Kieran Long Artsnight

The long cherished ideal of a property owning democracy in Britain

looks to be a thing of the past. For many of today's's under 40s, the

prospect of owning your own home has become nothing more than a pipe

dream. 9 million of us are currently living in private rented

accommodation. Successive governments in the UK have promised

to build more houses, addressed the chronic undersupply in some parts of

the country. For me, it is more of a numbers game. I am more interested

in the design of these homes. How can we better reflect the way we

live our lives? I have been writing about architecture for 20 years. I

am the architecture and design curator at the V and eight. I will

be meeting our brightest architects to explore how some of their radical

designs can help us live better. I will look at some of the best and

boldest ideas for some of our homes in the future.

We look at homes in the past and the future. In this exhibition,

practising architects were commissioned to rethink three

British staples of the British housing stock, the cottage, the

terraced has flat. The architects have been given free rein to think

about design think is space. The two projects I find most compelling deal

with a traditional kind of British housing, the terrace.

The terraced became a trademark of Georgian architecture in Britain.

Living in one became a higher form of life. Terraces always served both

ends of the social spectrum. The traditional two up, two down version

became commonplace, particularly in the north of England. Row upon row

of terraced streets were built is stone's throw from factories or mail

is where most of the residents worked. Terraced houses typify

British cities. Given all they offer, they are just as likely to be

a big part of the future part of our cities as they have been of the

past. The architecture practice was selected by Riba to think about how

we might adapt the traditional terraced house. Their submission

offers new and exciting possibilities in the housing market,

via an interactive model. Tell me a bit about your work with terraced

houses. You are rethinking the terrace for a new generation. The

actual design of the terraced has has not changed. Our proposal looks

a million. It has a traditional pitched roof, a recognisable design

of a house. The way we are considering and adapting it is the

way it can respond to consumer choice. Our intentions are that

customers will have a much greater say about the design. This model is

intended to demonstrate the possibilities. All of these are

options for the same, basic envelope of the building. This is the basic

shell and these are variations you can choose from. Within the model

there is an open plan layout where you have your living room facing

onto the garden. You might choose the two bedroom upstairs option

which has all this space. The alternative would be the

three-bedroom option. Instead of a voyage to get an extra bedroom. This

is an interesting tool. You are demystifying design and allowing a

consumer to have a voice. We have thought that architects are

enablers. We create a framework in which people live out their lives.

The basic structure of the timber frame is consistent but the

permutations people can choose our fast. I loved this way of selling

it. It could be a new career. Emerging architectural practice were

also commissioned to look into new designs for the terraced house. One

of the main interest is the changing relationship dream public and

private space in architecture. This is a project that thinks about the

potential of the traditional boundary between two terraced

houses, the party wall. Instead of it being a division, it opens up and

becomes a social space is shared between two properties. What is

beautiful about this phone is it has taken on a rock excess. All of these

balconies, small internal gives enough connection with a neighbour

without forcing you to cohabit. It is extreme but rather beautiful. A

rich, interior world. Two of the founding architects have built a

shared space for themselves, between two houses in North London. I have

come to visit them to find out more about their challenging ideas for

homes of the future. Tania, Tammy a bit about how this project came

about. Where is the session with the party wall? We were interested with

the idea of sharing. We have ideas about sharing the economy. We felt,

could these ideas be applied to the house? Was working on the project

with my other partner, Jessica. Both of us were on maternity leave. We

wanted a shared space to have shared childcare. We felt it was a generic

problem. The principle of shared space is evident in their own homes.

Through an ingeniously designed triangle courtyard, which is both a

private and communal space. We very much use that space together, not

just for work, but it could be useful childcare and dogs to play,

breakfast together. We felt there was a British cynicism about the

idea of being able to share a space with someone. It is possible and can

be very successful. Your project proposes sharing the most valuable

parts of the house. Most people would think of it as family space,

private space. What needs to happen to make that possible? Do you need

to be best friends with your neighbours? There is such a shortage

of housing, there has to be a shift in attitude. Housing needs to

develop with the housing shortages. The younger generation are generally

more open to these mixed communal living schemes. You get house

shares. More and more people in a Georgian house went for a family is

being lived in by six or seven separate occupants and advertised on

the internet. That model is really coming through. Now there are

examples of people building specifically for that purpose. Can

architecture create social relationships, or good party walls

with holes in them, balconies with holes in them, they can also do

that? When we decide, we looked at creation and use social dimensions

through architecture. Often it is the case that things come out of new

models. That is an exciting thing. The future of the British home is

currently under discussion some more exotic than North London, Venice. --

somewhere more exotic. Here, but chosen theme was reporting from the

front. The British Council selected the exhibition, home economic is,

for the UK pavilion. Behind this submission is the youngest

curatorial team ever chosen. What are some of the topics you are

trying to examine with this pavilion? The housing crisis is

about supply. Architects want to build thousands of houses but it is

not up to us. It is about how life has changed and how that can be

addressed regarding contemporary life. It is about how we live.

