This week in the Open Lecture Series there were two talks which very much focused on what architects can do in the community as a force for positive social change, through collective and participatory projects. These were both fantastic and inspirational talks, and Geraldine Dening's talk on Architects for Social Housing (ASH) in particular was one of the best talks that I have ever attended, really resonating with me.
Collisions: High streets and town centres
Jay Gort, of London-based practice Gort Scott, presented a couple of different projects, and also talked in general about the importance of the high street/town centre to communities and how architects can take on projects that address current issues that these are facing.
One of the concepts that Gort introduced was that of the 'High Street Ecosystem', where economic, commercial, social and environmental value all overlap, as demonstrated by the diagram below.
Venn diagram of the 'High Street Ecosystem'
Another thing which Gort emphasised as being really important is public consultation, stating that it is "such an important skill of an architect to listen". At the same time, he pointed out that your role as an architect is to be able to steer those conversations so that they are useful and effective – the input of the public needs to be relevant to the project and fit within the brief. Therefore, the questions being asked need to be clear and strategic. It is the architect's skill to draw together all of the input from the public and then get the value out of it and turn it into a project which reflects the public's needs.
A point which Gort made which was later echoed by Dening in her talk, was that retrofitting and refurbishing are the most sustainable ways of building. If an existing building is already there, then leaving that as the main structure and building envelope and then reconfiguring the space within those parameters means that much less material is wasted and therefore the embodied energy of the building is much lower. One of the examples of Gort Scott putting these principles into practice is Walthamstow Central Parade, shown below. This was originally built in the 1960s to serve as council offices. Now, Gort Scott have turned it into 650 square metres of space for independent businesses and workers to use.
Walthamstow Central Parade, a refurbishment project
Architects for Social Housing: For a Sustainable Architecture
"Developers are farming our cities...mining them purely for their capital"
Geraldine Dening also began her talk with Venn diagrams, with these ones comparing the differences between the priorities of a socialist economy and a capitalist economy. Dening noted how truly 'green architecture' was not just focused on the environmental, but needed to consider all of these other factors as well – the social, the political and the economic. As capitalist economies are motivated entirely by the financial, architecture working to this system can never be truly sustainable.
Opposed economies of architecture
With this as the starting point to the lecture, I was excited, as it was immediately bringing together architecture with the political values that I hold to be important, in a way that was direct and unapologetic. I have been to many interesting talks on architecture, but a lot of them focus on the aesthetic, spatial and sustainable in the capitalist sense, without really grappling with the other issues highlighted by Dening here. Having these things declared right at the outset indicated that this would be far from the case in this talk.
This first part of the lecture continued with Dening outlining and going into detail on many more points of the ASH manifesto, principles and values. This was really enlightening, and it was great that Dening took the time to cover this as comprehensively as possible within the allocated time, before moving onto some projects. I won't try and cover all of this here, but would urge anyone here to look at their website, which is an incredibly rich resource. I have only just scratched the surface of it now, and look forward to going through many more of the articles and resources there.
When explaining the principles that ASH stands for and works within, it was clear that ASH is about working within socialist, sustainable principles from now, as we cannot wait for a socialist future and have to act within the capitalist context that we find ourselves. Dening explained that ASH work on three levels: architecture, community and propaganda. An examples of an ASH propaganda poster is shown below.
The statement "architecture is always political" is such an important one for me, and a belief that I have held for a long time. Any project that we take on board as architectural designers has social and political ramifications, and therefore decisions and projects should not be taken lightly. It is vital to always think about who can best benefit from the skills, time and energy that we have to offer, and then act accordingly, I believe.
Dening provided us all with a broad understanding of the state of play with housing supply at the moment in UK and particularly London today. Again, I am able to cover all of the points that she raised in this detail-packed lecture, but some key ones which stood out to me are:
'Affordable rent' does not equal 'social rent' – 'affordable rent' is very much a misnomer and can be up to 80% of the market value.
Of 45,000 residential properties completed in London in 2016, only 5% were for social rent.
When a place is due to be demolished, general maintenance of the building is generally stopped completely, so that people will leave without being evicted, meaning that they then don't have to guarantee them a place in the new development.
In the latter part of the lecture, Dening then turned towards some projects that ASH has worked on. One example is shown in the image below.
An ASH alternative to demolition proposal
Dening explained that for these projects, architects were volunteering their time, coming after working at their main jobs to work pro bono. The clients are the residents of places that are facing demolition, not the landlords. ASH's approach, echoing that of Gort in the earlier lecture, is that it is better to refurbish than to demolish and rebuild. This is not only for the environmental and energy reasons stated by Gort, but also to enable the continuation of existing communities. Dening explained that the environmental and economic angles can be useful leverage to also push through the social and political angles as well – explaining to a developer that it costs less money to refurbish is more likely to have any impact on them than explaining how it is important to the social aspects of the community for demolition not to occur.
A final piece of information that Dening left us with was that there is a new trade union for architectural workers – the United Voices of the World: Section of Architectural Workers (UVW-SAW) – which she heavily encouraged us to look into joining, in the pursuit of better hours and pay, and more equitable structures within offices. This was great news to me, as I had spent a while looking around for union options when I first worked in the industry, prior to embarking upon my masters studies, and had been disappointed to find nothing for architectural workers specifically. This is something that I now definitely want to look into and hopefully join soon.
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