Building Communities
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BUILDING COMMUNITIES THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE PLANNING AND DESIGN Conference Proceedings Publication of the proceedings has been made possible by the following: THE BUILDING AND SOCIAL HOUSING FOUNDATION HUNT THOMPSON ASSOCIATES YJ LOVELL (HOLDINGS) PLC THE NORTH BRITISH INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION RIBA COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE GROUP .. BUILDING COMMUNITIES THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE PLANNING AND DESIGN CONFERENCE PRESIDENT DR ROD HACKNEY CONFERENCE CHAIRMEN THE LORD SCARMAN OBE DR THOMAS L. BLAIR SIMON JENKINS TED WATKINS KEYNOTE SPEAKER HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES KG KT GCB Conference Proceedings EDITED BY COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE INFORMATION SERVICES (CAIS) LTD CAIS LTD LONDON First published in Great Britain by Conference Organisers: Community Architecture Information Services (CAIS) Ltd Community Architecture Information Services (CAIS) Ltd 5 Dryden Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9NW 5 Dryden Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9NW Distributed by RIBA Publications Ltd Telephone: 01 240 2430 Telex: 299533 ASTG Fax: 01 240 5600 Finsbury Mission, Moreland Street, London ECIV 8VB Directors: Charles Knevitt, Jim Sneddon, Caroline Theobald, Nick Wates. © 1987 Community Architecture Information Services Ltd Conference Co-ordinator: Jim Sneddon All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, Conference Administrators: stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any London Conferences Ltd means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or 15 Bindon Close, Lulworth, Wareham, Dorset BH20 5PX otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright owner Administrator: Jane Ahern ISBN 0-947877-71-1 Public Relations: Stratton & Reekie Filmset in Great Britain by Quorn Selective Repro Ltd, II Dartmouth Street, London SW I H 9BL Loughborough, Leicestershire Printed by BAS Printers, Over Wallop, Hampshire and bound by British Otabind Limited, Colchester, Essex ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to acknowledge the generous support and assistance the following gave to the organisation of the First International Conference on Community Architecture, Planning and Design and without whose help it would not have been possible. Sponsors: Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies Astoria Theatre Decoration BOVIS LTD Institute of Clerks of Works Free Form Arts Trust THE BUILDER GROUP Institute of Housing CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN International Year of Shelter for the FOUNDATION Homeless 1987 The organisers would also like to thank all LONDON DOCKLANDS International Project for Students of those who assisted including: DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION Architecture The Architectural Association REGALIAN PROPERTIES PLC International Bauausstellung Berlin YWCA RANK XEROX LTD The Landscape Institute Building Design TRAFALGAR HOUSE National Architecture Students Association Architects Journal TRUSTHOUSE FORTE PLC National Community Partnership Chartered Surveyor Weekly WATES FOUNDATION National Council of Building Material Building Producers Geoff Haslam Supporting Organisations National Council for Voluntary Peter Rawsthorne The Archbishop's Commission Organisations Anne South Association of Community Technical Aid National Federation of Community Mikki Hawkes Centres Organisations Caroline Dove Association of Metropolitan Authorities National Federation of Housing Amanda Reekie British Institute of Architectural Technicians Associations Deborah Stratton Building Centre Trust The Phoenix Initiative Rebecca Smithers Building Employers' Confederation Royal Institute of British Architects Vic Dabrowa (photographer) Business in the Community Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Kathy Howe Chartered Institute of Building Royal Town Planning Institute Kate Theobald Civic Trust SAVE Britain's Heritage Virginia Bond Commission for Racial Equality Think Green Campaign Caroline Lwin Community Projects Foundation Town and Country Planning Association Flo Harvey Construction Industry Federation Village Halls Forum Beverley Padda Co-operative Development Agency Doreen Walker English Heritage Exhibition Design and Co-ordination Kevin Jenden Free Form Arts Trust Covent Garden Housing Project Elaine Rigby Friends of the Earth Hunt Thompson Associates Stella Yarrow Habitat International Council Nottingdale Urban Studies Centre Kelly Code Housing Associations Charitable Trust Jeanne Sillet and Brendan O'Neill Kim Ward IV .. