9/11 Where I Was Not

 On our first and my only trip to the USA, Rob and I spent a week in New York intending to be total tourists, before moving on to visit friends Stan and Jen in Medford Lakes, NJ.

If our original itinerary had worked out, we'd have been in New York and would probably have done the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building on the 9th September. Once actually there, the more enigmatic Empire State came first, but might not have done if it hadn't been closer to our hotel. This budget hotel had roaches in the shower and smelled mouldy, but that was ok, it was exciting, we were in the Big Apple!

Luckily, because of various minor complications like Stan and Jen being on holiday in the West Indies and because BA's discounted airmiles tickets weren't available when we'd originally planned to go, we'd reversed the order of our trip and went to Medford Lakes after New York. We never made it to the World Trades Centre and I am eternally grateful for those minor complications.

Watching the events on live TV, while in the safe living room of Stan and Jen's charming log-cabin home, on the shore of the lake, was terrifying. None of us could believe what we were seeing. 

We spent half the day frantically trying to phone home, to reassure our family in England that we were safe. All the mobile lines were completely overloaded and landlines weren't much better. Eventually Rob managed to get an email through to his father in Leeds and asked him to please phone my mother in Hastings to tell her we were safe. We carried on watching the inadequate TV reports while Stan managed to get in touch with his cousins in New York, who thankfully were safe too. 

Just as alarming was seeing that there was nobody on top of this. Politicians were panicking and TV channels had no known pattern, no appropriate template to follow, on how to report an event of this magnitude which was actually happening to their fellow American citizens, not people in far off lands of whom they knew little and cared less.

The pristine, primped and botoxed newsreaders unemotionally reported on whatever garbled messages emerged from the authorities, (with jollifying adverts) between distraught and panic-stricken vox-pops. The reporters were without a hair or tear out of place and the requisite toothy grins were still plastered on their shiny faces, their body language mocking the horrors they were failing to report in any meaningful way.

There was no information.

Later in the day I went alone for a swim in the lake, it was peaceful and temporarily soothing.

                                                                           *

I don’t deliberately try to mark 9/11. The stress (mine), the horror (everyone's) and the fear (the victims), is something I'd like to forget, although I won't. The only events which have come close to affecting me that much since are the horrific Grenfell Tower fire and most recently the impossibly hopeless evacuation of desperate people from Kabul. The only earlier event to have the same effect was, as a child, watching reports from Aberfan. I felt I was one of those children, experiencing that horror.

The Last Seafront Site in St. Leonard's and Hastings.

I was asked to research and write an article for the West Marina Group, who are very concerned about the future facing the Bathing Pool Site in St Leonards-on-Sea, which once housed the largest Lido in the country. It fell into disuse in the 1980s, was demolished ten years later. Now Hastings Borough Council want to lease this  site to a developer for medium-rise flats. The council's motivation has been questioned, as has the need for new housing in the area. The group believe the site should be put to more imaginative use than expensive flats for Londoners and Airbnb's for profit. My article examines the need for local housing.  

The spectacularly huge Bathing Pool was designed in the 1930's as an Olympic venue by talented Hastings Borough engineer Sidney Little. The Olympics never came. The pool was very popular with visitors and locals, but by 1986 was closed due to running costs and it was finally demolished in May 1993, sixty years after its first opening. Had it been an 'Art Deco Masterpiece', like the beautiful Lidos at Saltdean near Brighton or Penzance, Cornwall, it might have been saved for posterity. However it was merely much loved and popular.   (photograph by Aerofilms) 

                              

The Bathing Pool Site earlier in 2019, before the notice
designating it as a 'greenspace' had  somehow vanished
into thin air.  It has since been put back. (photo West Marina Group)

The Article -

"The West Marina Group in St Leonards are seriously concerned about the future of the Bathing Pool Site. We want a visionary future for this last seafront site and we know the proposed development of high-density housing is wrong for this location.

