8 ms·

I would personally like to see higher buildings with parks around them rather than having houses packed. More space, higher density. Win, win.

rwmj 7y ago
This was tried in the 1960s and turned out to be a disaster. People didn't want to live in those houses.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  What was tried in the 1960s was to build horrible council estates in highrises. It is perfectly possible to build good flats.
  - rwmj 7y ago
    They had good intentions, lots of investment and optimism when they built them, and they still failed. How can you think we'll do better now? I would argue that people want private gardens because then they have an incentive to look after and invest in those spaces, so the idea was fundamentally wrong.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      > How can you think we'll do better now? Because millions and millions of people live in nice flats all over the world. Just look across the channel: In France there are plenty of nice flats and most newly developed flats there put what exists in the UK to shame. Your comment somewhat illustrates my point about the negative perception of flats in the UK, and the strange idea that the horrible estates of the 1960s are the only way to build flats.
      - axilmar 7y ago
        In Greece as well, especially Athens, there are very nice apartment buildings with very nice flats in them. Personally I would like to live in a detached house though. I currently live in a flat, but I'd like to have a garden. I know of course that with the amount of space existing, and the need for people to live in cities, a detached house with a garden is for the few only that can afford it.
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      Good intentions and optimism don't always go wrong. The social housing for workers that Michel de Klerk built in the Spaarndammerbuurt district of Amsterdam is pretty darn nice. It's more gentrified now of course, but the beautiful brick buildings, courtyards, and parks in the style of the Amsterdam School were called 'palaces for the workers'. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaarndammerbuurt https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaarndammerbuurt https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luchtfoto_Spaarndammerplantsoen_-_Amsterdam_-_20410372_-_RCE.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luchtfoto_Spaarndamm... >The workers' houses were primarily intended for port workers, who found their work in the nearby ports. [...] >The most famous buildings in the Spaarndammerbuurt are the workers' houses designed by Michel de Klerk in the style of the Amsterdam School, located at the Spaarndammerplantsoen. Three blocks designed by him were erected here in the 1920s. The most striking design is 'Het Schip', located along the Zaanstraat. The houses were 'palaces for the workers'. Never before had so much care been given to the design of workers' houses. A post office was also part of the block. After the post office in 2000 had closed its doors, has been here since 2001 , the Museum Ship located. Other striking architecture came in the 1920s by KPC de Bazel at Zaandammerplein and by HJM Walenkamp at Zaanhof. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamse_School_(bouwstijl) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamse_School_(bouwstijl) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Klerk https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Klerk >Housing architecture >Since his assignment for a block of labor residences on Johannes Vermeerplein, his name would remain associated with public housing. His most famous work is Het Schip, a complex workers' housing in the Spaarndammerbuurt in Amsterdam, built for the Eigen Haard housing association. Together with Kramer, De Klerk also designed a large complex for the social-democratic General Workers' Cooperative De Dageraad on PL Takstraat, also in Amsterdam. Klerk's socialist views have undoubtedly played a role in obtaining these assignments. https://www.hetschip.nl/ https://www.hetschip.nl/ https://www.hetschip.nl/socialhousingfestival/events/spaarndammerbuurt-tour-treasures-social-housing/index.html https://www.hetschip.nl/socialhousingfestival/events/spaarnd... >Treasures of social housing: tour (walking, Spaarndammerbuurt) - Museum Het Schip >Join us on a tour of the Spaarndammerbuurt, the revolutionary neighbourhood that stands as a living and breathing, architecturally fascinating relic to the Netherlands’ incredibly forward-thinking social housing drive of the early 20th century. A walk through the area will illustrate a combination of the subtly intricate designs of the Amsterdam School’s architecture and the socially progressive, ambitious goals of Dutch social housing. Stops along the way will convey some of the fascinating features, such as the Amsterdam School architecture of Michel de Klerk, the palatial courtyards of the Zaanhof, and the thriving community spaces of the Zaandammerplein. The gardens at Het Schip: https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_960/DSC04102.jpg https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_... https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_960/Het%20Schip%20-%20Annemarieke%20Verheij%20(22).jpg https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_...
