Mass Housing & Social Amenities

Just the other day I went for an architecture talk at the Glasgow School of art on the Architecture of Mass Housing. It was an interesting one because I started to understand a little bit more about urban development, and have developed a strange love hate relationship with the Glasgow Housing Association.

Why? Ian Wall was the speaker that spoke about housing in Glasgow. And the things he talks about makes me want to punch him in the balls, at the same time, it makes so much sense.

Mass Housing in Britain took place in 3 periods. 1917, 1945, and 1968. Since then, quality of mass housing descended rapidly. After second world war in 1945, the country developed a control of capital, mass action in mass development. Thus this led to mass social housing. 85% of all houses in Scotland were mass public housing.

During the time, the success of the reformist was much greater. So everyone focused on making profit on real estate. Cost was the sole determine on the economy despite the fact that these mass social housing had no variety or quality.

They had a saying, cheaper they are, more we produce, better it is.

It was soul destroying for people who live in it. The houses were badly built, badly maintain, no social facilities. Most of these were ring fencing public housing, but not privatized housing.

The GHA always did two things to maintain the “heritage” or however they define it. Either to refurbish the flats, or DEMOLISH! Haven’t they heard of Enbloc?

Public housing now is known as the house of last resort. In the past, most people lived in public housing. Now, living in a public housing is like a disgrace. I hope singapore won’t sink into such a state. *prays*

Housing is all about the people. There is no need for series of layers. All you see is rolling ground, then house of flats. The series of layers of trees and gardens are socially useless, and cost money to maintain because they are only objects.

-Ian Wall

Doesn’t that make you want to kick him in the balls? Yes. Housing may be all about people. But it is also the developer/architect/government’s job to make it hospitable for the people isn’t it? If they have any love for the people of course. If not what is there a need to appoint for a leader to guide the country? What is an architect for? What is a developer there for? If every developer in the world had that sort of mindset(all about money for maintainance), then any tom dick and harry can be a developer and hire any man who has a licence to approve plans to built a block of flats that is totally useless.

I feel it is more about maintanance. Yes, housing may be all about people. But how is it possible for people to make it a home when they’re not even given even the least decent environment to create a community? Social amenities are much more then just decorations in the streets, but it helps create a social community. It allows people to have a sense of belonging within the neighbourhood thus it makes them more protective of their territory, which lead to lower crime rate. If developers/government/architects give them housing without thinking of or respecting the tenants social issues, how do they expect the tenets to respect the flats they’re given?

I remember when I first came to scotland, I was so facinated by the culture. But looking at certain areas in the city certainly makes me feel so depressed. At first, I thought it was because mass housing was just not possible in the west because of the culture. But after sitting for this lecture, I take it back. Frankly, if France can do it, Singapore can do it, America can do it, I don’t see why Britain can’t. Social Amenities may cost money. But I think it is an extremely good investment in a country. Maybe instead of wasting money on booze, invest some in making better neighbourhood for lower income folks?

Le Corbusier vs Singapore's HDB Flats

Monotonous High rise Housing in other parts of the world has generally gotten bad press. Something that was once a vision for ambitious urban planners resulted in the residualisation of many towns in the west. In Singapore however, it seemed to work out perfectly.

The Housing Development Board (HDB) (the equivalent of council housing) was introduced after Singapore gained independence in 1965. Ordinary as these flats appeared, the planning and consideration it took to make mass housing development in Singapore successful differed greatly from the west.

“The Singapore model stands out as a highly efficient alternative in a landscape of near universal pessimism about a makeable future, a pertinent can-do world of clearly defined ambitions, long-term strategies, a ruthless determination to avoid the debris and chaos that democracy leaves in its wake elsewhere,” But why was it so successful?

As mentioned in the ISOCARP Congress in 2008, “The transformation and modernization of Singapore epitomizes to an even greater degree than Brasilia, the modernist tenants outlined by Le Corbusier and others…but perhaps more alarming are the rapid social transformation of the habits and lifestyle of most Singaporean citizens. Unlike Brasilia, the recent transformation of Singapore is rarely connected to the modernist ideology… much of the transformation was not promoted under modernism, but instead under the guise of ‘creating a green city’,”

“The ring plan for Singapore, with its planned dispersal of population to outlying areas, was not unlike the 1944 British New Towns Strategy.”

Despite being an extremely young country who had recently received her independence, Singapore took a risky yet ambitious twist – following the Le Corbusier plan for a contemporary city.

“URA proposals for housing developments for the future have included high-density developments…the concept of a vertical city by Le Corbusier may just be the solution to Singapore’s problem of land and scarcity,”

Like Le Corbusier, Lee Kuan Yew rejected a model that would improve upon or retrofit the existing city to make it better and demanded instead that the only solution was a completely fresh start.

