6 ms·

Prince Charles’ experimental city

vanderZwan 5y ago
> But after two days wandering the streets and talking to residents who have forked out big money to be guinea pigs in this experiment, it’s clear Poundbury’s strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. I'm sure the area being pre-gentrified has nothing to do with the opinions of the locals whatsoever. Cynicism aside, I do empathize with Prince Charles view on brutalist architecture here. (But what do I know? The only books on architecture I ever read were Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way Of Building and A Pattern Language, and only because I heard they somehow were influential on software development)
- adrian_b 5y ago
  I have not understood what you mean by "pre-gentrified". According to the article, this was built on land previously owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. I assume that the land was not inhabited, so there were no former locals who were displaced by the new ones. Moreover, the article says that one third of the houses have been reserved for those who cannot afford to buy such a house, so a majority of the current locals might belong to the "gentry", but a significant part should have a lower income.
  - ramraj07 5y ago
    I will be curious to know the racial and ethnic composition of this town. I have no background but the reporter seems to be trying really hard to vindicate the prince and it’s not clear that’s justified from the contents. “Even real estate agents love it” I mean yeah they love any monstrosity of a building if it sells, especially to white people.
    - throwawaybumeer 5y ago
      Ramraj- you are racist. I am sure Komodo health would love to see your postings about your complete distaste for white people. If you are so bothered by white people, move back to Chennai.
    - ecpottinger 5y ago
      Don't forget the average family income too.
    - dukeyukey 5y ago
      Here you go: https://mapping.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/statistics-and-insights/areaprofiles/Ward/dorchester-poundbury https://mapping.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/statistics-and-insights... Pretty much the same as the rest of Dorset and southwest England.
    - dazc 5y ago
      The area where this town is located does not have a racilly/ethnically diverse population that is in anyway comparable to many other places in the UK. If it were otherwise I have no doubt the ethnic make up would be the same.
  - pityJuke 5y ago
    > Moreover, the article says that one third of the houses have been reserved for those who cannot afford to buy such a house, so a majority of the current locals might belong to the "gentry", but a significant part should have a lower income. Hah! >The royal family has used a secretive procedure to vet three parliamentary acts that have prevented residents on Prince Charles’ estate from buying their own homes for decades, the Guardian can reveal. >His £1bn Duchy of Cornwall estate was later given special exemptions in the acts that denied residents the legal right to buy their own homes outright. [1] [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charles-vetted-laws-that-stop-his-tenants-buying-their-homes https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charl...
  - kitd 5y ago
    Yes, it's literally a green-field development. Nice part of the country. It's where Thomas Hardy lived. Nearby Dorchester is "Casterbridge" in his books.
uwagar 5y ago
somethings missing. needs a bit of wabisabi.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nine_k 5y ago
  This town is very young (and entirely not Japanese). Let a hundred years pass, and what you are missing will manifest.
- ThePadawan 5y ago
  It's probably a century of soot. When I grew up, I saw a sandstone building get powerwashed for the first time in a decade. Well, I realized it was yellow sandstone when it was clean. It was brown when they started.
montenegrohugo 5y ago
If you're interested in human-centric urbanism like this, I wholeheartedly recommend the twitter account @wrathofgnon [1]. One of the most knowledgeable and diverse sources of information I've seen on the topic. Really valuable content. [1] https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
makeitdouble 5y ago
About critics taking a piss about the model city: > The second problem is that so often the criticisms are purely aesthetic and have little underlying understanding of what’s going on beneath the surface. To contrast to Charles’ views on why existing cities are bad: > Birmingham’s post-industrial building boom had left the city a “monstrous concrete maze”, Charles once declared, while the city’s new Brutalist library - since demolished - looked “like a place where books are incinerated, not kept”. Both sides seem pretty similarly superficial and vacuous to me.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Unfortunately, one of the superficial and vacuous sides will soon be king, and there's little political will to prevent this.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    Unless he gets reincarnated as a tampon first. https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a34736481/tampongate-scandal-the-crown/ https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a34736481/tampongate-scan...
pydry 5y ago
This article gives Charles waaaay too much credit. The Brutalist architecture he railed against was yes, bad, but it was popular because it was cheap and the UK was rather poor and in a period of war recovery. It's hardly a surprise that you can create something nicer if you set aside a bit of cash. Even so, Poundbury (I grew up around there) is a very uninspired part of Dorchester. >Thirty-five per cent of homes are affordable housing reserved for rent, shared ownership or discounted to the open market. It’s impossible to distinguish private from public housing because the latter is built to the same high standards as everything else, and it is evenly dispersed throughout the town. Is a good idea, but the reason it doesn't happen elsewhere is because profitability takes precedence over good town planning. This article does demonstrate that the "stink" of socialism can be overcome by dousing it in the perfume of royalty.