    - Symbiote 7y ago
      The shoddy council built flats from the 1960s, with thin, uninsulated, concrete walls, were clearly a bad decision. Compared to most European cities, London has very few good quality apartment buildings. British people see this, and conclude that they're not possible. Some older (1930s etc), good quality buildings exist in London, and newer "luxury" ones. I used to live in one, and it was very nice — no garden I needed to maintain, no space wasted by an individual heating system (and nothing for me to maintain). It was in a medium-wealthy area, with a price to match.
      - djmobley 7y ago
        The aversion may also be down to the fact apartments are typically sold on a leasehold basis, often accompanied by exorbitant ground rent and service fees. I wouldn’t even call it owning a property, when you are obliged to pay £200+ in rent and charges, £100+ in council tax, etc. in perpetuity.
    - namdnay 7y ago
      Ever been to Monte Carlo? Flats can be quite nice...
    - fyfy18 7y ago
      Part of it is a mindset thing. I was raised in the UK and had this mental idea that flats are somehow bad quality or for lower classes. If you visit basically any other European city you can find good quality and affordable flats (usually they call them apartments though).
    - jphenningsen 7y ago
      The next article in this series gives a great example of desireable flats: How Berlin’s Once-Reviled ‘Rental Barracks’ Became Coveted Urban Housing https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/01/berlin-architecture-history-home-design-rental-mietskasernen/604795/ https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/01/berlin-architecture-h... The key point seems to be that although these flats were originally undesirable social housing, their spacious, unspecific layouts + somewhat reduced density from WW2 bombing allowed the transformation to the opposite: Expensive gentrified housing in very high demand.
  - growlist 7y ago
    Sadly lots of the posh ones also end up facing a tragedy of the commons type scenario - I remember hearing about some new flats in Guildford that had a communal gym, pool and other 'modern lifestyle' accoutrements, but apparently every weekend someone or other would have mates back for a pool party, leaving it disgusting with broken bottles etc. strewn around. Standards have changed.
- tidenly 7y ago
  The high-rises in london are crap is why. They're the standard place to live in Tokyo and people love them.
- arethuza 7y ago
  The New (quite old) Town of Edinburgh is mostly 4 or 5 story buildings of flats (a lot originally very grand town houses) with shared private gardens for each small area. It's a great place to live (we lived there for ~25 years, with kids growing up there) and is pretty desirable. NB I don't know it would be economically feasible to replicate the New Town - but it does demonstrate to me that if you get the layout and quality right then people will happily live in an environment like that.
  - rwmj 7y ago
    4 or 5 stories is very different from 20+ story tower blocks. Also those flats have private gardens at the back.
    - arethuza 7y ago
      The private gardens at the back are, in every case I knew of in the New Town (although not elsewhere in Edinburgh), owned by the lowest flat in the building. The trade off being that get a garden but the flats themselves tend to be darker and dingier than higher flats.
  - altacc 7y ago
    In many places (I'm thinking Scandinavia as that's where I currently live) low rise housing developments are really nice. The balance of housing and community spaces & services is important. The 1960s high rises were trying to build vertical communities but failed vertical separation seems to matter and it was just too dense. Ironically I think the reason why the new multi-million pound high rise apartments are popular today is because of their seperation from the community.
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    Central Berlin is mostly 5-6 story buildings, and this is a very nice scale. There's enough density that you can walk to everything, but not so much that the street feels inhuman. It helps to have wide streets and sidewalks.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Personally I would hate it. I really like to live on the ground floor or the basement to confirm certain stereotypes. A penthouse wouldn't be attractive at all and I would hate to have to use stairs or an elevator just so that I can go outside. Granted I would hate living in a place where you don't have any green as well. I don't get the factors that pull people into the city beside job opportunities. In the past cities were cultural centers without alternatives, but that fundamentally changed with modern information logistics and individual transport. I am still living in a city but most people leave at one point in their lives and I plan to do the same. The often proclaimed mega cities of the future sound rather outdated already.
