[edit] • Hans Ulrich Obrist

15:04 "When Cedric Price came here, and you were in the jury at the time - it actually liked his project. He said what was initially missing was a kind of a lung - you re-inject kind of oxygen into the city." [2]

[...]

[edit] • Elizabeth Diller 1

17:06 "I very much believe in kind of a do-it-yourself architecture using working with the city and working with
you know all the resources that one could muster to make change and sometimes to preserve
and sometimes to remove. So the your reference to Cedric Price and this site which is a Hudson
Yards which is now going to be millions of square feet of built space of which were you know
we're part of it and so we can't say it's bad or good but but but Cedric Price just thought that it
should just be left to empty that that was his big contribution to suggest that not to build on it and
sometimes remove all subtraction is a very good act." [ib.]

[...]

[edit] • Elizabeth Diller 2

19:04 "The project was very much inspired by Cedric Price's Fun Palace which was an unbuilt ... also it was an entertainment complex in the 1960s. It was planned in the sixties it was it was brought very close and in the end
it didn't get the permit to be built but but it inspired many many generations of architects
afterwards and the idea was that it was a truly flexible building made of infrastructure so it's like a
plug in play and anything can happen there at any scale anytime. Entertainment and culture were
brought together so it's like pop culture and high culture there's no difference and it I think you
know it came it was a post-war idea that came out of automation and the idea that people had all
this leisure time. Now you have to occupy them with a leisure time so this was a kind of brilliant
project. It didn't you know was it was en en envision for ten year duration but but what was really
inspiring about it was that it was made out of a kit of parts and it was entirely flexible and we
interpreted that and this was very different because some of some of Cedric Price's buildings
actually do move and Potteries Thinkbelt was a university on wheels, effectively in an old defunct
factory. So he was actually, he predated The High Line and all of that - so but but the flexibility that we
sought here was that we wanted to use more of the site than initially we had access to and but
what was a great result of proposing that we occupy that site 50% of the time - sometimes The
Shed is open and closed to accommodate large scale things - when it's when it's nested it could be
an outdoor space for cultural use and for the public as well. It could also be brought into place and
be a half indoor/outdoor and all the infrastructure is there. So it's like Cedric Price and architecture
of infrastructure where the whole design is made of structure and the ability to hold things the
ability to supply power to everything and make space and make shelter is very very simple in a
way - but it's designed."

“There’s no way we’ll build enough homes in this country without getting many more SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] involved… we are overly reliant on a handful of volume builders that have a particular business model.”

https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/2024/12/matthew-pennycook-the-housing-crisis-is-acute-and-entrenched

At the Budget on 30 October, we committed an additional £50 million to boost capacity to deliver this ambitious planning reform agenda, alongside providing an additional £500 million in grant for affordable housing, and further £3 billion of additional support to the private housing market, to translate permissions into build out.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-12-12/hcws308?fbclid=IwY2xjawIb-NFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXPN8HMkkWV0y5meykDEqQ2GebGAPOBG3iQ0KemAcNql5ZbRy9KnRTJg3g_aem_-hUmpyye0tw20ID6LYUwdQ

The homes that are built should be the ones that most directly and quickly address need – those built for rent rather than for sale, especially affordable public housing. Put simply, there has to be a programme to match the one that Nye Bevan launched under the 1945 Labour government.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/01/peace-permanence-and-affordable-prices-six-ways-to-solve-britains-housing-crisis

In January 1978, the introduction to the first iteration of 'Domestikit' began as follows:—

• "The continuing design of council housing in the UK by local authorities and their architects does not represent to me a particularly meaningful way of investing limited National resources."
• (Norman Fellows)

In November 1980, however, a moratorium on council housing in the UK was imposed by HM Government. [1]

Thus the chances of using the UK as a test-bed were reduced to nil.

[...]

In July 2024, the King's Speech 2024 stated:—

• "My Ministers will get Britain building, including through planning reform, as they seek to accelerate the delivery of high quality infrastructure and housing [Planning and Infrastructure Bill]."
• [2] [3]

Thus this article assumes:—

• ... that the demand for council housing in the UK is becoming popular. [4] [5] [...]

• Facsimile of panel created by Norman Fellows in 1976

The gap in the ... of council housing in the UK indicated left [...]