"The question has been asked, is there a need for up to 150 flats here anyway?  Seaside flats could sell to locals but are more likely to sell as holiday homes or become open to abuse as Airbnb’s.

"Part of the answer to that question is that Hastings Borough Council has a statutory duty to ensure a number of new homes are built within a limited period. The Council can’t build these homes themselves.  Successive governments have stripped local councils of funding for housing, leaving them with often unaffordable duties.

"There may be more ‘habitable rooms’ in England than there are people, but we don’t know.  The most recently published English Housing Survey (2017) doesn’t tell us the number of rooms per home, just floor area. In theory we could show that there’s no need to build more homes, just fill all the existing ones.  Practise is another thing.  54% of owner-occupied homes are said to be ‘under-occupied’ as they have spare bedrooms. Less than 15% of rented homes are ‘under-occupied’. However homeowners can’t be forced to take in lodgers if they don’t want to.  We have small families living in large houses, larger families living in small flats and people living in shelters beside the beach.  This inequality is reflected across the country. Yes there are empty homes, but many are in places where people don’t want or don’t need to live.

"People need to live near their jobs, their schools, their families and support networks.  A run-down terrace in Newcastle-under-Lyme that was built 150 years ago, to house hatters (an industry which no longer exists) wouldn’t be suitable for a working family in St. Leonards.  Neither would it be suitable for the homeless on the seafront, unless they have links to Newcastle-under-Lyme.

"The National Audit Office reported (5th November 2019), on the starter homes scheme announced by prime minister David Cameron in 2014, intended to create 200,000 homes.  This appeared to be the government’s agreement that new homes are needed, but their timescale was vague. None of these homes have been built.

"Meanwhile, further down the social scale, are people who couldn’t afford to buy a starter home in 2014.  They still can’t.  They live in the rental sector, which doesn’t need to be a bad thing, but for many it’s a constant struggle to keep a decent roof over their heads. There’s a shortage of good quality homes in the private rental sector and an acute shortage in the public sector.  This has led, according to figures for September 2019, to more than 10,000 people in emergency accommodation nationwide. There is nowhere else for them to go.

"This doesn’t even take account of people who are on the streets.  In Hastings Borough the official figures for rough sleepers is rising each year. This is despite Hastings inclusion in the group of local authorities receiving additional funding under the Rough Sleeping Initiative.

"In February of this year Councillor Andy Batsford said, 'The number of people living in temporary accommodation has increased significantly over the past year.  There are currently around 123 households living in temporary accommodation in Hastings.' This figure has now risen to 150. All these people need housing, but not in seaside flats in an area where the sea-defences are substandard. Any development which ignores potential rising sea-levels and storm frequency is foolhardy and ultimately a waste of money.

"The real need in St. Leonards is for decent rental homes for the disadvantaged and affordable housing for local families. Large empty dwellings such as those on West Hill Road could be converted to flats, though there is limited stock of these older buildings. Conversion can be expensive because of the need to apply current standards to these projects.

"The proposed Bulverhythe development, although controversial, could provide more of the housing that HBC needs than The Bathing Pool Site.  The Archery Road development is proceeding with less density than proposed for the Bathing Pool site.  But is this type of development, with only a small amount of social housing beside larger, expensive homes, the best use of either space?  There are 1666 people on the Council’s housing waiting list.

"Other vacant plots in the area with potential for house building include West Hill Road and Caves Road. These sites offer their own challenges, but few risks can be greater than the risk of flooding at the Bathing Pool Site.

"More homes are needed nationwide. According to Zoopla, the demand for homes both to buy and to rent is rising, while the existing housing stock still has more pre-1960’s buildings than newer ones.  Zoopla reckons that 240,000 to 340,000 new homes need to be created each year to keep pace with demand.

"Hastings BC’s Homelessness Strategy says, “…it is imperative that the Council works with partners to seek innovative solutions to address housing need.” Leasing public land to a private developer for expensive flats on our last beachfront site is not ‘innovative’.  This land belongs to the people and we have not been consulted.  