- majewsky 7y ago
  > Personally I would hate it. I really like to live on the ground floor or the basement to confirm certain stereotypes. A penthouse wouldn't be attractive at all and I would hate to have to use stairs or an elevator just so that I can go outside. As a counter-anecdote, I would hate having to live on the ground floor. I would constantly worry about thieves breaking into the apartment through some cracked-open window.
Traster 7y ago
There's a ton of high density high quality flats being built in high rises in London right now. As you take the train in from the south you can see literally dozens of mid & high rise apartment buildings going up along the river. The only problem is that they're still astonishingly expensive, no provision is made to increase green spaces due to the increase in density and even if you were able to afford to buy one of these properties (you can't) you're still left with enormous maintenance fees to make the builder a nice tidy profit by selling off the maintenance contracts.
- growlist 7y ago
  Getting on for a million for one of the riverside places in Vauxhall last time I looked, possibly more now - for a not especially large, 2/3 bedroom place in what is not a terribly attractive area at ground level. For half that you can find a 7 bed place with a sea view in St Leonards on Sea. The worst thing about all of this is that the irresponsible borrowers have in many cases come out on top. People earn more from their house than they do by going to work.
  - nvarsj 7y ago
    > The worst thing about all of this is that the irresponsible borrowers have in many cases come out on top. People earn more from their house than they do by going to work. This more than anything made realize that the UK has a broken system, and hard work and talent don't really pay off. Most people who are wealthy in UK either had dumb luck (e.g. those who are able to retire off of their house values despite anything else they did in life), or cheated the system somehow (tax evasion/avoidance, unfair laws that benefit the few, etc.). The rest of us suffer under oppressive income taxes and punitive walls (the standard allowance reduction, lack of joint tax burden for families), that make it very hard to ever climb out of the gutter.
    - growlist 7y ago
      > The rest of us suffer under oppressive income taxes and punitive walls (the standard allowance reduction, lack of joint tax burden for families), that make it very hard to ever climb out of the gutter. I've wondered before whether the IR35 tax rules were introduced because too many common folk were making good money in IT, whereas your average posho is more likely to be in politics, law, City etc. Can't have the plebs getting ideas above their station!

rwmj 7y ago

This was tried in the 1960s and turned out to be a disaster. People didn't want to live in those houses.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
What was tried in the 1960s was to build horrible council estates in highrises. It is perfectly possible to build good flats.
- rwmj 7y ago
  They had good intentions, lots of investment and optimism when they built them, and they still failed. How can you think we'll do better now? I would argue that people want private gardens because then they have an incentive to look after and invest in those spaces, so the idea was fundamentally wrong.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    > How can you think we'll do better now? Because millions and millions of people live in nice flats all over the world. Just look across the channel: In France there are plenty of nice flats and most newly developed flats there put what exists in the UK to shame. Your comment somewhat illustrates my point about the negative perception of flats in the UK, and the strange idea that the horrible estates of the 1960s are the only way to build flats.
