3 10 39 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/54c84b3f9580a50bc8050ba2b7ad4730.pdf dd9fa473ae21b57994e20a4b8bdd7c13 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Ladder of Citizen Participation Subject The topic of the resource Article from AIP Journal copied by John Allan to NDS Group on 17.5 77 Description An account of the resource —. Kam /mid-o >» LamDen/ AG (S oe I>. Ou QOSBu vo a5/ man Ves77 So NETLLAEAree 7 ot i ©]. Lnweny Ant) tytn hes, TT rene. ~ Ahen 2 aoha oo — / LOus 052 Ones Ue “ws HKPe SfLOK. ATI , |sy 6 OL Sl Al 2\Fr0.Q4 Bs 69 BALL wo,Asod WCWLIC wn! Lectin, ord & Vas Cu Arr LO, AQ, Qke1We Adepron. short: What is citizen participation and what is its relationship to the social imperatives of our time? Citizen Participation is Citizen Power Because the question has been a bone of political conten- tion, most of the answers have been purposely buried in innocuous euphemisms like “self-help” or “citizen involvement.’’ Still others have been embellished with misleading rhetoric like “‘absolute control’’ which is something no one—including the President of the Sherry R. Arnstein is Director of Community Development Studies for The Commons, a non-profit research institute in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. She is a former Chief Advisor on Citizen Participation in HUD’s Model Cities Administra- tion and has served as Staff Consultant to the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of HEW, and Washington Editor of Current Magazine. you pavjicipate; he participates; we participate; you paryicipate , . . They profit. 216 AIP JOURNAL JULY 1969 Sle 64. EMPTY RITUAL VERSUS BENEFIT There is a critical difference between going through the empty ritual of participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process. This difference is brilliantly capsulized in a poster painted last spring by the French students to explain the student- worker rebellion.?, (See Figure 1.) The poster highlights the fundamental point that_participation without redistribution of power is an empty and frus- trating process for the powerless. It allows the power- holders to claim that all sides were considered but makes itpossible for only some of those sides to beneitt. It maintains the status quo. Essentially, it ts what has | ’ The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you. Participation of the gov- erned in theic government is, in theory, the corner- stone of democracy—a revered idea that is vigorously applauded by virtually everyone. The applause is re- duced to polite handclaps, however, when this princi- ple is advocated by the have-not blacks, Mexican- Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians, Eskimos, and whites. And when the have-nots define participation as re- distribution of power, the American consensus on the fundamental principle explodes into many shades of outright racial, ethnic, opposition. | “4 There have been many recent speeches, articles, and books! which explore in detail who are the have-nots of our time. There has been much recent documenta- tion of why the have-nots have become so offended and embittered by their powerlessness to deal with the pro- found inequities and injustices pervading their daily lives. But there has been very little analysis of the content of the current controversial slogan: participation” or “maximum feasible participation.” In an A LADDER OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION , The heated controversy over “citizen participation,” “citizen control,” and “maximum feasible involvement of the poor,” has been waged largely in terms of ex- acerbated rhetoric and misleading euphemisms. To encourage a more enlightened dialogue, a typology of citizen participation is offered using examples from three federal social programs: urban renewal, anti- poverty, and Model Cities. The typology, which is designed to be provocative, is arranged in a ladder pattern with cach rung corresponding to the extent of citizens’ power in determining the plan and/or program. : ideological, and political “citizen A Mer Coan Lu strtute of Plan NEV Journ! 007 R.Arnstein United States—has or can have. Between understated euphemisms and exacerbated rhetoric, even scholars have found it difficult to follow the controversy. To the headline reading public, it is simply bewildering. My answer to the critical wat question is simply that citizen participation is a categorical term for citizen Hower, It is the redistribution of power that enables the 1ave-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information ts shared, goals and policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and patronage are parceledout. Inshort,itisthemeabynwhsich theycan induce significant social reform which enables them to “share in the benefits of the affluent society. FIGURE 1 French §tudent Poster. In English, 1 participate; J tokenism because the groundrules allow have-nots to advise, but retain for the powerholders the