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UK Housing Secretary Michael Gove throws his hat behind the country's traditionalism movement

2023-01-05T15:50:00-05:00

The UK’s housing chief is throwing his name into the contentious ongoing debate surrounding the role and perception of traditionalism and classical architecture in the country’s design culture and academia.

The Architects’ Journal has details on Secretary Michael Gove’s foreword to a report authored by critic Ike Ijeh for a right-wing think tank that calls for the establishment of a “School of Place” and other educational changes that would “revive” traditionalism “from the annals of obscurity to which contemporary architecture education has unfairly consigned it.”

Gove tied the cause to the country’s housing crisis while also welcoming calls for the elevation of classicism in university curricula without expressly stating that it should be mandated in either educational Part of the RIBA-administered licensure process, stating: “There is no silver bullet to solve the housing crisis, nor to transform British towns and cities overnight or instantaneously deliver a workforce imbued wit...

RIBA is calling on the UK government to warm up its interwar houses

2022-02-11T11:14:00-05:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has calculated that insulation, double- or triple-glazing and gas boiler replacement in 3.3m interwar homes that sprawl around England’s towns and cities could cut the country’s carbon emissions by 4%, helping it towards the net zero target by 2050. RIBA is calling for policies to incentivise private owners, who own more than 70% of interwar homes, and social landlords to fund the works.

The octogenarian houses are the target of a new £38 billion ($51.5 billion) proposal which, when taken to scale, could save around $500 billion in utility costs. Homeowners in the commonwealth have been getting bled dry by high energy costs of late as the public grapples with the pro-landlord past of its newest housing minister. Current estimates have it that only 10% of interwar homes receive an EPC grade above band C. Nationwide, the typology accounts for over 3.8 residential units according to RIBA.

“There can be no further delay in embarking on a national programme of home retrofitting, which will transform UK housing, creating warm and cheaper-to-heat homes while bringing health and wider societal benefits,” President Simon Allford said in a statement. “This process will drastically reduce fuel poverty, create half a million green jobs, and positively contribute to the national levelling up agenda.”

Architects in the UK reconsider their relationship with manufacturers and mass standardization

2019-07-12T13:49:00-04:00

It is now almost 80 years since the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act enabled the construction of the post-war prefab, but controversies and concerns about building a home in a factory have run deep ever since. While practically every other item we buy rolls off a production line, housebuilding’s transition to the factory remains, for many reasons, problematic.

With the rise of automation and advances in building manufacturing, architects have considered if machines can replace the profession. However, makes the job so rewarding is thinking of new and creative ways to execute ideas. This level of creativity and design distinction is something architects argue towards replacement by automation alone. However, in the UK, architects are learning to reassess their relationships with manufacturers and understand the silver lining in mass standardization. In 1944 the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act was passed by the British Parliament as a response to providing families with homes after World War II. Several decades later, the housing market is forcing architects to acquire new perspectives when it comes to manufacturing and how new relationships could foster better results.

According to Josephine Smit of the RIBA Journal, "with a skills shortage, a push from government and impetus from the build to rent sector, manufacturers and offsite s...

Can the government really tell us what's beautiful? The UK government attempts to put beauty first in order to solve building issues

2019-01-28T09:15:00-05:00

The UK government thinks it has got to the heart of the housing crisis: the problem is, new homes just aren’t beautiful enough. “Build beautifully and get permission,” says the housing minister, Kit Malthouse. “Build beautifully and communities will actually welcome developers, rather than drive them out of town at the tip of a pitchfork.”

According to housing minister, Kit Malthouse, the key to solving the housing crisis in the UK is “putting beauty at the heart of our housing and communities policy.” On November 3, 2018, the initiative to champion beauty when building better homes was announced through the "Building Better, Building Beautiful" Commission. What was thought to initiate a progressive interrogation of how beauty within the built environment would solve problems turned into a "parody of Victorian mores" as parliament debated.

Examples of government dabbling in notions of "what is beautiful, progressive, and architecturally mesmerizing" can be found throughout history. Building quality has decreased over time while monopolies over land and project developments have increased. Rightfully addressed by many it's quite easy to use these government initiatives as distractions from the real issues at hand. Although the Guardian article references the housing crisis in the UK, issues of government influence in ...

UK's Government spends big on subsidized housing rather than building affordable housing

2017-09-19T04:06:00-04:00

The Government is spending four times as much – some £32bn—subsidizing private housing as it is building affordable homes for low income families, a report has revealed. The study showed 79 per cent of the total housing budget is currently spent on higher-cost homes for sale, including through the controversial Help to Buy scheme, but just 21 per cent, around £8bn, goes to affordable homes for rent.

Carried out the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), the annual review shows a significant shift away from programs that build new affordable housing in favor of subsidization. The amount of government funding granted to the Affordable Homes Program has fallen to just £285 million, down from £2.5 billion in 2010-2011. In total, public funding to help housing associations build new homes has dropped from £3.5 billion in 2010-2011 to £1.3.

In contrast, public money going towards subsidized housing has increased substantially. Government money is being diverted to help middle- and high-income households get on the property ladder through programs like the controversial Help to Buy Scheme—established by Conservative politician, George Osborne, in 2013—which guarantees for mortgages worth up to 95 percent of the value of a property. Despite being billed as a way of helping "Generation Rent" become home owners, the scheme has been criticized as useless due to the fact that first-time buy...

To live in London you can't be a Londoner

2016-05-27T01:00:00-04:00

Almost two-thirds of homes in the Tower, a 50-storey apartment complex in London, are in foreign ownership, with a quarter held through secretive offshore companies based in tax havens, a Guardian investigation has revealed. The first residents of the landmark development arrived in October 2013, but many of the homes are barely occupied, with some residents saying they only use them for a fraction of the year.

The kind of wealth that turns a home into a status symbol—and an underused status symbol at that, with occupancy rates of only a few weeks a year—is not easing London's housing crisis. As the city's housing rates push actual citizens to decamp to cheaper suburbs or simply leave the area altogether, London can look forward to being transformed into an empty stage set of a once thriving metropolis.

For a fuller perspective on London's housing problems:

British public housing is not all that bad now, thanks largely to architects

2015-08-18T18:07:00-04:00

Regulations have progressively made homes more sustainable and energy-efficient, and voluntary codes take these standards further. Architects like to push them further still [...] There are now housing associations and developers who can see the point of good design, and others who can’t quite, but still feel as if they should employ it. The public, too, perhaps encouraged by the TV programmes of Kevin McCloud, are more open to contemporary architecture.

According to The Guardian's Rowan Moore at least, who takes the long-view on how Britain's public housing policy and execution have changed in the last 50 years.

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