatively poor from a sustainability perspective. You hear this nonsense it just poor maintenance but grey concrete is horrendous in wet northern Europe under leaden skies you cannot polish what is a TURD of a building.
Its ugly dogshit. Everything the boomers built was degenerate shite . Its the responsibility of our generation to undo Everything that generation did. Go back to neo gothic and neo classical with a tiny splash of art deco . Just like Poundbury and Nansledon . Human places built to shared human beauty ideals . Not some art school asrehole shitting on objective beauty for his own ego. The mid 20th century is a disgusting mistake that must be undone .
The Soviet apartments built during the time of various Presidents, across Eastern Europe and Russia, seem to have stood the test of time. Robustly built but in most cases not really attractive. Except in the former Yugoslavia. Even bombs falling near them in Ukraine only blows the windows out alot of the time.
Nah they’re busy arguing who’s better design and who wins the contract, While private homes are built way worse quality and the walls look like it’s painted with poop, and materials are purchased off landfills.
They got to keep up with the mixed approach. In my city there was a high school that was shutting down in a degeneration area whilst my high school was getting a new build, the propersition was that both sets of kids could occupy the new building, my highschool was upper working class/middle class whislt the other highschool had a purpose built nusery to support student parants, jus to give you some scope of how diffrent the worlds were. Anyway we'd hear murmers from a large portions of the community and parants about how this was a bad idea and that it would bring trouble to the area etc, the council (or whoe ever was incharge) igronered the concerns and went ahead with the decision regardless. The school essentially continued performed well and there wasn't much change in origional student performance, I heard through word of mouth that it had a massive postive effect from the students coming in from the other school, their outlook improved and their attitudes towards learning also greatly improved. I think being surrounded by opportunity and hope does great things for people, to be allowed in these spaces and feel welcome like anyone else, segregating our poor to some back water or between a dual carriage way is no better than zoning laws in the USA, economics should not dictate whether you should have access to a nice park or great surroundings. Divesity is great, the problem is we love to show off only face value wise, diversity of diffrent ethnicities and languages in our public spaces is great but we also need to make sure theres social diversity also. The only people that should be segregated to squalid conditions are harden criminials. I want working class kids to be able to say my nieghbour is a doctor, astronuat, gardner, fire fighter, CEO ete etc, I want them to belive they to can be anything they aspire to and have live examples of that in their day to day.
It starts off looking great, and then a load of people with no social ‘skin in the game’ move in. Fast forward 30 years and it needs knocking down and starting again. Something else needs fixing rather than the fixtures and fittings…
The problem with social housing is nuisance neighbours. Who cannot be moved on. The loud music in the early hours of the morning, the drug dealing ones, the ones who dump unwanted old mattresses etc just outside the door, and the list goes on. Which leads to mental health issues with the person trying to live a normal life.
Don’t generalise. If you’re going through this, complain to housing association every time. Keep a diary and complain to local authority environmental health.
@emmabrooker166 these problems never get solved. No amount of money thrown here will solve them until there are clear rules and a strongman who can enforce them
If you look around the typical council estate in England you will see we’ll built houses with gardens. They’re not too densely packed and have everything you need for a nice life. Then you add lazy people who don’t want to work, are prone to crime and drug use. They don’t look after their house or garden and make the area a no go zone. On top of that someone has had to buy or build the property at no profit, administer, maintain, repair and maintain the property at considerable cost. In other words SOMEONE ELSE pays. Get rid!
It's not the building it's the people unfortunately. Give something nice and they'll destroy it, because people don't care of what it's not theirs. (By the way i never read replies to my comments)
In 20 years it'll be ugly again. If they built social housing in classic British styles in the first place they wouldn't be on a hamster wheel having to renovate these places every few decades. Kensington has never been overhauled. Tudor revival suburbs have never been overhauled. Stone-built villages have never been overhauled. We know what kinds of places people want to live in but architects don't care.
There is good social housing and there is bad social housing! I want to know, do those architects live in the buildings? They design buildings for the masses that they do not live in, I would like to see where they live! I detest these large scale high rise blocks with harsh angular lines with hundreds of people living on top of each other! Where the walls are basically cardboard, therefore no privacy and you can hear next door's conversations. The houses were okay but again, harsh structural design, not to my liking. I hope they are all happy in them though and they have good neighbours and a decent landlord! Who decides these awards? Do the judges live in these buildings? Would they live in them? I would not give them an award, they are not to my taste but the houses were the better of the two.