Le Corbusier believed that people prefered to live in suburbs rather than in cities, and therefore basesed his theory of urban planning on the idea that the center should be for commerce and some public services, and that it should be surrounded by two belts of residential areas – one with “blocks of dwellings on the ‘cellular’ system”, and one outer garden city.

He stated in his book, ‘The City of Tomorrow and his planning’, “My objective was to construct a water-tight formula to arrive at the fundamental principles of modern town planning… for desire to rebuild any great city in a modern way is to engage in a formidable battle… we must have the fundamental principles for modern town planning,”

Singapore on the other hand had the same idea. “Singapore has a tightly controlled centralized planning. This sees the steady release of land for land development,”

"The concept plan is a massive blueprint of Singapore making visions for the next forty to fifty years. The master plan translates the concept plan into detailed plans for implementation in the next ten to fifteen years. We comprehensively spell out the planning intensions for every plot of land in Singapore. The master plan is one that transforms our city that is busting with growth and bursting with life,"

Tampines New Town located in Singapore was awarded the “United Nations World Habitat Award” for having a model human settlement. “The largest proportion of land in Tampines New Town is set aside for housing and about one third is used for roads, utilities, industrial and commercial developments. The rest is reserved for schools, institutions, sports facilities, parks and gardens. High-rise housing is juxtaposed with low-rise schools, neighbourhood centers, large institutions and parks,”

Le Corbusier believes that modern toil demands quiet fresh air, not stale air. As the modern world become more intensified, it affects our nervous system that can become dangerous. “The towns of today can only increase in density at the expense of open spaces which are the lungs of the city, therefore the city must be constructed vertically. Build urban dwellings away from the streets, without small internal courtyards and with windows looking on to large parks,”

Tampines New Town possesses this theory. Houses are raised and set away from the streets which provide fresh ventilation, overlooking large open spaces which cater to the social needs among communities. Because of the available amenities integrated within these houses estates residents can lead a healthy lifestyle despite the intense modern society. The picture I have provide below shows a comparison between Le Corbusier’s vision and the current structure of Tampines New Town, which shows how successfully Le Corbusier’s ideas inspired the housing landscape.

Le Corbusier also mentioned that human beings are affected by our surrounding environment and close human contact. “We are fond of the crowd and the crush because we are human beings and like to live in groups… with a denser population than that of any existing cities, there would be ample provision and opportunity for close human contact; there would be trees, flowers and spreading lawns, and houses with receding terraces for the eye to feed on,”

Tampines New Town is divided into a number of similar neighbourhoods. Within each neighbourhood is a centre for retail shops, eating and market places that provide the residents with their daily needs. Every neighbourhood centre is just at most a ten minute walk from the residential areas. Planning by neighbourhoods ensures that facilities and amenities are easily accessible. This helps avoid the problem that currently occurs in the west – urban sprawl. “The neighbourhood is then subdivided into smaller components known as housing precincts that are intended to foster the growth of smaller and more intimate communities,” This allow people to live in groups with close human contact which reflects on Le Corbusier’s point above.

“In designing my Blocks of Dwellings with set-backs, I have provided wide vistas to right and to left, and by constantly getting back to the longitudinal axis my composition takes on an architectural character; the hitherto dull lines of the corridor-street now become a series of prism forms which give emphasis to the recesses or to the projections; and the depressing facades of the corridor have been replaced by geometrical shapes juxtaposed, or set far apart, or brought together in a monumental and urban lively landscape,”

Tampines New Town adapted the idea of setbacks and maintained the longitudinal axis within the blocks. This estate was formed with geometrical shapes juxtaposed to bring intimate community, and being set far apart to provide room for green spaces. These put together creates a lively urban landscape.

Tampines New Town has been an established town where it is peaceful, away from the city, and where most town dwellers who work in the city reside. This is a part of the group within the population that Le Corbusier has mentioned:

“This consists of the citizens proper; of suburban dwellers and those of a mixed kind… citizens who work and live in the city, suburban dwellers who work in the outer industrial zone and who do not come into the city live in the garden cities, and the mix sort who work in the business parts of the city but bring up their families in garden cities,”

Le Corbusier believes that an ‘organ’ that is compact, lively and concentrated is required – which is the organized city. Next will be another organ which is supple, extensive and elastic – which is the garden cities.

“Lying between these two organs, we must require the legal establishment of that absolute necessity, a protective zone which allows of extension, a reserved zone of woods and fields, a fresh air reserve,” Here is another comparison between Le corbusier’s vision of a garden city and Singapore’s current ‘garden city’ known as the ‘heartlands’.