    - axilmar 7y ago
      In Greece as well, especially Athens, there are very nice apartment buildings with very nice flats in them. Personally I would like to live in a detached house though. I currently live in a flat, but I'd like to have a garden. I know of course that with the amount of space existing, and the need for people to live in cities, a detached house with a garden is for the few only that can afford it.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    Good intentions and optimism don't always go wrong. The social housing for workers that Michel de Klerk built in the Spaarndammerbuurt district of Amsterdam is pretty darn nice. It's more gentrified now of course, but the beautiful brick buildings, courtyards, and parks in the style of the Amsterdam School were called 'palaces for the workers'. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaarndammerbuurt https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaarndammerbuurt https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luchtfoto_Spaarndammerplantsoen_-_Amsterdam_-_20410372_-_RCE.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luchtfoto_Spaarndamm... >The workers' houses were primarily intended for port workers, who found their work in the nearby ports. [...] >The most famous buildings in the Spaarndammerbuurt are the workers' houses designed by Michel de Klerk in the style of the Amsterdam School, located at the Spaarndammerplantsoen. Three blocks designed by him were erected here in the 1920s. The most striking design is 'Het Schip', located along the Zaanstraat. The houses were 'palaces for the workers'. Never before had so much care been given to the design of workers' houses. A post office was also part of the block. After the post office in 2000 had closed its doors, has been here since 2001 , the Museum Ship located. Other striking architecture came in the 1920s by KPC de Bazel at Zaandammerplein and by HJM Walenkamp at Zaanhof. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamse_School_(bouwstijl) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamse_School_(bouwstijl) https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Klerk https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Klerk >Housing architecture >Since his assignment for a block of labor residences on Johannes Vermeerplein, his name would remain associated with public housing. His most famous work is Het Schip, a complex workers' housing in the Spaarndammerbuurt in Amsterdam, built for the Eigen Haard housing association. Together with Kramer, De Klerk also designed a large complex for the social-democratic General Workers' Cooperative De Dageraad on PL Takstraat, also in Amsterdam. Klerk's socialist views have undoubtedly played a role in obtaining these assignments. https://www.hetschip.nl/ https://www.hetschip.nl/ https://www.hetschip.nl/socialhousingfestival/events/spaarndammerbuurt-tour-treasures-social-housing/index.html https://www.hetschip.nl/socialhousingfestival/events/spaarnd... >Treasures of social housing: tour (walking, Spaarndammerbuurt) - Museum Het Schip >Join us on a tour of the Spaarndammerbuurt, the revolutionary neighbourhood that stands as a living and breathing, architecturally fascinating relic to the Netherlands’ incredibly forward-thinking social housing drive of the early 20th century. A walk through the area will illustrate a combination of the subtly intricate designs of the Amsterdam School’s architecture and the socially progressive, ambitious goals of Dutch social housing. Stops along the way will convey some of the fascinating features, such as the Amsterdam School architecture of Michel de Klerk, the palatial courtyards of the Zaanhof, and the thriving community spaces of the Zaandammerplein. The gardens at Het Schip: https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_960/DSC04102.jpg https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_... https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_960/Het%20Schip%20-%20Annemarieke%20Verheij%20(22).jpg https://amsterdamse-school.nl/Content/images/Building/2373/_...
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    The shoddy council built flats from the 1960s, with thin, uninsulated, concrete walls, were clearly a bad decision. Compared to most European cities, London has very few good quality apartment buildings. British people see this, and conclude that they're not possible. Some older (1930s etc), good quality buildings exist in London, and newer "luxury" ones. I used to live in one, and it was very nice — no garden I needed to maintain, no space wasted by an individual heating system (and nothing for me to maintain). It was in a medium-wealthy area, with a price to match.
    - djmobley 7y ago
      The aversion may also be down to the fact apartments are typically sold on a leasehold basis, often accompanied by exorbitant ground rent and service fees. I wouldn’t even call it owning a property, when you are obliged to pay £200+ in rent and charges, £100+ in council tax, etc. in perpetuity.
  - namdnay 7y ago
    Ever been to Monte Carlo? Flats can be quite nice...
  - fyfy18 7y ago
    Part of it is a mindset thing. I was raised in the UK and had this mental idea that flats are somehow bad quality or for lower classes. If you visit basically any other European city you can find good quality and affordable flats (usually they call them apartments though).
  - jphenningsen 7y ago
    The next article in this series gives a great example of desireable flats: How Berlin’s Once-Reviled ‘Rental Barracks’ Became Coveted Urban Housing https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/01/berlin-architecture-history-home-design-rental-mietskasernen/604795/ https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/01/berlin-architecture-h... The key point seems to be that although these flats were originally undesirable social housing, their spacious, unspecific layouts + somewhat reduced density from WW2 bombing allowed the transformation to the opposite: Expensive gentrified housing in very high demand.