continued right to decide. Further up the ladder are levels of citizen power with increasing degrees of decision-making clout. Citizens ARNSTEIN Another captian about the eight separate rungs on the ladder: In the rea} world of people and programs, there might be 15Q rungs with less sharp and ‘‘pure’’ distinc- tions among fhem, Furthermore, some of the character- istics used tq jllystrate each of the eight types might be 217 8 7 6 5 4 3 : ° 1 FIGURE 2 Citizen control Delegated power Partnership Placation Consultation Informing Therapy Manipulation Degrees = of citizen power Degrees — of tokenism can enter into a (6) Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with traditional powerholders. At the topmost rungs, (7) Delegated Power and (8) Citizen Control, have-not citizens obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerial power. Obviously, the cight-rung ladder is a simplification, but it helps to illustrate the point that so many have missed—that there are significant gradations of citizen participation. Knowing these gradations makes itpossi- ble to cut through the hyperbole to understand the increasingly strident demands for participation from the have-nots as well as the gamut of confusing responses from the powerholders. Though the typology uses examples from federal programs such as urban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities; it could just as easily be illustrated in the church, currently facing demands for power from priests and laymen who seek to change its mission; colleges and universities which in some cases have become literal battlegrounds over the issue of student power; or public schools, city halls, and police departments (or big busi- ness which is likely to be next on the expanding list of targets). The underlying issues are essentially the same —"nobodies” in several arenas are trying to become ‘‘somebodies” with enough power to make the target institutions responsive to their views, aspirations, and needs. LIMITATIONS OF THE TYPOLOGY The ladder juxtaposes powerless citizens with the powerful in order to highlight the fundamental di- visions between them. In actuality, neither the have-nots nor the powerholders are homogeneous blocs. Each group encompasses a host of divergent points of view, significant cleavages, competing vested interests, and splintered subgroups. The justification for using such simplistic abstractions is that in most cases the have-nots really do perceive the powerful as a monolithic “'sys- tem,” and powerholders actually do view the have-nots as a sea of “those people,” with little comprehension of the class and caste differences among them. It should be noted that the typology does not include an analysis of the most significant roadblocks to achtev- ing genuine levels of participation. These roadblocks lie on both sides of the simplistic fence. On the power- holders’ side, they include racism, paternalism, and resistance topower redistribution. On the have-nots’ side, they include inadequacies of the poor community's Eight Rungs on a Ladder of Citizen Partict- pation been happening in most of the 1,000 Community Action Programs, and what promises to be repeated in the vast majority of the 150 Model Cities programs. Types ofParticipation and “NonParticipation” A typology of eight /evels of participation may help in analysis of this confused issue. For illustrative pur- poses the eight types are arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to the extent of citizens’ power in determining the end product. (See Figure 2.) The bottom rungs of the ladder are (1) Manzpula- | tion and (2) Therapy. These two rungs describe levels of “non-participation” that have been contrived by some ;to substitute for genuine participation. Their real ob- |jective is not to enable people to participate in planning _or conducting programs, but to enable powerholders to “educate” or “cure” the participants. Rungs 3 and 4 progress to levels of ‘‘tokenism” that allow the have- inots to hear and to have a voice: (3) Informing and (4) Consultation. When they are proffered by power- holders as the total extent of participation, citizens may ' indeed hear and be heard. But under these conditions — “] fasF “ waa ool Nonperticipation they lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded by the powerful. When participation is re-| political socipecanomic infrastructure and knowledge- base, plus difficulties of organizing a representative and “muscle,” hence no assurance of changing the status accountable fitizens’ group in the face of Entity, quo. Rung (5) Placation, is simply a higher level alienation, and distrust. stricted to these levels, there is no followthrough, no ianaa PREFERS re orHaat | One hopeful note is that, having been so grossly affronted, some citizens have learned the Mickey Mouse game, and now they too know how to play. Asa result | applicable to other rungs. For example, employment of the have-nots in a program or on a planning