"The council also express a desire for the West Marina area to become a ‘destination’ to attract visitors. Blocks of flats will not help create an attractive destination, they will just add to parking and infrastructure problems.                                                                                                                                                         

*

Susan Gilbert, for West Marina.                                                                                           

Theresa May - the Broken Housing Market 1

When even a Tory Prime Minister expresses concern for the inadequacy of modern spec-built homes, something has certainly gone very wrong in the house-building industry. In addressing the Chartered Institute of Housing conference on 26 June 2019, Theresa May said, 

“I cannot defend a system in which owners and tenants are forced to accept tiny homes with  inadequate storage… Where developers feel the need to fill show homes with deceptively small furniture… And where the lack of universal standards encourages a race to the bottom.”

May says that she wants her successor to introduce mandatory universal regulations to provide clear national standards. She is not wrong about the lack of standards. There are so called "Nationally described Space Standards" which were introduced in 2015, but these are nor mandatory. Whilst they are required by some councils before planning permission is granted, many more would appear to ignore them.

As for the race to the bottom, what does she expect? Most developers are not philanthropists, they want to make money and  when the government have ensured that councils now have so few powers and are so underfunded that they can't employ people to enforce the few powers they have left.

What Is An Architect For? A light-hearted look at Construction’s most Misunderstood Professional.

A YouGov survey carried out between 6^th and 9^th July 2017 revealed a disturbing level of ignorance on the part of the general public about what an Architect actually does. Two thousand and thirty one adults were surveyed. Why that number? Who knows with surveys, but apparently 15% didn’t even know that an Architect designs buildings. That’s three-hundred and four-point-six-five people, which shows why percentages (and therefore surveys which sum up with percentages) often make little sense to whole people. Taking the breakdown of the survey figures further reveals that in in the lowest age group (18-24 year olds) an even more surprising 24% didn’t know this basic fact, but as they don’t tell us what proportion of the group were younger people, this still makes little sense. These younger people probably do know that an ‘architect’ designs computer operating systems and game scenarios.

So what is an Architect actually for? There are plenty of opinions out there in the worldwide aether, far too many of which are hugely inaccurate. The internet is full of lay-persons who still regard the architect as merely the one who draws initial ‘pretty pictures’ for a building project.  Others just know that architects are the ones to blame for everything that ever goes wrong with a building, from a roof that blows off in a once-in-a-hundred-years hurricane to a badly fitting door.

Wealthy individuals commissioning vanity projects suppose ‘their’ architect is a slave to their whims, who can radically alter designs at the drop of a hat, naturally without increasing the cost. Then people looking at modern spec-built houses grumble that the architect has made the porch and windows hideous, when it’s highly unlikely an architect ever went near the plans, let alone the window specification.

Computer ‘architects’ now usually earn far more than the average working Architect in the construction industry. Yet UK Architects are unprotected, unlike elsewhere in the EU, as it isn’t mandatory to actually employ an Architect on a construction project. Their resentment of the computing industry grows as, year on year, their remit and their incomes have been affected by the unqualified not merely abusing their professional name, but also using CAD to create misconceived building designs. The concept of the Architect as Master Builder is in serious decline.

Many inaccuracies are generated by the press, who also can’t tell the difference between an Architect, a spec builder and an interior decorator. To the Sun newspaper, Architects are silly elitists who don’t know what the ‘Great British Public’ wants and insist on building carbuncles, to the horror of the Royal Family, beside ‘Much Loved’ National Treasures such as The National Gallery (which the Sun never expects its readers to actually enter). The Daily Mail’s view is the same except for an expectation that their beloved readers might occasionally like to visit the place.

What Makes an Ecohouse?

The definition of an ecohouse is an environmentally low-impact home, designed with sustainability in mind and built using materials and technology which reduce its carbon footprint and lower its energy needs. This seems both logical and necessary, the question is whether this standard can be approached in the UK, on a practical and financial basis.