Nevertheless, in response to the so-called housing crisis, this article assumes:—

• ... that there is a critical need for state-subsidized housing in the UK;
• ... that the resulting houses must be manufactured on a production line in a factory.

Its purpose is therefore:—

• to establish a meaningful way of investing limited National resources in council housing.

• 1869 - Municipal Housing in Liverpool before 1914: the ‘first council houses in Europe’

also

According to Wikipedians:—

• "The first council to build housing as an integrated policy was Liverpool Corporation,[13] starting with St Martin's Cottages in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall, completed in 1869."
• (Wikipedia, 2025, 'Council-built housing' in 'Public housing in the United Kingdom'

1869 Council-built housing Learn More

• St Martin’s Cottages municipal housing, Silvester Street, Liverpool | RIBA pix

• St Martin's Cottages | Liverpool City Council

Notes The ‘cottages’ were tenements – 146 flats and maisonettes in two four-storey blocks, brick-built with open staircases and separate WCs placed on the half-landings. The result was so bleak that even the trade magazine The Builder concluded that those who built for the poor should ‘mix a little philanthropy with their percentage calculations’. Learn More

• Gallery 1: "St Martin’s Cottages, completed in 1869 in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall – the first council housing to be built in England."

Notes - Carl Brown (Carl Brown, 2019. 'A history of council housing: a timeline')

1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act Learn More

• "A travers Londres en chemin de fer" | Gustave Doré

Notes Parliament passes an act that allows urban councils to build houses in addition to clearing away slums. A second act 10 years later extends these powers to outside London, and by the outbreak of the first world war 24,000 council homes are built.

31 July 1919 The ‘Addison Act' is passed into law Learn More

• Dr Christopher Addison, housing minister in 1919

• Mosspark, Glasgow Learn More

Notes Liberal prime minister David Lloyd George wants to boost the number of homes built following the First World War. The resulting Housing Act 1919 places a duty on councils to consider the provision of housing “for the working classes” and to submit a plan to government, it provides central funding from the government for the first time, establishing the principle of large-scale council-provided housing.

1930 Focus on slum clearance Learn More

• 1950s Barton Hill redevelopment, by Paul Townsend (CC BY-ND 2.0)

• Nisbet Street, Shoreditch

Notes More acts of parliament provide central funding to councils and the Labour government’s Housing Act 1930 encourages mass slum clearances and incentives for councils to build new homes

1951 — 1954 Macmillan and the peak of council housebuilding Learn More

• Harold Macmillan, Minister of Housing & Local Government Learn More

• Aerial view of a typical council estate built in the 1950s

Notes The Conservatives win the 1951 general election pledging to build 300,000 homes a year. Housing minister Harold Macmillan calls for housebuilding to be stepped up urgently "in the spirit of 1940". The establishment of 10 regional housing boards, extra money for housing, reduced regulation and encouragement for the private sector lead to a huge increase in overall housebuilding. In 1954 councils complete 198,210 homes - a total not matched in a single year since.

• Tudor Walters Report

• Tudor Walters Report

Notes

According to Wikipedians, the committee expected to:—

• Profoundly influence the general standard of housing in this country and to encourage the building of houses of such quality that they would remain above the acceptable minimum standards for at least sixty years
• We regard it essential that each house should contain a minimum of three rooms on the ground floor (living-room, parlour, scullery) and three bedrooms above, two of these capable of containing two beds. A larder and a bathroom are essential.
• Housing was to be in short terraces, spaced at 70 feet (21 m) at a density of 12 per acre (30/ha) in town or 8 per acre (20/ha) in the country. [...]

Further, three basic plans were suggested, based on cost and where the cooking would be done:—

1. Living room with range where most of the cooking would be done, scullery with copper to heat the water, a bath and a gas cooker for occasional use.
2. A separate bathroom, cooking done in the scullery and the living room fire suitable only for occasional cooking
3. A separated upstairs bathroom, cooking done exclusively in the scullery. Meals would be eaten in the living room.

In addition it was suggested that superior houses would have a parlour.