staff could occur at any of the eight rungs and could represent either a legitimate or illegitimate characteristic of citi- zen participation, Depending on their motives, power- holders can hire poor people to coopt them, to placate them, or to utilize the have-nots’ special skills and insights.4 Some mayors, in private, actually boast of their strategy in hiring militant black Icaders to muzzle them while destroying their credibility in the black community. The signators are not informed that the $2 million- per-year center will only refer residents to the same old waiting lines at the same old agencies across town. No one is asked if such a referral center is really needed in his neighborhood. No one realizes that the contractor for the building is the mayor's brother-in-law, or that the new director of the center will be the same old com- munity organization specialist from the urban renewal agency. After signing their names, the proud grassrooters dutifully spread she word that they have “participated” in bringing a new and wonderful center to the neighbor- hood to provide people with drastically needed jops and Characteristics and Illustrations It is in this context of power and powerlessness that the health and welfare services. Only after the ribbon- characteristics of the eight rungs are illustrated by cutting ceremony do the members of the neighborhood examples from current federal social programs. council realize that they didn't ask the important ques- tions, and that they had no technical advisors of their 1. MANIPULATION own to help them grasp the fine legal print. The new shiny new neighborhood center. Unfortunately, this chicanery is not a ynique example. Instead it is almost typical of what has been perpetrated in the name of high-sounding rhetoric like “grassroots participation.”Thisshamliesattheheartofthedeep- seated exasperation and hostility of the have-nots toward the powerholders. In the name of citizen participation, people are placed on rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards adds to their problems. Now the old agencies across for the express purpose of “educating” them or engi- town won't talk with them unless they have a pink paper neering their support. Instead of genuine citizen par- slip to prove that they have been referred by “their” ticipation, the bottom rung of the ladder signifies the distortion of participation into a public relations vehicle by powerholders. This illusory form of ‘‘participation’’ initially came intovoguewithurbanrenewalwhenthesociallyelite were invited by city housing officials to serve on Citizen Advisory Committees (CACs). Another target of ma- nipulation were the CAC subcommittees on minority groups, which in theory were to protect the rights of Negroes in the renewal program. In practice, these subcommittees, like their parent CACs, functioned of this knowledge, they are demanding genuine levels mostly as letterheads, trotted forward at appropriate times to promote urban renewal plans (in recent years known asNegro removal plans). At meetings of the Citizen Advisory Committees, it "was the officials who educated, persuaded, and advised the citizens, not the reverse. Federal guidelines for the renewal programs legitimized the manipulative agenda by emphasizing the terms ‘‘information-gathering,” “public relations,” and “‘support’’ as the explicit func- tions of the committees.* This style of nonparticipation has since been applied to other programs encompassing the poor. Examples of this are seen in Community Action Agencies (CAAs) which have created structures called “neighborhood councils’ or “neighborhood advisory groups.’ These of participation to assuge them that public programs are relevant to their needs and responsive to their priorities. bodies frequently have no legitimate function or power.® The CAAs use them to “prove” that ‘“‘grassroots \changing the racism 4nd victimization that create their people” are involved in the program. But the programm may not have been discussed with ‘‘the people.’” Or it may have been described at a meeting in the most general terms; “We need your signatures on this pro- posal for a multiservice center which will house, under one roof, doctors from the health department, workers from the welfare department, and specialists from the that afternoon of pneumanja and dehydration. The employment service.” overwrought father cqmplained to the board of the local 218 Alp JOURNAL JULY 1969 center, which is open 9 to 5 on weekdays only, actually 2. THERAPY In some respects group therapy, masked as citizen par- ticipation, should be gn the Jowest rung of the ladder because it is both dishonest and arrogant. Its adminis- trators—mental health experts from social workers to _psychiatrists—assume shat powerlessness is synonymous with mental illness. Qn this assumption, under a mas- querade of involving ¢itizens in planning, the experts subject the citizens ty clinical group therapy. What makes this form of “participation” so invidious is that citizens are engaged ip extensive activity, but the focus of it is on curing them of thejr ‘‘pathology’’ rather than pathologies.” Consider an incidept that occurred in Pennsylvania less than one year ago, When a father took his seriously il baby to the emergency clijnic.of a local hospital, a young resident physicjan on duty instructed him to take the baby home and feed it sygar water, The baby died Community Action Agency. Instead of launching an investigation of the hospital to determine what changes would prevent similar deaths or other forms of mal- practice, the board invited the father to attend the CAA’s (therapy) child-care sessions for parents, and promised him that someone would “telephone the hos- pital director to see that it never happens again.” Less dramatic, but more common examples of therapy, masquerading as citizen participation, may be seen in public housing programs where tenant groups are used as vehicles for promoting control-your-child or cleanup campaigns. The tenants are brought together to help them ‘‘adjust their values and attitudes to those of the larger society.” Under these groundrules, they are diverted from dealing with such important matters as: arbitrary evictions; segregation of the housing proj- ect; or why is there a three-month time lapse to get a broken window replaced in winter. The complexity of the concept of mental illness in our time can be seen in the experiences of student /civil rights workers facing guns, whips, and other forms of terror in the South. They needed the help of socially attuned psychiatrists to deal with their fears and to avoid paranoia.’ 3. INFORMING Informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, and options can be the most important first step toward legitimate citizen participation. However, too frequently the emphasis is placed on a one-way flow of information —from officials to citizens—with no channel provided for feedback and no power for negotiation. Under these conditions, particularly when information isprovided at a late stage in planning, people have little opportunity to influence the program designed “for their benefit.” The most frequent tools used for such one-way com- munication are the news media, pamphlets, posters, and responses to inquiries. Meetings can also be turned into vehicles for one-way communication by the simple device of providing super- ficial information, discouraging questions, or giving irrelevant answers. At a recent Model Cities citizen planning meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, the topic the official, the citizens accepted the “information” and endorsed the agency's proposal to place four lots in the white neighborhood.* 4. CONSULTATION Inviting citizens’ opinions, like informing them, can be a legitimate step toward their full participation. But if consulting them is not combined with other modes of participation, this rung of the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account. The most frequent methods used for consulting people are attitude surveys, neighborhood meetings, and public hearings. When powerholders restrict the input of citizens’ ideas solely to this level, participation remains just a window-dressing ritual. People are primarily perceived as statistical abstractions, and participation is measured by how many come to meetings, take brochures home, or answer a questionnaire. What citizens achieve in all this activity is that they have “participated in participa- tion.’” And what powerholders achieve is the evidence that they have gone through the required motions of involving ‘'those people.” Attitude surveys have become a particular bone of ARNSTEIN i 219 «Pee contention in ghetto neighborhoods. creasingly unhappy about the number of times per week they are surveyed about their problems and hopes. As one woman put it: ‘Nothing ever happens with those damned questions, except the surveyer gets $3 an hour, and my washing doesn’t get done that day.” In some communities, residents are so annoyed that they are demanding a fee for research interviews. Attitude surveys are not very valid indicators of com- munity opinion when used without other input from citizens, Survey after survey (paid for out of anti- poverty funds) has ‘‘documented”’ that poor housewives most want tot-lots in their neighborhood where young children can play safely. But most of the women an- swered these questionnaires without knowing what their options were. They assumed that if they asked for something small, they might just get something useful Residents are in- a (a ie ‘in the neighborhood. Had the mothers known that a free prepaid health insurance plan was a possible option, they might not have put tot-lots so high on their wish lists. A classic misuse of the consultation rung occurred at aNew Haven, Connecticut, community meeting held to consult citizens on a proposed Model Cities. grant. James V. Cunningham, in an unpublished report to the Ford