Home economic emergence new kinds of domestic living across five

different spaces. Chelator is collaborated with architects and

designers to develop full-scale domestic interiors. -- collators. It

felt to us it was changing time after time. It is becoming very

impossible for our generation to own a home. Even decade to decade as we

grow older and live longer. We need homes allowing us to live over a

longer period of time. We asked a group of designers to respond to

those periods of time. Each room deals with a specific time span,

reflecting generations in our homes. Months, days, even hours. If you

look at how we live, hour by hour, it is changing hugely through

technology. 80% of us check our smartphones ten minutes before we go

to sleep and ten minutes after waking up. That changes not only the

way we use our furniture, we are using our beds more than furniture.

Also the way we use our apartments and how we communicate from our own

home to the outside world, the boundary between what is public and

private. That has implications for the city. Even that minute by minute

hand-held device is starting to influence the way we live and the

way we use the city around us. The first room you come into deals with

the timespan of hours. It is a calm, minimal quiet space. No one else is

here. It is the sense of a shared space, very utilitarian. We need a

place to put stuff. I love the idea this is... There is a transparency

and calm. Maybe what we need is a place of Zen relaxation.

But this isn't just a space for quiet contemplation. It is also

meant for socialising. Behind the design of this room is one of the

curators, Jack self. This is a common living room imagined for a

future form of social housing in which 12 - 16 people share the

space. We can't each afford a space of this kind, particularly in

London, but if we pool our resources we can afford more. The idea is that

sharing can be a type of luxury, not always a compromise. I don't know

about you, but I am not sure about sharing clothes with my neighbours.

In the next room are some rather weird looking oversized inflatable

bubbles. Designed by a London art collective.

This is thought of as a home for days, a kind of portable,

collapsible, private space you can take with you.

I'm just taking a look around my new house.

This is a private space you're meant to bring with you in a suitcase,

to where ever your nomadic existence takes you.

It's for that kind of future traveller person.

Inside here is supposed to be your Wi-Fi and your connection

I would love to take one of these with me.

How many times do we go to an Air B, where we don't

I think this is a hygienic and convenient solution, I love it.

Perhaps the trickiest thing of all is, how do I get

The next space is devoted to the timescale of months. This blue box

is part of an experiment that lots of architects are thinking about,

how do you minimise your private space and maximise communal space.

This living pod, consisting of a bed and toilet in a small envelope is

attempting to be one of hundreds of units ranged together, with communal

eating and dining and working facilities, for a community of

creative people. This is seriously minimal living, but perhaps if we

want to live together, this is all we really need for private space. In

this short-term residential pod, the rent would also cover the cost of

cleaning fees, making doing the dishes a thing of the past. I like

the sound of that. The other rooms offer yet more stripped back

suggestions for future living. For me, home economics fits in perfectly

with the spirit of what the Venice Architecture Biennale has always

been about, a space for speculation and radical thought. What the

curators have done this year is investigate a totally new lifestyle

emerging from their generation. People on precarious short-term

working contracts with very short-term lets for housing, all

living in an unconventional spaces. It is that kind of lifestyle that

might come to define the future of the city, and the exhibition this

year investigate the impact that could have on the future interior.

Experimental ideas certainly have their place in the housing debate,

but back home what we really need are more bricks and mortar houses.

Nowhere is the demand for new houses in the UK

greater than in London where the housing crisis

London needs to build 60,000 homes a year to meet demand but at

It is clear, if we are going to hit that target with quality and beauty,

we will have to look towards new models of design.

Some of the capital's most interesting design

projects are found on its outer edges and involve new forms of

I've come to visit Barking, where my father hails from.

It's a place of real East End charm and one of the most adverse places

In the last ten years, Barking town centre has undergone a

complete transformation, led by some of the best

architects in Britain, and with some visionary thinking

from the council about how architecture can change a place.

In 2006, Barking and Dagenham Council announced plans to demolish

the much maligned Linton 's estate. Built in the 1960s, the looming 16

story tower block was once a hopeful vision of modern living. But by the

1980s, like many of Britain's concrete towers in the sky, the

dream had turned sour. Broken lifts and high crime rates robbed the

estate of its appeal. Not many locals mourned the demolition of the

blocks in 2008. What replaced the old estate is the William Street

Quarter which, for me, contains some of the most beautiful and elegant

housing built in London in recent years. In total, 470 new homes have

been built, and all are under some form of rent control. The

redevelopment took years to complete, in two phases. The second

phase was the first privately funded social housing development in the

country. And last year part of the scheme one hey RIBA prize for the

best new architecture in London. These houses are unified by this

beautiful brick material, mottled, beige brick, more familiar to us

from Bloomsbury and Georgian parts of London. I love how when you get

close to it, it has that quality. Even though the houses are designed

by two different architects, they are unified by some of the same

treatment of Windows, the way the door threshold works, and it comes

together to create a family of buildings of extremely high quality.