The garden city, like Tampines new town, shows the point Le Corbusier has made; A protective zone to provide room for extension – a reserved of woods and fields.

Le Corbusier states that in the plan of the city, there is a need to decongest the centers, augment their density, increase means of getting around, and increase the parks and open spaces. In Tampines town center, is occupied by gardens, parks and avenues. Within these parks, are the F&Bs, shops, housed in buildings with receding terraces.

“A great open space…occupied by gardens, parks and avenues. In this parks, at the foot of the and round the sky scrapers, would be the restaurants and cafes, the luxury shops, housed in buildings with receding terraces,”

Following two great axis of the city, Le Corbusier proposed below the roads for fast traffic, would run tubes leading to four furthest points of the garden city suburbs. “The only space for a station is the center. It is a natural place for it and there is no reason for it to be anywhere else. The railway station is the hub of the wheel. The station would be subterranean with its roof which is two storeys above ground form the aerodrome for aero-taxis. This must be in close contact with the tubes, the suburban lines, the main lines, the main lines, and the administrative services connected with all these,” Though in Singapore, these tubes run on both levels – underground and on the aerodrome.

“These main lines would end up at the Central Station, or better still might be connected up by a loop system,”

“In contemporary buildings emerges from their circulation of information that in-forms and sedimentizes even as it circulates, following the Le Corbusier plans…the vision of Singapore as an “intelligent island” makes clear this point,”

Singapore started off as a poor country in the sixties; poorer than any European country during the time. In just less than fifty years, Singapore was able to transform from a developing South East Asia country to one of the leading cities for education, the arts, and the economy. Some would even say Singapore is an ‘economic miracle’. And without the country’s careful planning, and being able to shape people’s lives through its urban intensions, Singapore would never be where they are today.

“As we approach nearer there is seen the repetition against the sky of twenty-four sky-scrapers…suddenly we find ourselves at the feet of the first sky-scrapers. But here we have, not the meagre shaft of sunlight which so faintly illumines the dismissal streets…the whole city is a park…low buildings of a horizontal kind lead the eye on the foliage of the trees…here is the city with its crowds living in peace and pure air, where noise is smothered under the foliage of green trees,”

In the heartlands this is where you see the ‘set-backs’ of the vast architectural perspectives. There are gardens, games, sports grounds and the sky, bordered with the verdure of hanging gardens.

Although Le Corbusier’s ideas have been criticized by architecture critics world-wide, it is such an honour to see his ideas come to life so successfully in the present day. I felt his approach was driven through forward thinking, which is the key of a successful leading city that is sustainable for future generations to come. Singapore is a fine example of a Corbusian city.

“This is no dangerous futurism, a sort of literary dynamite flung violently at the spectator. It is a spectacle organized by an Architecture which uses plastic resources of modulation of forms seen in light,”

Residualisation in Britain

When people move in some number from a neighbourhood or community because they believe it is no longer a desirable place to live, what they leave behind is a social residue of less enabled people. This is called Residualisation.

The social balance of the area is thus disturbed by the departures and the people who remain are faced with concentrated poverty together with strengthening social stigmatisation. Before the 1950s, the council housing have been dominated by a mixture of skilled manual workers and lower middle class families. Empty houses, overgrown gardens and rampant vandalism contribute to the further decline of the area. Home vacated by leavers hold no attraction other than to people who cannot access accommodation elsewhere. Peace meal demolition of empty property merely signals a general lack of confidence and an absence of regenerative strategy by authorities. Blighted estates then provide temptation to council housing departments as places to ‘dump’ socially inadequate individuals or families, a policy of short sighted convenience which serves only to worsen the situation. Residents of long standing who opted for home ownership under the Right to Buy (RTB) scheme feel cheated as their investment for future is eroded.

Social residualisation is economically inefficient. Not only are the services underutilised, the structural fabric is subjected to frequent damage. The relative cost of community management soars and inward investment prospects are gravely affected. Last of all, residualisation produces a feeling of segregated entrapment as well as a disabling loss of personal esteem among remaining residents socially, spiritually and emotionally, who become less inclined to take part in the national economy.

High flats were introduced to England and Scotland after war as a prominent component to modern architectural patterns of housing. “LCC architects had rejected older flat types; such as 4/5 storey tenements or block dwellings of the street block layout.” The driving forces of these modern mass housing were larger cities with housing problems since 1919. This solution, adopted for land crisis of the exploitation of piecemeal sites with high flats, was imposed on particular towns. The Central government have assisted in setting the ‘land trap’, the building of high flats in existing urban areas, rather than overspill outside those areas to maintain output.