xor99 5y ago
Mock Georgian is the lamest/ugliest thing going and it's already all over the UK (like every town or suburb). Sure original Georgian architecture is beautiful in many ways. However, mock versions are a blight because people cannot afford to use the correct materials and resort to stylistic similarity with garish bricks and pvc windows. Where is the vision in the above for alternative materials or cheaper reuse of existing ones that are also beautiful etc? There's also a little mock Grecian-Dutch-Turkmeni (see those horrific cylinders on the big building or the car park entrance that looks like a downtown Ashgabat-in-Dorset) which seems utterly bizzare and surreal. Irritating when you consider the value, tradition, and heritage of the arts and crafts movement and people like Edwin Luytens that is being destroyed here. Its just way cooler too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munstead_Wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munstead_Wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Drogo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Drogo and same goes for the Barbican which follows similar style but with more mixed results in terms of fitting in with the surroundings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_Estate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_Estate Southbank does look like a nuclear site and/or antarctic base (some of these are dope imo). But it is so brilliant to walk around and the diversity of the people that use the skatepark there or hangout says it all tbh. Poundbury seems like a fake past, cosplay village, where "no ball games" signs and death by sandwich committees would make life miserable for anyone with a whiff of interest in contemporary culture.
- heurisko 5y ago
  I'd much prefer mock Georgian than Brutalist. I'm someone for whom Southbank and the Barbican are architectural monstrousities, who piggy back on London's success, rather than contributing to it. Concrete + England's maritime climate has a nasty tendency to look very grubby after a while, as it gets stained by moss.
  - xor99 5y ago
    Matters of taste, so yes there's a truth to what you are saying and those buildings were literally meant as aberrations on the history of the city. Brutalist vs traditional works for those cases but compare Luytens with Poundbury and its not so easy. The former invents while also making something at ease with the surroundings while the latter just reinvent with a fake version of the past. Mock Georgian is an extreme imo (like below link) but I do like Georgian architecture in general if it is original or convincing: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.g6c_ioUvIMpYipdpF5VpYwHaFO%26pid%3DApi&f=1 https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
xor99 5y ago
The future of the UK's architecture will be developed in places like this (also in Dorset as it happens): https://designandmake.aaschool.ac.uk/projects https://designandmake.aaschool.ac.uk/projects
makeitdouble 5y ago
I can’t get from the article what the habitants of Poundbury do. Looking at wikipedia [0] there’s around 180 local businesses, which doesn’t seem to be a lot for a whole town. If the point is to show a real world city functioning around Charles’ ideal, it seems to be pretty far off yet. It still seem weird to have a city with a completion date. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury
- jhbadger 5y ago
  There's only 3500 inhabitants, so "town" is rather generous (even if it may legally be one). So 180 businesses seems about right (even a bit much).
nmstoker 5y ago
I stayed there for a weekend about four years ago and thought it was a decent place. The only negative thing that stuck out to me was that the shop density was too low as they were all intentionally spaced apart (more than shops in communities that have grown up organically over time) and this meant that they didn't get enough places in close together to be convenient for a shopper to visit in quick succession, you ended up traipsing much further than normal and this had a knock on effect on the buzz (or lack thereof) around the shopping area. But other than that it was charming: things worked, the people were nice, the places were well built.
brudgers 5y ago
Until I see pictures of the bus station, the methadone clinic, and homeless shelter; I cannot think it a city. I will admit it is prettier than average sprawl. Lipstick does improve the pig so. It's Chuck's eat cake for council estates.
amai 5y ago
Where are the solar cells on the roofs? Where are the heat pumps for heating the housings? Where are triple insulated glass windows to reduce the energy consumption of the houses? Nowadays all houses must be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building . This should be especially true for new city experiments, which must be first and foremost carbon-neutral. The architecture of the future will have to follow this requirement. Otherwise it will be worthless soon and just showing your ignorance toward climate change.
dave333 5y ago
The value of Poundbury is in demonstrating an alternative to endless monotonous suburbia by reinventing the village with allowance but not priority for cars. The style of the architecture is a matter of taste - for me it would work equally well with more modern buildings. At least it avoids the cheapest to build styles of buildings so common everywhere.