@@Nazpazaz so making Grenfel Tower prettier was good idea, was it? Their pretty high rise, I’m sure they’re all so happy it was refurbished with “aesthetic” in mind eh? I never said these things were mutually exclusive. Your argument avoids reality and nothing more.
@@Nazpazaz it might be a part of what BUYERS or private renters want, and rightly so.. but young single mothers, fresh out of education kids all need functional houses, “aesthetic” is a waste of resourses at a time when the country is skint. Must be nice looking at life through a rose tint. Good for you.
It could have been maintained better during the years. Council tenants need to be made responsible of their properties not just expecting the council to keep on fixing them.
That's because councils and society abandon low-income people and treat social housing as places to shunt them away, instead of giving them support and maintaining the buildings/public spaces.
Along with what @DarkLordJabba said, there's also the problem that mid-20th-century-style social housing was often (or often became) entirely one income bracket, mostly lower income, which means that there is a significant lack of both public and private investment in a particular area, so shops and businesses can't start up as easily and it means that deprivation in that area grows. A thriving community includes people from ALL backgrounds and "social class", which is why it's so important that social housing, affordable housing and private housing is made available within a particular development. The government needs to do more to incentivise and support both social housing and affordable housing because otherwise developers just provide "luxury apartments" and nothing else, meaning average people are priced out and neighbourhoods becomes homogenous, which is bad for the economy and society as a whole.
According to ONS 50% of All adults in working age in social housing, DO NOT WORK, so why are you paying £2500/m2 for housing for people who won't contribute????? Best to leave this crappy place!
All that money thats been sent to Ukraine could have built more than enough social housing for the British people, how pathetic this government really is
I live in social housing....in a grade 2 listed building. This early 1800s lodge was acquired by the housing association after a previous oroject to convert it into flats went bust. 5 families live in a beautiful, spacious, high-gothic building. But then, we are very lucky, and the issue about affordable housing is very important.
I live on a council estate in Manchester surrounded by Africans and Pakistanis.
An early 1800s lodge sounds lovely. Is it in London? I hope you have great neighbours who appreciate it.
@@sh.4409 No need to boast.
I lived in Singapore for 12 years public housing can definitely be beautiful and it also can be maintained and loved if there is personal ownership or even shared ownership between state and individual. Unfortunately public housing gets a bad rap in the UK
Now the problem in the UK is: Can working class afford living in beautiful houses? Council tenants for years live in better conditions than working poor, working immigration etc.
A question that only the British can pose, given that half of Europe has very nice or indistinguishable from standard social housing since decades.
These regenerations are typical of the squeezing out of working people. The so-called "affordable" label is really nothing of the sort for those in relatively low pay.
Retrofitting buildings is indeed great and sustainable, but the fact that what was once social housing is now privately owned is depressing. Private landlords are very quickly acquiring the last bit of council owned homes and will soon squeeze everyone financially
Thats not what happening at park hill
It literally is
Looks like a prison.
That's an interesting prison design...
I live where a privately owned small 1 bed flat costs from £400,000+ and they are truly as ugly as sin. The outside modern building is growing green mold on the outside. They can't get that right so I doubt the councils can put the effort in to maintain them with the basics of clean water , safe electrics and heating so to make them look pleasing to the eye as well is beyond the capabilities of most councils. Sadly it shouldn't be that way. A group of seaside tower blocks had a total outside makeover costing millions. They could have gone with pastels or seaside colours instead they went with vomit yellow which within 6 months is staining green and brown! A total waste of essential money.
End right to buy, at least for new social housing. It is beyond madness that you build it for all and then flog it a vast discount never to be used again as social housing. It totally defeats the object and acts as a massive obstacle to councils.
YES!!!! You can’t fix a lack of housing with lowering the price thus increasing demand for a home that doesn’t exist…..
I don’t understand how someone could look at something so depressing and say “yes let’s give it an award”.
Utterly ridiculous that you have to make something do horrendous to make it “affordable”. Avoiding brutalism is not expensive.
Its actually quite spectacular architecture
@@Speedkam its degenerate shite. Everything the boomers built needs removing from history.
Reject modernity embrace tradition.
Housing 4 people vs housing for stashing money into appreciating assets is the question the UK needs to ask itself.