In Scotland, the overcrowding and slum problem rapidly worsening. Entire areas of tenements were in decline, leading to the eventual breakdown of factoring and maintenance. New housing was dominated by vast council schemes, catering for middle class and working class, both skilled and unskilled.

Though there was a success in the house building program, they had to face the issue of maintenance. There needed to be a way to allow landlords to increase rent in order to finance investment in maintenance. Therefore, in 1950s, landlords were able to increase rents according to the quality of housing conditions, leading policy makers to recognize that decontrol of rents were to stimulate investment of maintenance in existing homes, accompanied with the relaunch slum clearance that gave local authorities power to carry out work necessary to make housing habitable or acquire properties.

However, rent decontrol led to the burden of housing subsidies, as low private sector rents held down local authority rents, leading the burden of housing subsidies. Ensuingly, the government had to lift rent decontrol in the private sector, developing a more economically coherent rent policy for the public sector and a shift in construction from subsidized council to unsubsidized private enterprise.

By 1953, the post-war labour government did little to assist new houses for the lower incomes as there was an overwhelming number of working class tenure in the council estates. However, people with middle income in council estates were a mixed blessing; Despite helping avoid social polarization, they occupied subsidized housing that were not needed, depriving poorer and more needy families. Council housing was something to prized then; houses were affordable and attractive to better-off workers.

There was a high demand of council flats. The proportion of high rise blocks began to increase as slum clearance estates filled with high density, high rise flats, constructed in non-traditional ways. Local Authorities were urged to concentrate on slum clearance and the housing of the poor resulting in smalll and unattractive houses.

1954 introduced the Housing Repairs. Rent act had a new definition of unfitness; it required the government to estimate the number of remaining slums and plans for removing them. There were a large number of unfit houses identified. As people in slums are mainly the low-incomes, they’re satisfied with their miserable environment and extrovert social life.

During the mid-1950s, the rent policy was changed to make council housing more expensive for the higher incomes and affordable for the lower incomes. This was implemented having the rent setting based on the value of the house, in relation to current wage levels. This meant reducing subsidies awarded by government which had an outraged response from local authorities.

By the mid-1950s, there were many houses that had been built at very low prices from the past, which meant low debt charges. These cheap houses continued to attract Exchequer subsidy which brought forth low rents. However, widening the difference of rents did not reflect differences in quality. The benefits of the subsidy were to be withdrawn from older cheap houses and to be used for newer higher-cost houses. This gave the local authorities a chance to raise the rents in new buildings. When the rent act was introduced in 1957, it was originally to provide assistance to the low incomes. It was to raise decontrolled rents above those charged for similar council houses.

Come 1960s, owner occupation was growing faster than expected. The supply of rented housing was not meeting demands. This was due to the effects of full employment and rising living standards. As incomes increase, more of these needs should be met by private enterprising. Council houses were occupied by people who became better off since buying the council flat, instead of those who really need them. Thus, the government aims to secure more houses available for rent, only dealing with those whose needs are not met by the market. This act drove the affluent workers out of council housing and into the market. Housing investment increased in the early 1960s and completions of new council housing rose in 1962.

In many ways, the 1960s proved to be a good decade for the welfare state. The labour government began by abolishing prescription charges, raising pensions, reform of mean as-tested social security and the launch of polytechnics and open university. However, capabilities of the labour party were questioned due to the lack of progress on issues such as poverty.

They rapidly abandoned some commitments made on housing policies while in opposition. In 1965, Crossman provided a solution called the 'fair rent' tenancy, where rent was set in relation to the size, quality and location of dwelling. This led to moderated market rents allowing prices to move in line with inflation and incomes. However, this depended heavily on the rate of applicants, resulting in a slow spread.

The government pressed local authorities to adopt non-traditional factory based methods and urged them to adopt higher space and heating standards. This potent mix of ambitious output rate, untried building techniques, higher dwelling standards and tight cost constrains led to poor quality, badly designed houses.

During the post-war period of the 1960s to the 1970s, there was need for abetter housing policy because of the massive changes made to the housing situation in Britain. The transformation of housing conditions and quality was partly due to a major shift in patterns of ownership. The private rented sector had been wedged between two growing sectors; owner-occupation and council housing. By the end of the 1970s, housing policy was marked by lack of choice. Lower income Households found their choices extremely restricted should they fall outside the priority categories for local authority housing.

When Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s prime minister from the Conservative Party in 1979, the Right to Buy (RTB) Scheme was introduced. This enabled council tenants to choose their tenure due to variety within the owner-occupied market because of the owner-occupied market and current low interest rate.