> But after two days wandering the streets and talking to residents who have forked out big money to be guinea pigs in this experiment, it’s clear Poundbury’s strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. I'm sure the area being pre-gentrified has nothing to do with the opinions of the locals whatsoever. Cynicism aside, I do empathize with Prince Charles view on brutalist architecture here. (But what do I know? The only books on architecture I ever read were Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way Of Building and A Pattern Language, and only because I heard they somehow were influential on software development)

adrian_b 5y ago
I have not understood what you mean by "pre-gentrified". According to the article, this was built on land previously owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. I assume that the land was not inhabited, so there were no former locals who were displaced by the new ones. Moreover, the article says that one third of the houses have been reserved for those who cannot afford to buy such a house, so a majority of the current locals might belong to the "gentry", but a significant part should have a lower income.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  I will be curious to know the racial and ethnic composition of this town. I have no background but the reporter seems to be trying really hard to vindicate the prince and it’s not clear that’s justified from the contents. “Even real estate agents love it” I mean yeah they love any monstrosity of a building if it sells, especially to white people.
  - throwawaybumeer 5y ago
    Ramraj- you are racist. I am sure Komodo health would love to see your postings about your complete distaste for white people. If you are so bothered by white people, move back to Chennai.
  - ecpottinger 5y ago
    Don't forget the average family income too.
  - dukeyukey 5y ago
    Here you go: https://mapping.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/statistics-and-insights/areaprofiles/Ward/dorchester-poundbury https://mapping.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/statistics-and-insights... Pretty much the same as the rest of Dorset and southwest England.
  - dazc 5y ago
    The area where this town is located does not have a racilly/ethnically diverse population that is in anyway comparable to many other places in the UK. If it were otherwise I have no doubt the ethnic make up would be the same.
- pityJuke 5y ago
  > Moreover, the article says that one third of the houses have been reserved for those who cannot afford to buy such a house, so a majority of the current locals might belong to the "gentry", but a significant part should have a lower income. Hah! >The royal family has used a secretive procedure to vet three parliamentary acts that have prevented residents on Prince Charles’ estate from buying their own homes for decades, the Guardian can reveal. >His £1bn Duchy of Cornwall estate was later given special exemptions in the acts that denied residents the legal right to buy their own homes outright. [1] [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charles-vetted-laws-that-stop-his-tenants-buying-their-homes https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charl...
- kitd 5y ago
  Yes, it's literally a green-field development. Nice part of the country. It's where Thomas Hardy lived. Nearby Dorchester is "Casterbridge" in his books.

uwagar 5y ago

somethings missing. needs a bit of wabisabi.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nine_k 5y ago
This town is very young (and entirely not Japanese). Let a hundred years pass, and what you are missing will manifest.
ThePadawan 5y ago
It's probably a century of soot. When I grew up, I saw a sandstone building get powerwashed for the first time in a decade. Well, I realized it was yellow sandstone when it was clean. It was brown when they started.

montenegrohugo 5y ago

If you're interested in human-centric urbanism like this, I wholeheartedly recommend the twitter account @wrathofgnon [1]. One of the most knowledgeable and diverse sources of information I've seen on the topic. Really valuable content. [1] https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

makeitdouble 5y ago

About critics taking a piss about the model city: > The second problem is that so often the criticisms are purely aesthetic and have little underlying understanding of what’s going on beneath the surface. To contrast to Charles’ views on why existing cities are bad: > Birmingham’s post-industrial building boom had left the city a “monstrous concrete maze”, Charles once declared, while the city’s new Brutalist library - since demolished - looked “like a place where books are incinerated, not kept”. Both sides seem pretty similarly superficial and vacuous to me.

Symbiote 5y ago
Unfortunately, one of the superficial and vacuous sides will soon be king, and there's little political will to prevent this.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Unless he gets reincarnated as a tampon first. https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a34736481/tampongate-scandal-the-crown/ https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a34736481/tampongate-scan...

pydry 5y ago

This article gives Charles waaaay too much credit. The Brutalist architecture he railed against was yes, bad, but it was popular because it was cheap and the UK was rather poor and in a period of war recovery. It's hardly a surprise that you can create something nicer if you set aside a bit of cash. Even so, Poundbury (I grew up around there) is a very uninspired part of Dorchester. >Thirty-five per cent of homes are affordable housing reserved for rent, shared ownership or discounted to the open market. It’s impossible to distinguish private from public housing because the latter is built to the same high standards as everything else, and it is evenly dispersed throughout the town. Is a good idea, but the reason it doesn't happen elsewhere is because profitability takes precedence over good town planning. This article does demonstrate that the "stink" of socialism can be overcome by dousing it in the perfume of royalty.

