The Costs of Estate Regeneration: A Report by Architects for Social Housing

open accessOne of the biggest problems faced by residents informed that their estate is being considered for ‘regeneration’ is the disinformation they are given by the local authority or housing association implementing the process. This is compounded by the council officers who run the unelected Resident Engagement Panels and Steering Groups formed to persuade resident representatives of the benefits of regeneration; by the professional consultants employed to manufacture resident consensus for what they have been told will happen; by the architects who visualise the promises of what regeneration will means for residents; and ultimately by the property developers who will build the new development. For whatever residents are initially told about ‘regeneration’, on estates built on London’s lucrative land, this invariably means the demolition of the existing estate, the redevelopment of new properties at greatly increased densities, and the privatisation of the management and maintenance of the new development. This problem of disinformation, however, isn’t confined to residents. Housing campaigners trying to resist the demolition of residents’ homes, as well as the journalists who occasionally write about their campaigns, share the same misunderstandings about the costs of estate ‘regeneration’. As a result, such campaigns of resistance are almost entirely confined to ethical arguments about the right of the estate community to continue to exist. These arguments are important, but they are of no concern to the agents of regeneration: either to the developers after the land residents’ homes are built on, or to the council undertaking the process of moving them off it. The registered social landlord, whether local authority or housing association, will make gestures of appeasement towards those rights right up to the moment residents are forcibly evicted from their homes; but those arguments will have little or no influence on what gets built on the land cleared of the demolished homes. What determines that is one thing, and one thing only: the financial costs of demolishing and redeveloping estates. It is important, therefore, that residents and campaigners understand these costs, and can base their resistance to the estate regeneration programme that is clearing the land for London’s property boom not only on arguments about ethics, but on a clear understanding of what will result from the continued demolition of the city’s housing estates in the middle of a crisis of housing affordability. The financial figures show that, if an estate regeneration scheme begins by demolishing the existing estate – which is current policy for London’s Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat councils, the Greater London Authority and the UK Government – the cost of demolition, compensation for leaseholders and tenants and the construction of new-build dwellings is so high in today’s housing market that the resulting redevelopment will overwhelmingly be made up of properties for private sale, with a hugely reduced number of homes for social rent, increased rental and service charges for existing council tenants, and enormously increased sale prices and reduced tenancy rights for leaseholders. It is on the basis of this understanding that over the past three years Architects for Social Housing has developed its design alternatives to estate demolition for five London estates, including the Knight’s Walk and Central Hill estates in Lambeth, the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates in Hammersmith and Fulham, and the Northwold estate in Hackney. These design proposals increased the housing capacity on the estate by between 35 and 50 per cent without demolishing a single existing home. In addition, the funds raised from the market sale and rent of around half of the new builds meant the other half were able to be allocated as homes for social rent. Finally, the sale and rent revenues from the new builds generated the funds to refurbish and improve the current estate up to the Decent Homes Standard and higher. The ASH model of estate regeneration through refurbishment and infill new development is easily the most socially beneficial and environmentally sustainable option to address the crisis of housing affordability in London; but it is also the only financial option that doesn’t result in the social cleansing of existing residents from their estate and the mass loss of homes for social rent that is being implemented by the estate regeneration programme in its current form

What is Community-led Housing? Proposal for a Co-operative Housing Development

open accessWhat is ‘community-led housing’? The phrase is used these days with increasing frequency, but what does it mean? How can it embrace the resource and advice hub set up by the London Mayor to build more affordable housing, and which has just been allocated £38 million of funds, and, at the same time, proposals made by campaigners trying to save the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Lewisham, which has been condemned to demolition and redevelopment by a council and housing association acting with the financial support and planning permission of the same London Mayor? Beyond its rhetoric of government decentralisation and resident empowerment, what does ‘community-led’ mean in practice? Is it an initiative by London communities in response to the threat to their homes of estate demolition schemes implemented by councils in which they no longer have any trust? Is it emblematic of the kind of initiative envisaged by the former Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, in his image of a Big Society that takes back responsibility for housing UK citizens from the state and places it in the hands of entrepreneurs, whether small developers or housing co-operatives? Is it a way to relieve London councils of the responsibility for housing their constituents? Is it just another term in the increasingly duplicitous lexicon of Greater London Authority housing policies designed to hand public land and funds over to private developers and investors under the guise of being ‘community-led’? Or is it a genuine, if limited, solution to London’s crisis of housing affordability, one that will finally build and manage at least some of the homes in which Londoners can afford to live? In this article we address these questions through looking at ‘Brixton Gardens’, a proposal for a co-operative housing development that was made last year by Architects for Social Housing in partnership with the Brixton Housing Co-operative