I live in Vienna. This is social housing
Really? The cities appartements are totally overpriced for what you get. For the same amount you can nuy a house in the US
Most estates after the war were cheaply built and maintained poorly. It always comes down to money.
Same can be said about victorian houses
I agree with a few sales to bridge the funding gap, but we not a Trellick Tower-type split
European post war architecture is just ugly in my eyes. Lifeless concrete blocks. Same creativity than a 10 year old playing Minecraft and building the same.
Can the insides be built with something other than Paper and Cardboard and have sound insulation?
Build your own house
park hill is beautiful. I love mid century buildings, we used to design buildings to actually be used by humans. what we didn't do though, is the upkeep. which is a shame. because now that architecture gets a bad name and now we have no ambition to provide anything good or decent it's all just numbers.
If you think this is beautiful then you really need to go to Specsavers. Brutalist architecture is ugly, expensive to maintain and for modern buildings relatively poor from a sustainability perspective. You hear this nonsense it just poor maintenance but grey concrete is horrendous in wet northern Europe under leaden skies you cannot polish what is a TURD of a building.
Its ugly dogshit. Everything the boomers built was degenerate shite . Its the responsibility of our generation to undo Everything that generation did. Go back to neo gothic and neo classical with a tiny splash of art deco . Just like Poundbury and Nansledon . Human places built to shared human beauty ideals .
Not some art school asrehole shitting on objective beauty for his own ego.
The mid 20th century is a disgusting mistake that must be undone .
The Soviet apartments built during the time of various Presidents, across Eastern Europe and Russia, seem to have stood the test of time. Robustly built but in most cases not really attractive. Except in the former Yugoslavia. Even bombs falling near them in Ukraine only blows the windows out alot of the time.
Senk yoo, komrade Soozan. Veery veel put.
Hahahahahaha
Just build them ffs
Nah they’re busy arguing who’s better design and who wins the contract,
While private homes are built way worse quality and the walls look like it’s painted with poop, and materials are purchased off landfills.
@@MP-vc4nu Lol, yeah right!
They got to keep up with the mixed approach. In my city there was a high school that was shutting down in a degeneration area whilst my high school was getting a new build, the propersition was that both sets of kids could occupy the new building, my highschool was upper working class/middle class whislt the other highschool had a purpose built nusery to support student parants, jus to give you some scope of how diffrent the worlds were. Anyway we'd hear murmers from a large portions of the community and parants about how this was a bad idea and that it would bring trouble to the area etc, the council (or whoe ever was incharge) igronered the concerns and went ahead with the decision regardless. The school essentially continued performed well and there wasn't much change in origional student performance, I heard through word of mouth that it had a massive postive effect from the students coming in from the other school, their outlook improved and their attitudes towards learning also greatly improved. I think being surrounded by opportunity and hope does great things for people, to be allowed in these spaces and feel welcome like anyone else, segregating our poor to some back water or between a dual carriage way is no better than zoning laws in the USA, economics should not dictate whether you should have access to a nice park or great surroundings. Divesity is great, the problem is we love to show off only face value wise, diversity of diffrent ethnicities and languages in our public spaces is great but we also need to make sure theres social diversity also. The only people that should be segregated to squalid conditions are harden criminials. I want working class kids to be able to say my nieghbour is a doctor, astronuat, gardner, fire fighter, CEO ete etc, I want them to belive they to can be anything they aspire to and have live examples of that in their day to day.
It’s the people who live there! That make it what it is
yes
It starts off looking great, and then a load of people with no social ‘skin in the game’ move in. Fast forward 30 years and it needs knocking down and starting again. Something else needs fixing rather than the fixtures and fittings…
The problem with social housing is nuisance neighbours. Who cannot be moved on. The loud music in the early hours of the morning, the drug dealing ones, the ones who dump unwanted old mattresses etc just outside the door, and the list goes on. Which leads to mental health issues with the person trying to live a normal life.
Don’t generalise.
If you’re going through this, complain to housing association every time. Keep a diary and complain to local authority environmental health.
@@emmabrooker166 yes but do they take complaints seriously? 🙄
By the way.. do you remember that Grenfell tower incident?
@emmabrooker166 these problems never get solved. No amount of money thrown here will solve them until there are clear rules and a strongman who can enforce them
@@emmabrooker166shocking comment,
If you look around the typical council estate in England you will see we’ll built houses with gardens. They’re not too densely packed and have everything you need for a nice life. Then you add lazy people who don’t want to work, are prone to crime and drug use. They don’t look after their house or garden and make the area a no go zone. On top of that someone has had to buy or build the property at no profit, administer, maintain, repair and maintain the property at considerable cost. In other words SOMEONE ELSE pays. Get rid!