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IV FOREWORD vn BUILDING AND SOCIAL HOUSING FOUNDATION AWARDS VIII INTRODUCTION x CONFERENCE PROGRAMME XIII LIST OF RESOLUTIONS XVI EDITORS' NOTE XVIII CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT 1 WORKSHOP REPORTS 139 LIST OF EXHIBITORS 146 LIST OF FILMS SHOWN 146 MEDIA COVERAGE REPORT 149 LIST OF DELEGATES 1s2 .. A GUIDE TO COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE WHAT MAKES COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE DIFFERENT? CONVENTIONAL ARCHITECTURE COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE Users are passive recipients of an environment Users are - or are treated as - the clients. conceived, executed, managed and evaluated They are offered (or take) control of commis STATUS OF USER by others: corporate, public or private sector sioning, designing, developing, managing and landowners and developers with professional evaluating their environment and may some 'experts' times be physically involved in construction Remote, arm's length. Little if any direct con Creative alliance and working partnership. tact. Experts commissioned by landowners Experts are commissioned by, and are ac USER/EXPERT and developers occasionally make superficial countable to, users or behave as if they are RELATIONSHIP attempts to define and consult end-users, but their attitudes are mostly paternalistic and patronising Provider, neutral bureaucrat, elitist, 'one of Enabler, facilitator and 'social entrepreneur', them', manipulator of people to fit the system, educator, 'one of us', manipulator of the EXPERT ROLES a professional in the institutional sense. system to fit the people and challenger of Remote and inaccessible status quo, a professional as a competent and efficient adviser. Locally based and accessible Generally large and often cumbersome. Deter Generally small, responsive and determined SCALE OF mined by pattern of land ownership and the by the nature of the project, the local building PROJECT need for efficient mass production and simple industry and the participants. Large sites management generally broken down into manageable packages Fashionable and wealthy existing residential, Anywhere, but most likely to be urban, or LOCATION OF commercial and industrial areas preferred. periphery of urban area, area of single or PROJECT Otherwise a greenfield site with infrastructure multiple deprivation, derelict or decaying (roads, power, water supply and drainage etc) environment ie no constraints Likely to be a single function or two or three Likely to be multi-functional USE OF PROJECT complementary activities (eg commercial, or housing, or industrial) Self-conscious about style; most likely 'inter Unself-conscious about style. Any 'style' may national' or 'modern movement'. Increasingly be adopted and appropriate. Most likely to be DESIGN STYLE one of the other fashionable and identifiable 'contextual', 'regional' (as place specific) with styles: post-modern, hi-tech, neo-vernacular concern for identity. Loose and sometimes or Classical revival. Restrained and sometimes exuberant, often highly decorative, using local frigid; utilitarian artists Tendency towards mass production, pre Tendency towards: small-scale production, on fabrication, repetition, global supply of site construction, individuality, local supply TECHNOLOGY/ materials, machine-friendly technology, 'clean of materials, user-friendly (convivial) tech RESOURCES 'clean sweep' and new build, machine inten nology, re-use, recycling and conservation, sive, capital intensive labour and time intensive Static, slowly deteriorates, hard to manage Flexible, slowly improving, easy to manage END PRODUCT and maintain, high-energy consumption and maintain, low-energy consumption ' Private sector: return on investment (usually Improvement of quality of life for individuals short-term) and narrow self interest. and communities. Better use of local resources PRIMARY Public sector: social welfare and party political Social investments. Response to specific local MOTIVATION opportunism. Experts: esteem from profes ised needs and opportunities sional peers. Response to general national or regional gap in market or social needs and opportunities Top down, emphasis on product rather than Bottom up, emphasis on process rather than process, bureaucratic, centralised with special product, flexible, localised, holistic and multi METHOD OF isms compartmentalised, stop-go, impersonal, disciplinary, evolutionary, continuous, per OPERATION anonymous, paper management, avoid setting sonal, familiar, people management, setting a precedent, secretive precedents, open Totalitarian technocratic and doctrinative Pragmatic, humanitarian, responsive and IDEOLOGY (Left or Right), big is beautiful, competition, flexible, small is beautiful, collaboration, survival of the fittest mutual aid • Chart from Community Architecture; How people are creating their own environment by Nick Watcs and Charles Knevitt, Penguin Books, forthcoming . • Foreword DR ROD HACKNEY, PRIBA Conference President For two days last November, the Astoria Theatre in the conference took place and achieved its objectives. London's Charing Cross Road thronged with more The community architecture movement,