The current situation, with the building of a few homes using German Passivhaus ideas is a laudable start, but if the construction industry really wants to make a difference to the environmental impact of its activities, a radical change of thinking is needed.  It should no longer be acceptable to continue to build standard brick and mortar homes, apply cavity wall insulation and a few solar panels and expect that to be enough. Spread over 100 or more years the carbon footprint of the construction of an individual house may not look particularly high, but climate change is here, now; we no longer have 100+ years to work on it.

Materials used in standard house building are not obviously compatible with sustainable construction. For example, the use of concrete could be a major issue. Weight for weight it is the second largest quantity of material used in house building after bricks. Concrete is made from 10 to 15% Portland cement, the manufacture of which requires a high input of energy resulting in one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions for every tonne of cement produced. Technologies are being researched to reduce this impact, including putting the CO2 back into the product, but these new materials are not yet widely available.

The De La Waar Pavilion, Bexhill is not an Art-Deco Masterpiece; Picture of the Week 26 September 2015

The De La Waar Pavilion was built in the 1930's as an arts centre to lure the cognoscenti to the delights of Bexhill-on-Sea, a previously quiet seaside resort of no great fame.  The pavilion has often been described as an Art-Deco masterpiece.  I disagree, it was designed as a Modernist masterpiece. 

The only possibly Art-Deco element in this design might be that curvaceous semi-circular stairwell, though the lines are pure and very plain. There's none of the extraneous decoration which seems to be compulsory in supposedly Art-Deco designs. In fact the term 'Art-Deco' is a post WWII invention. 

'Art-Deco' was unheard when the De la Waar was built.  http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/art-deco/ 

“A modernist building of world renown that will become a crucible for creating a new model of cultural provision in an English seaside town which is going to lead to the growth, prosperity and the greater culture of our town.”  Thus said the 9th Earl De La Warr in May 1935, as he laid the plaque which forms part of the floor of the De La Warr Pavilion's foyer.


The Pavilion opened to the public for the first time on the 12th December 1935, to critical and popular acclaim and controversy. Some Conservative critics were horrified by the plain lines and lack of ornamentation, but the public flocked to the concerts and the seafront restaurant.

The interior of the elegant stairwell is beautifully functional, following the tenets of Modernism as practiced by its major practitioners Le Corbusier and Mies van de Rohe. The design for a Modernist building should abide by the principle of form following function, without the necessity for extraneous detail or ornamentation. The De la Waar building has no Art-Deco flourishes, no sunbursts, no Egyptian motifs. It relies on simple lines and generous spaces to provide a graceful, practical place for its designated functions.  

Today the De la Waar Pavilion is a Grade I Listed building : http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-292006-the-de-la-warr-pavilion-east-sussex/photos/?connected_with=facebook#.Vgcc0vnBzGc

Windows 10 is a Pain and a Conspiracy!

I have recently updated my laptop to use Windows 10 and am finding it more than frustrating! Just one of its many foibles is its incompatibility with Blogger. I'm currently unable to post Picture of the Week, or any other images. I assume this is a deliberate attempt on Microsoft's part to inhibit people who want to use Google products, such as Blogger.

So Picture of the Week is suspended, until/unless I can find a way around Microsoft's progress towards world domination.

What is a 'Character Property'?

Estate agents have always been very imaginative in their use of English and who can really blame them? We all do it, every job and profession has its own 'in' phrases and jargon. It's only really when that jargon impinges on the general public, who are not in on the joke, that difficulties can arise.  The joke is that those who use their  own jargon day in and day out actually forget that other people don’t.

A real character property, genuinely full of history.

If you read estate agents’ blurbs on Zoopla, Rightmove and the like, a ‘Character Property’ can be anything which isn’t obviously mundane. ‘Character’ seems to be a word used if the agent’s initial reaction on being asked to value/market a house is, ‘Ooh, it’s a bit weird! What on earth am I supposed to say about this one?’ A recent search revealed that a number of ‘character properties’ in one area on the south coast were in fact static caravans, which are not the ‘character’ buildings as recognised by English Heritage or most people with any experience of buildings - which is most people.