Good news story for once
It's not the building it's the people unfortunately. Give something nice and they'll destroy it, because people don't care of what it's not theirs. (By the way i never read replies to my comments)
In 20 years it'll be ugly again. If they built social housing in classic British styles in the first place they wouldn't be on a hamster wheel having to renovate these places every few decades. Kensington has never been overhauled. Tudor revival suburbs have never been overhauled. Stone-built villages have never been overhauled. We know what kinds of places people want to live in but architects don't care.
There is good social housing and there is bad social housing! I want to know, do those architects live in the buildings? They design buildings for the masses that they do not live in, I would like to see where they live! I detest these large scale high rise blocks with harsh angular lines with hundreds of people living on top of each other! Where the walls are basically cardboard, therefore no privacy and you can hear next door's conversations. The houses were okay but again, harsh structural design, not to my liking. I hope they are all happy in them though and they have good neighbours and a decent landlord! Who decides these awards? Do the judges live in these buildings? Would they live in them? I would not give them an award, they are not to my taste but the houses were the better of the two.
Need to build more of it before worrying how bling it is.
Aesthetic is an important part of how people value housing, you can't just dismiss that facet.
@@Nazpazaz: there is nothing aesthically pleasing about Park Hill. It is typical of the postwar monoliths built to house council tenants.
@@Nazpazaz so making Grenfel Tower prettier was good idea, was it?
Their pretty high rise, I’m sure they’re all so happy it was refurbished with “aesthetic” in mind eh?
I never said these things were mutually exclusive. Your argument avoids reality and nothing more.
@@Nazpazaz it might be a part of what BUYERS or private renters want, and rightly so.. but young single mothers, fresh out of education kids all need functional houses, “aesthetic” is a waste of resourses at a time when the country is skint.
Must be nice looking at life through a rose tint. Good for you.
👏👏👏
Shame the government cant supply AFFORDABLE STANDARD housing for BRITISH people.
Almost everyone in the video seemed British? What's your issue?
@@geronimohayauxdutilly2136they weren’t white that’s his issue 😂
question is: can it stay beautiful with the tenants put inside?
It could have been maintained better during the years. Council tenants need to be made responsible of their properties not just expecting the council to keep on fixing them.
Doesn't matter how nice social housing is it always end up in a tip
That's because councils and society abandon low-income people and treat social housing as places to shunt them away, instead of giving them support and maintaining the buildings/public spaces.
“in a tip” or “a tip”?
Along with what @DarkLordJabba said, there's also the problem that mid-20th-century-style social housing was often (or often became) entirely one income bracket, mostly lower income, which means that there is a significant lack of both public and private investment in a particular area, so shops and businesses can't start up as easily and it means that deprivation in that area grows.
A thriving community includes people from ALL backgrounds and "social class", which is why it's so important that social housing, affordable housing and private housing is made available within a particular development.
The government needs to do more to incentivise and support both social housing and affordable housing because otherwise developers just provide "luxury apartments" and nothing else, meaning average people are priced out and neighbourhoods becomes homogenous, which is bad for the economy and society as a whole.
@@DarkLordJabba or, and this is a big or. islam.
@@harrysmith3606 this is communist gobbledegook. we dont want the marxist "utopia" you try to peddle
According to ONS 50% of All adults in working age in social housing, DO NOT WORK, so why are you paying £2500/m2 for housing for people who won't contribute????? Best to leave this crappy place!
Does that include those who are officially employed?
What's the alternative? If people who "don't contribute" aren't housed it doesn't mean they stop existing.
@@harrysmith3606 Bring back workhouses? 🤔
Out of those figures you said who don’t work. What’s the reason ? Disability etc ? Context matters
Still looks ugly for me
Its just gonna turn into a crack tower
Dump
A million eu migrants are in social housing z 41% of Jamaicans are in social housing. 70% of Somalis here are in them. What a joke.
All that money thats been sent to Ukraine could have built more than enough social housing for the British people, how pathetic this government really is
Well it coulnt if you have russian rockets falling on our land
@@Speedkam If you want people to fight a war you instigated, you need a scary story of what will happen if they don't fight.
Lets give all the houses to the homeless so they can strip it apart for drug money