Behind the master plan, two of Britain's leading architecture

firms. My dad grew up here and remembers when this was a classic

early 60s slab of concrete with flats in it. That was one model of

housing provision and this is very different. Tell me how this came

about and what is different about this mode of housing. The

interesting thing about Linton is that it was pioneering when it was

built. Some of the pictures of inside the flats was very

optimistic. By the time we got here, it was a very decaying estate, quite

dangerous to live in, it had fallen apart through years of

non-maintenance, and it became a symbol of the way barking had

decayed. At that point, the council decided to say, could we design

houses with front doors and a lower rise on all of that land? Instead of

making it play grounds that no one uses, could we make it gardens for

people, communal gardens for people, and that is how it came about. You

and your practice have spent time thinking about the terraced house

and trying to reinvent it. What is the benefit of a street of them?

This was a real opportunity for us because of the first new streets in

Barking since the 60s and allowed us to go back to traditional typology

of family houses, with front doors next to each other, and a mews house

which, traditionally, is for utilitarian purposes, and here we

can allow it to be very intimate. The buildings are close together and

we can appropriate the space itself as an extension of the family home.

That is the heart of the community that we tried to engender. He worked

on the 2-macro- story houses. They have three bedrooms inside, lovely

back gardens, they are a bit smaller. To balance the street, we

used the gable end, this pitched roof, which we felt gave it an

accent and made it more symmetrical. The big feature in both is the

kitchen window. The great thing, kids are a school today, but kids

can play in the street and people can look through the window when

washing the dishes and you can enjoy a passive surveillance, so it feels

safe. It feels high quality, particularly the material. How did

you achieve that? From an early stage one of the mantras was that if

we pick a good brick it will give quality to the building, and that is

true of the landscape and the building. That is what we have got.

We picked a fine brick with a lot of texture, slightly unusual, and that

gives it the feeling that you don't know if these houses are worth ?2

million or anything. That is the whole idea, there was an ambiguity.

The other thing is the Windows. Although they look a bit like

Georgian houses, the windows are very big, so they are also full of

light, which is something else that is special. High-quality houses, a

beautiful street. Why can't we do this more often? I wish we could and

people are trying but it takes a long time. There are a lack of

models for people to see how it works, so that is one of the great

things about this and we hope it inspires other people to do it. It

is almost so simple, the front doors, the family community, all

recreated again. In a way, I think it is one of the biggest communities

ever made, Coronation Street. This is almost Coronation Street in

Barking and the community that is there is here, too. Barking Council

always wanted the bulk of the residents to come from local

families who used to live in nearby estates. It is lovely, this big

opening. This woman now lives in one of the new terraced houses and moved

in six years ago. We are sitting in your lovely garden with the sound of

trains in the background, a really nice outdoor spot. How did you end

up living in this house? I lived in a flat all my life. I came from a

tower block, the seventh floor. It had a nice view, but no garden or

green space. For me, that is a luxury. Tell me about this house and

how it suits your family. Do you feel it is well designed for a

family house? Definitely. I came from a tower block, a three-bedroom

property but very congested. I had two bedrooms which were box rooms,

where I could not even fit more than a bunk bed. No wardrobes. Even my

room was with a very tiny double bed and a wardrobe. Now, to have the

space and everyone has their own room and they can appreciate that.

One of the noticeable things is the size of the windows and the amount

of light it must let in. Has there been a good part of living here?

What is the effect? They are really nice, so you can appreciate the

weather, appreciate your garden. I never thought I would appreciate a

garden, even do gardening. I appreciate my herbs, I do

vegetables, I have a great tree and the victory. Even if it is raining,

push the blinds and appreciate the rain. What did you like about it

when you first saw it? When I saw it first time, bearing in mind I have

never lived in a house, so I was very much the ball minded. One

reason was the security. Living on the seventh floor, you feel quite

secure. Coming here, I was very concerned about a new area with new

people, living on the ground floor. You don't know if you are going to

feel that way. I am single mum with three children. When I came in, I

entered the property to have a look and when I saw the bathroom

downstairs I just fell in love. And is it nice, the street, how it

works, being able to look out from your kitchen and have the

interaction with your neighbours, which must be different to a tower

block? Yes, it is different. There is a lot of compassion. By now, we

all know each other. If we see an ambulance going, we go and ask. If

the police come, we are concerned. There is that empathy. Do you think

the community here is proud of the buildings, do they like where they

live and appreciate the quality? Yes. I think that is a very wise

move from the council, to build good quality housing, because it is civic

pride. It enables social responsibility along with it, so

people are looking after their property. Most of them really try to

look after their front garden and also back garden.

These terraced houses are the undoubted highlight of the

development for me. They do not seem likely to become stigmatised, like

the tower blocks of old. And this is state proves that social housing and

be affordable, desirable and well-designed. The New London mayor,

said the calm, says he wants to tackle the issue of affordability of

housing in London. And he could do worse than coming down here to look

at this project. It is simple, elegant, beautiful, dignified, and

for me and has relevance across the country as a prototype of the

housing we should be building in future. That is it. But finally,

here is a short clip from a quirky housing film screening as part of

the Sheffield documentary Festival this weekend.

# Some of us gay and some subdued # Some of us are just plain squares

# Greet the blend of the old and the new

# And this is ours and there's # Modernisation is better when

discreet # Design and scale in harmony

# Enhancing the original character of the street

# Positive improvements that all can see.

#