We've been looking for new home and office for a few months now and have learned that, if the ‘character property’ is described as “A beautifully presented Grade II listed period home situated within a conservation area close to local amenities,” you can fairly safely assume that it is Grade II listed and in a conservation area.

Lost Buildings 1 - Alexandria and Berlin

Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989
(photo from thecommune.co.uk)

All around the world, buildings vanish every day, as do other manmade structures. Some losses are notable. Nobody is likely to mourn the loss of the Berlin Wall, which for 28 years divided not just the city of Berlin but the surrounding countryside for 100 miles, before inexorable political change led to it being torn down in 1989.

On the other hand, the Ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt was deliberately burned down by Christian fanatics in 391 AD after Emperor Theodosius outlawed 'paganism'. This barbaric act lead to the loss of a thousand years of learning.  It was only with the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone and its eventual translation, 22 years later, that the way to read the hieroglyphic writing of the Ancient Egyptians was re-learned.




The new Bibliotheca Alexandrina 2006 (my Photo)

I saw the Berlin wall as a teenager and happily re-visited, with my own children in July 1990, to observe its demise. There was some left then and I have a piece which I picked up from beside the Brandenberg Gate. And as if to celebrate a brave new world, in Egypt the Library of Alexandria, lost almost 1700 years ago, was finally replaced by a superb new library, designed in 1989 by Norwegian architects from the Olso and New York Snǿhetta practice.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina Interior 2006 (my Photo)

This modern building, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which I was lucky enough to visit in 2006, is a beautiful low pyramid of glass and steel housing a multilingual library. It seemed popular and well used when I visited, I sincerely hope that Egypt's current political, religious and social disruption doesn't damage this beautiful and essential  repository of learning.  The Egyptian people deserve to live with education and erudition freely available and if it can remain associated with great architecture, so much the better.

Between the world famous extremes of the Berlin Wall and the Great Library of Alexandria, many smaller, less significant structures also fall, sometimes almost unnoticed and their loss is often nothing to do with either religion or politics. I'll talk about some of them in a week or two.

On the Job, new technology for old.

Technology moves on, as illustrated in this picture, taken earlier this year. The driver of the mini-digger is an expert in the use of both ancient and modern building technology, his preferred speciality is in stone work, he afterwards re-built the collapsing stone shed which was attached to the back wall.

In the nineteenth century, shovels like the sturdy one in the photo built the British canal system, created railway cuttings which we still use today and dug the London Underground network. In the twenty first century, things are a bit different - but as any builder or gardener knows, there are still times when only the humble shovel will do the job.

The shovel in the picture belonged to my grandfather. It must be at least sixty years old and it still works perfectly. I wonder how long that nice green mini-digger will last.

Atlantic City and the hurricane - Misinformation

Press misinformation - now there's a novelty.

The destruction has not been as bad in some areas of Atlantic City as was originally reported. Homes have been destroyed and a small section of the boardwalk was torn apart by ferocious waves, but most of the famous seafront has remained intact and by the 2nd of November floodwater had gone so the local authorities allowed people to return to their homes. Also, 80% of properties had their electricity supply re-instated according to NBC at - http://www.nbc40.net/news/24700/

The casinos and other businesses were also given permission to re-open, so worried employees, who are struggling financially after losing wages, should be able to return to work soon.

A short section of destroyed boardwalk which has featured on news bulletins and in the press was used as illustrative of the total destruction of Atlantic City, while the reality was very different. The oldest part of the boardwalk, which was due for renewal, was the only section affected by the storm. Press exaggeration in a disaster situation are unhelpful and irresponsible. In this instance the reports will discourage visitors from returning to Atlantic City, and the town is in urgent need of their revenues.

Two Atlantic City blogs are trying to report the actual situation as it unfolds:- http://blogs.atlanticcityweekly.com/ac-central/
and  http://candoac.tumblr.com/
though I have no knowledge of their veracity either.