- growlist 7y ago
  Sadly lots of the posh ones also end up facing a tragedy of the commons type scenario - I remember hearing about some new flats in Guildford that had a communal gym, pool and other 'modern lifestyle' accoutrements, but apparently every weekend someone or other would have mates back for a pool party, leaving it disgusting with broken bottles etc. strewn around. Standards have changed.
tidenly 7y ago
The high-rises in london are crap is why. They're the standard place to live in Tokyo and people love them.
arethuza 7y ago
The New (quite old) Town of Edinburgh is mostly 4 or 5 story buildings of flats (a lot originally very grand town houses) with shared private gardens for each small area. It's a great place to live (we lived there for ~25 years, with kids growing up there) and is pretty desirable. NB I don't know it would be economically feasible to replicate the New Town - but it does demonstrate to me that if you get the layout and quality right then people will happily live in an environment like that.
- rwmj 7y ago
  4 or 5 stories is very different from 20+ story tower blocks. Also those flats have private gardens at the back.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    The private gardens at the back are, in every case I knew of in the New Town (although not elsewhere in Edinburgh), owned by the lowest flat in the building. The trade off being that get a garden but the flats themselves tend to be darker and dingier than higher flats.
- altacc 7y ago
  In many places (I'm thinking Scandinavia as that's where I currently live) low rise housing developments are really nice. The balance of housing and community spaces & services is important. The 1960s high rises were trying to build vertical communities but failed vertical separation seems to matter and it was just too dense. Ironically I think the reason why the new multi-million pound high rise apartments are popular today is because of their seperation from the community.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Central Berlin is mostly 5-6 story buildings, and this is a very nice scale. There's enough density that you can walk to everything, but not so much that the street feels inhuman. It helps to have wide streets and sidewalks.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Personally I would hate it. I really like to live on the ground floor or the basement to confirm certain stereotypes. A penthouse wouldn't be attractive at all and I would hate to have to use stairs or an elevator just so that I can go outside. Granted I would hate living in a place where you don't have any green as well. I don't get the factors that pull people into the city beside job opportunities. In the past cities were cultural centers without alternatives, but that fundamentally changed with modern information logistics and individual transport. I am still living in a city but most people leave at one point in their lives and I plan to do the same. The often proclaimed mega cities of the future sound rather outdated already.

majewsky 7y ago
> Personally I would hate it. I really like to live on the ground floor or the basement to confirm certain stereotypes. A penthouse wouldn't be attractive at all and I would hate to have to use stairs or an elevator just so that I can go outside. As a counter-anecdote, I would hate having to live on the ground floor. I would constantly worry about thieves breaking into the apartment through some cracked-open window.

Traster 7y ago

There's a ton of high density high quality flats being built in high rises in London right now. As you take the train in from the south you can see literally dozens of mid & high rise apartment buildings going up along the river. The only problem is that they're still astonishingly expensive, no provision is made to increase green spaces due to the increase in density and even if you were able to afford to buy one of these properties (you can't) you're still left with enormous maintenance fees to make the builder a nice tidy profit by selling off the maintenance contracts.

growlist 7y ago
Getting on for a million for one of the riverside places in Vauxhall last time I looked, possibly more now - for a not especially large, 2/3 bedroom place in what is not a terribly attractive area at ground level. For half that you can find a 7 bed place with a sea view in St Leonards on Sea. The worst thing about all of this is that the irresponsible borrowers have in many cases come out on top. People earn more from their house than they do by going to work.
- nvarsj 7y ago
  > The worst thing about all of this is that the irresponsible borrowers have in many cases come out on top. People earn more from their house than they do by going to work. This more than anything made realize that the UK has a broken system, and hard work and talent don't really pay off. Most people who are wealthy in UK either had dumb luck (e.g. those who are able to retire off of their house values despite anything else they did in life), or cheated the system somehow (tax evasion/avoidance, unfair laws that benefit the few, etc.). The rest of us suffer under oppressive income taxes and punitive walls (the standard allowance reduction, lack of joint tax burden for families), that make it very hard to ever climb out of the gutter.
  - growlist 7y ago
    > The rest of us suffer under oppressive income taxes and punitive walls (the standard allowance reduction, lack of joint tax burden for families), that make it very hard to ever climb out of the gutter. I've wondered before whether the IR35 tax rules were introduced because too many common folk were making good money in IT, whereas your average posho is more likely to be in politics, law, City etc. Can't have the plebs getting ideas above their station!