xor99 5y ago

Mock Georgian is the lamest/ugliest thing going and it's already all over the UK (like every town or suburb). Sure original Georgian architecture is beautiful in many ways. However, mock versions are a blight because people cannot afford to use the correct materials and resort to stylistic similarity with garish bricks and pvc windows. Where is the vision in the above for alternative materials or cheaper reuse of existing ones that are also beautiful etc? There's also a little mock Grecian-Dutch-Turkmeni (see those horrific cylinders on the big building or the car park entrance that looks like a downtown Ashgabat-in-Dorset) which seems utterly bizzare and surreal. Irritating when you consider the value, tradition, and heritage of the arts and crafts movement and people like Edwin Luytens that is being destroyed here. Its just way cooler too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munstead_Wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munstead_Wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Drogo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Drogo and same goes for the Barbican which follows similar style but with more mixed results in terms of fitting in with the surroundings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_Estate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_Estate Southbank does look like a nuclear site and/or antarctic base (some of these are dope imo). But it is so brilliant to walk around and the diversity of the people that use the skatepark there or hangout says it all tbh. Poundbury seems like a fake past, cosplay village, where "no ball games" signs and death by sandwich committees would make life miserable for anyone with a whiff of interest in contemporary culture.

heurisko 5y ago
I'd much prefer mock Georgian than Brutalist. I'm someone for whom Southbank and the Barbican are architectural monstrousities, who piggy back on London's success, rather than contributing to it. Concrete + England's maritime climate has a nasty tendency to look very grubby after a while, as it gets stained by moss.
- xor99 5y ago
  Matters of taste, so yes there's a truth to what you are saying and those buildings were literally meant as aberrations on the history of the city. Brutalist vs traditional works for those cases but compare Luytens with Poundbury and its not so easy. The former invents while also making something at ease with the surroundings while the latter just reinvent with a fake version of the past. Mock Georgian is an extreme imo (like below link) but I do like Georgian architecture in general if it is original or convincing: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.g6c_ioUvIMpYipdpF5VpYwHaFO%26pid%3DApi&f=1 https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...

xor99 5y ago

The future of the UK's architecture will be developed in places like this (also in Dorset as it happens): https://designandmake.aaschool.ac.uk/projects https://designandmake.aaschool.ac.uk/projects

makeitdouble 5y ago

I can’t get from the article what the habitants of Poundbury do. Looking at wikipedia [0] there’s around 180 local businesses, which doesn’t seem to be a lot for a whole town. If the point is to show a real world city functioning around Charles’ ideal, it seems to be pretty far off yet. It still seem weird to have a city with a completion date. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury

jhbadger 5y ago
There's only 3500 inhabitants, so "town" is rather generous (even if it may legally be one). So 180 businesses seems about right (even a bit much).

nmstoker 5y ago

I stayed there for a weekend about four years ago and thought it was a decent place. The only negative thing that stuck out to me was that the shop density was too low as they were all intentionally spaced apart (more than shops in communities that have grown up organically over time) and this meant that they didn't get enough places in close together to be convenient for a shopper to visit in quick succession, you ended up traipsing much further than normal and this had a knock on effect on the buzz (or lack thereof) around the shopping area. But other than that it was charming: things worked, the people were nice, the places were well built.

brudgers 5y ago

Until I see pictures of the bus station, the methadone clinic, and homeless shelter; I cannot think it a city. I will admit it is prettier than average sprawl. Lipstick does improve the pig so. It's Chuck's eat cake for council estates.

amai 5y ago

Where are the solar cells on the roofs? Where are the heat pumps for heating the housings? Where are triple insulated glass windows to reduce the energy consumption of the houses? Nowadays all houses must be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building . This should be especially true for new city experiments, which must be first and foremost carbon-neutral. The architecture of the future will have to follow this requirement. Otherwise it will be worthless soon and just showing your ignorance toward climate change.

dave333 5y ago

The value of Poundbury is in demonstrating an alternative to endless monotonous suburbia by reinventing the village with allowance but not priority for cars. The style of the architecture is a matter of taste - for me it would work equally well with more modern buildings. At least it avoids the cheapest to build styles of buildings so common everywhere.