For a Sustainable Socialist Architecture

This paper was delivered as part of the 'ReciprociUdad' symposium in Seville 2020, which is part of the international seminars series 'Design Diplomacy'. The crisis of housing affordability in the UK is at its most severe in the capital, London, but its effects are the result of global forces whose financial roots reach deep into the world economy. These include the marketisation, privatisation and financialisation of housing provision; the neo-liberalisation of the processes of property development; and the writing of legislation and policy designed to accommodate and promote the financial interests of investors and developers above the housing needs of resident populations. We have all experienced something of the effects of this crisis, which has resulted in the systemic destruction of urban and largely working-class communities and cultures for short-term financial gain and at the cost of increasing social and economic inequality and environmental degradation. It is within this global context that the challenge of sustainable cities — or, more accurately, the question of how we can develop sustainably — has become one of the most urgent issues of our time, in which architects and built-environment professionals have the opportunity and duty to take a decisive role. The relatively recent rise in public awareness about the need for environmental sustainability is overdue and welcome; however, sustainable development that meets social need must go beyond the simplistic notions of the environment that characterise so-called ’green architecture’. If it is to be truly sustainable, architecture must not only contribute to countering the negative effects of development on the environment, but it must, in addition, be socially beneficial and economically viable for its users and inhabitants, and therefore, also, politically progressive. To be sustainable, in other words, architecture must be socialist. This paper outlines the opposing cycles of capitalist and socialist economy within housing development in the UK, illustrates the intersections of the social, economic, environmental and political contexts operating within the current housing situation, and demonstrates the ways in which the work of Architects for Social Housing has addressed these issues in a range of design alternatives to demolition of council housing in the UK, concluding that the only way to achieve genuinely sustainable development is through process of sustainable socialist architecture

Geopoetry: Greenwich Peninsula

This text, with the accompanying images projected, was performed at the conference on ³The Mediated City² held at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication on the Greenwich Peninsula, London, between April 1 and 3, 2014. The performance was given on April 2. The following day, the Geopoetry Reading it introduced was conducted around Greenwich Peninsula. The main contents of this reading can be found in The Sorcerer¹s Apprentice, nos 68­69 (2014). Available online: https://thesorcerersapprenticeonline. files.wordpress.com/2014/04/no-68-69-greenwich-peninsula.pdf/. A second performance was given on the final day of ³Real Estates,² a six-week conference and exhibition organized by Fugitive Images at Peer Gallery in Hoxton, London, February 18­March 28, 2015. Available online: http://real-estates.info/

Clustering Behavior in Solar Flare Dynamics

The solar magnetic activity cycle provides energy input that is released in intense bursts of radiation known as solar flares. As such, the dynamics of the activity cycle is embedded in the sequence of times between the flare events. Recent analysis shows that solar flares exhibit memory on different timescales. These previous studies showed that the time ordering of flare events is not random, but rather there is dependence between successive flares. In the present work, the clustering of flares is demonstrated through a straightforward nonparametric method where the cumulative distribution function of successive flares is compared with the cumulative distribution function of surrogate sequences of flares obtained by random permutation of flares. The random permutation is performed within rate-variable Bayesian blocks during which the flare rate is assumed to be constant. Differences between the cumulative distribution functions are substantial on a timescale around 3 hr, suggesting that flare recurrence on that timescale is more likely than would be expected if the waiting time were drawn from a nonstationary Poisson process

Imbibition in mesoporous silica: rheological concepts and experiments on water and a liquid crystal

We present, along with some fundamental concepts regarding imbibition of liquids in porous hosts, an experimental, gravimetric study on the capillarity-driven invasion dynamics of water and of the rod-like liquid crystal octyloxycyanobiphenyl (8OCB) in networks of pores a few nanometers across in monolithic silica glass (Vycor). We observe, in agreement with theoretical predictions, square root of time invasion dynamics and a sticky velocity boundary condition for both liquids investigated. Temperature-dependent spontaneous imbibition experiments on 8OCB reveal the existence of a paranematic phase due to the molecular alignment induced by the pore walls even at temperatures well beyond the clearing point. The ever present velocity gradient in the pores is likely to further enhance this ordering phenomenon and prevent any layering in molecular stacks, eventually resulting in a suppression of the smectic phase in favor of the nematic phase.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

High Energy Physics Forum for Computational Excellence: Working Group Reports (I. Applications Software II. Software Libraries and Tools III. Systems)

Computing plays an essential role in all aspects of high energy physics. As computational technology evolves rapidly in new directions, and data throughput and volume continue to follow a steep trend-line, it is important for the HEP community to develop an effective response to a series of expected challenges. In order to help shape the desired response, the HEP Forum for Computational Excellence (HEP-FCE) initiated a roadmap planning activity with two key overlapping drivers -- 1) software effectiveness, and 2) infrastructure and expertise advancement. The HEP-FCE formed three working groups, 1) Applications Software, 2) Software Libraries and Tools, and 3) Systems (including systems software), to provide an overview of the current status of HEP computing and to present findings and opportunities for the desired HEP computational roadmap. The final versions of the reports are combined in this document, and are presented along with introductory material.Comment: 72 page

The Place of Fish Production in a Program of Multiple Water Use

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142268/1/tafs0297.pd

Supernumerary right kidney with it own urethra: a case report and literature review

There are only a few reports on supernumerary kidney However, its discovery being difficult in places where diagnostic facilities are not easily accessible. We present a case of A 9 year old girl with a congenital malformation and supernumerary kidney at right upper pole of the right kidney with a mega urethra in which there is pus. The main complaint was a mild, persistent lower abdominal pain associated with virginal reflux. Urine analysis and culture as well as serum blood values were within normal limits. The diagnosis of visceral malformations, particularly a supernumerary kidney is not easy, especially in an environment where diagnostic facilities are not easily accessible.Pan African Medical Journal 2016; 2