A parlour house was to be 1,055 square feet (98.0 m2) and a non parlour house to be 855 square feet (79.4 m2). In the climate of 1918, 85% of the houses needed to be three-bedroom and 15% to be smaller or bigger. Pre-war the divide had been 40%/60%. The bedrooms should be 150 square feet (14 m2),100 square feet (9.3 m2) and 65 square feet (6.0 m2). A parlour of 120 square feet (11 m2) was seen to be adequate, in effect 12 by 10 feet (3.7 m × 3.0 m). It was a quiet room for reading, writing, a sick relative or formal entertaining of non-family visitors.[6]

• According to Wikipedians:—
• "Housing in the United Kingdom represents the largest non-financial asset class in the UK; its overall net value passed the £8 trillion mark in 2023. This reflects a marginal decrease of 0.3% from the previous year, yet it remains £1.585 trillion higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Housing includes modern and traditional styles. About 30% of homes are owned outright by their occupants, and a further 40% are owner-occupied on a mortgage. About 18% are social housing of some kind, and the remaining 12% are privately rented.[2007]"
• (Wikipedia, 2025, 'Housing in the United Kingdom')

Domestic real estate represented the largest non-financial asset in the UK, with a net worth of £5.1trillion (2014).[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_in_the_United_Kingdom

• ... that anything more than the concrete drainage tubes lent to the refugees of East Pakistan is considered by private and public 'dispensers' alike as an autonomous and peculiar yet essential ingredient in life styling.
• ... that It has been allowed to create in Western society a self-perpetuating and exclusively interlocking supply system reinforcing the existing categories with which it is linked.

• ... that these categories include:

1. the structure of investment and expenditure;
2. land use;
3. the structure of manufacture;
4. the delineation by 'dispensers' of performance specifications.

• ... that there is an obvious shortfall in

1. numerical provision,
2. product choice,
3. user satisfaction,
4. performance.

Notes

In January 1978, Norman Fellows presented the first iteration of Domestikit, in which he began:—

• "The continuing design of council housing by local authorities and their architects does not represent to me a particular meaningful way of investing limited National resources."

Thus

CP: "What about private enterprise?"

This raised a fundamental question, namely:—

• 'What role has private enterprise played ...

When seen as a soluble problem rather than an indeterminate situation

cf standard method ...

Housing thus saturated with the implications of such questions is seen in a 'problem solving' context to be infinitely
regressive.
Why should anyone assume that such a display of intellectually edible concepts will ever reduce, when challenged with
the hunger for somewhere to LIVE?

Notes

Considering the amount of research, administrative and designers' time spent on bringing forth a new one, the university does little to prevent [...] is frequently found to be obsolescent upon completion and is usually difficult and expensive to throw away.

All over the world, architects are engaged on buffing these absurd monuments to a design Utopia... meanwhile [...] in spite of

Notes

"I suggest that housing as we know it outlived its social usefulness and that a strategic redistribution of financial resources is required if we are to receive the benefits of ... servicing that might reasonably be expected."

• Post shared with the Minister of Housing on 9 February 2025

• Post shared with the Minister of Housing on 14 February 2025

[edit]

In Expediency, Cedric Price ... two ranges of questions. The first list in the initial range was headed 'HOUSING'. Thus this article assumes that ... priorities.

Notes

HOUSING

1. An assumed continuous societal need?
2. An assumed variable societal appetite?
3. A convenience and or necessity?
4. A constituent of social servicing?
5. A desirable expensive extra?
6. An alternative to subsidizing people?
7. A market controlled consumer product?
8. A 'natural' resource of a 'developed' country?
9. A method of population control?

1. The continuing design of council housing in the UK [1] by local authorities and their architects
2. The continuing design of standardised council housing by local authorities and their architects
3. The continuing design of council housing in the UK by local authorities and their architects
4. does not represent to me a particularly meaningful way of investing limited National resources.
5. [...]
6. When seen as a suitable subject for current methods of forecasting and problem solving the
7. concept of "housing", with its origins in the pre-electric age, wears a certain, familiar and
8. [...]
9. jaded look. Considering the amount of research, administrative ans designers' time spent on
10. bringing forth new ... housing does little to prevent homelessness, gives little in the way of
11. [...]
12. pleasure and ... to its does little to reduce
13. the scarcity of the trained personnel who run the service within; is frequently found to be
14. [...]
15. obsolescent upon completion and is usually difficult and expensive to throw away. All
16. over the world, architects are engaged on buffing this absurd monument to a design Utopia...
17. [...]
18. meanwhile,
19. WHO
20. [...]
21. live
22. I suggest that
23. [...]
24. is required if we are to receive the benefits of architectural servicing that might reasonably
25. be expected.