The purpose of the RTB was to benefit the middle-income dwellers that had paid rent for a long period, but reaped no returns from it. They are dominated by two age cohorts; a very elderly set of households who have been tenants for a long period of time, and a very young age group who have a relatively short period in council housing. This phenomenon has been referred to as the hollowing out of the age structure of the council housing sector and forms part of the process of residualisation. At the same time, the tax relief advantages associated with homeownership have been reduced, especially with the phasing out of mortgage interest tax relief. It is evident that affordability problems have become much more prominent over the last two decades. The growth of employment and of two earner households meant that the assumptions about affordability are no longer well-founded. Households which include single adult households and childless couples who have traditionally been more dependent on the private rented sector with a low income and perhaps depended on a single earner or households with interrupted earnings or incomes find great difficulty in owning a property. Households with children including lone parent households are likely to find it very difficult to afford accommodation for their family circumstances in the private sector. The expansion of the privately rented sector and the portability of housing benefit mean that these households are more likely to change address frequently.

When RTB was introduced, problems of low demand were not anticipated and the agenda around modernisation and renewal was non-existent. But since then, parts of the market in all tenures no longer meet the immediate needs of households. The low demand RTB properties have been affected by the general malaise in the market. Fragmentation of ownership may affect the capacity to respond to the problems that are emerging and more radical proposals related to renewal and demolition.

The debate about council estates in recent years has included concerns about concentrations of deprivation and social mix. The decline of the privately rented sector which had played the major role in housing lower income groups meant that council housing increasingly took on the role previously played by the private rented sector. At the same time, the encouragement of homeownership drew away more affluent groups from the council housing sector. Thus, there was a greater concentration of lower income households in the council housing sector by the 1980s. There was also rise in unemployment in the 1980s, which led to changes in household structures added to the residualisation of council housing and social rented housing. Because of the characteristics of those who had bought, the population remaining in council housing was more likely to be elderly and benefit-dependent. “More popular and respectable estates had higher levels of RTB sales and retained the mix of population, whereas less popular estates had a lower rate of sale under the RTB and the relative unattractiveness of these estates meant that they were more associated with households with less choice.”

Consequently, council tenants who could afford were more likely to move on than buy or stay as a tenant. Newer, younger, benefit-dependent tenants were disproportionately concentrated into these estates – making them more characterised by low income and less mixed in terms of age and length of residence as well as economic and household characteristics. Households buying under the RTB were not likely to have moved on; they were living on attractive estates and were at a stage in their family career where they were less likely to move. Furthermore, new tenants moving to these attractive estates were more likely to decide to stay there for the rest of their lives. But these are the estates where there were fewest sales under the RTB. In these ways the RTB clearly contributed to the residualisation of council housing. The more deprived estates, because they have little tenure mix, house a higher proportion of new tenants from homeless households and those with least choice on council waiting lists. One good example of a deprived estate would be the Red Road Flats in Glasgow.

During the 1960s, there was new hope as construction begins on the tallest residential buildings in Europe. For most of the early residents, living in the flats meant a considerable and welcome rise in their living conditions. The Red Road flats were indicated as the solution to the housing crisis at that time in Glasgow. As depression set in by the mid-1970s, the estate gained a reputation for antisocial crime. It stokes a nerve in the perceptions of non-residents, owing partly to the ‘looming’ ambience of the blocks. Measures were introduced in the 1980s which gave residents increased protection, leading to the fall of the level of crime. The Red Road Flats changed dramatically in 2003 when the flats were transferred to the newly created Glasgow Housing Association(GHA). Soon the new landlords, as well as the council insisted that repairs were costing more than receipts in rent, and that big changes therefore had to be made. In 2005 Glasgow Housing Association announced its intentions to demolish one of the tallest blocks as part of a regeneration plan for the area.

Today, we have to live with the consequences of the virtual elimination of housing for rent from the private landlords. “The existence of large unresponsive council empires with their bureaucratic system of allocating houses with massive misspent investments in system built flats and multi-storey blocks; Some with serious structural faults as to render them inhabitable and some undesirable and extremely expensive to maintain, to repair or to demolish. These factors are the progressive polarization of society into two groups, council house tenants and owner occupiers, often segregated by the planners into their own separate quarters of our towns and cities and by the politicians because of their competing economic interest and their supposed political affiliations.”

The building of more housing has been a common policy for government. However neither has clearly expressed an aim in itself except that of immediate electoral appeal. Neither has shown sufficient consideration for the preferences of those who would ultimately live in the houses so created by the government. All in all, it is simply the inevitable nature of politics!