Foundation, described the crowd as large and “mostly hostile:”’ ® tives, almost all of whom were attending three to five meetings a week, devoted an hour to a discussion of the placement of six tot-lots. The neighborhood is half black, half white. Several of the black representatives noted that four tot-lots were proposed for the white district and only two for the black. The city official responded with alengthy, highly technical explanation about costs per square foot and available property. It was clear that most of the residents did not understand his explanation. And it was clear to observers from the Office of Economic Opportunity that other options did exist which, considering available funds, would have brought about a more equitable distribution of facilities. Intimidated by futility, legalistic jargon, and prestige of was ‘‘tot-lots.” A group of elected citizen representa- . Members of The Hil] Parents Association de- manded to know why fesidents had not partici- pated in drawing up the praposal. CAA director Spitz explained that it was merely a proposal for seeking Federal planning funds—that once funds were obtained, residenty would be deeply involved in the planning. An oytside observer who sat in patie vices 5. PLACATION It is at this level that citizens begin to have some degree of influence though tokenism is still apparent. An example of placation strategy is to place a few hand- picked ‘‘worthy” poor on boards of Community Action Agencies or on public bodies like the board of educa- tion, police commission, or housing authority. If they are not accountable to a constituency in the community and if the traditional power elite hold the majority of seats, the have-nots can be easily outvoted and outfoxed. Another example is the Model Cities advisory and planning committees. They allow citizens to advise or plan ad infinitum but retain for powerholders the right to judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the advice. The degree to which citizens are actually placated, of course, depends largely on two factors: the quality of technical- \ ambiguity is likely to cause considerable conflict at the assistance they have in articulating their priorities; and the extent to which the community has been organized to press for those priorities. ‘end of the one-year planning process. For at this point, citizens may realize that they have once again exten- sively “participated” but have not profited beyond the extent the powerholders decide to placate them, It is not surprising that the level of citizen participa- tion in the vast majority of Model Cities programs is at the placation rung of the ladder or below. Policy- 1968 before the second round of seventy-five planning makers at the Department of Housing and Urban De- grants were awarded) were released in a December velopment (HUD) were determined to return the genie 1968 HUD bulletin.11 Though this public document ofcitizenpowertothebottlefromwhichithadescaped usesmuchmoredelicateanddiplomaticlanguage,it 220 AIP TOVIRATAY warn Results of a staff study (conducted in the summer of (in a few cities) as a result of the provision stipulating “maximum feasible participation” in poverty programs. Therefore, HUD channeled its physical-social-cconomic rejuvenation approach for blighted neighborhoods through city hall. It drafted legislation requiring that al Model Cities’ money flow to a local City Demonstra- tion Agency (CDA) through the elected city council, As enacted by Congress, this gave local city councils final veto power over planning and programming and ruled out any direct funding relationship between community groups and HUD. HUD required the CDAs to create coalition, policy- making boards that would include necessary local power- holders to create a comprehensive physical-social plan during the first year. The plan was to be carried out in a subsequent five-year action phase. HUD, unlike OEO, did not require that have-not citizens be included on the CDA decision-making boards. HUD's Performance Standards for Citizen Participation only demanded that “citizens have clear and direct access to the decision- making process.” Accordingly, the CDAs structuted their policy- making boards to include some combination of elected officials; school representatives; housing, health, and welfare officials; employment and police department representatives, and various civic, labor, and business leaders. Some CDAs included citizens from the neigh- borhood. Many mayors correctly interpreted the HUD provision for “access to the decision-making process’ as the escape hatch they sought to relegate citizens to the traditional advisory role. Most CDAs created residents’ advisory committees. An alarmingly significant number created citizens’ policy boards and citizens’ policy committees which are totally misnamed as they have either no policy-making function or only a very limited authority. Almost every CDA created about a dozen planning committees or task forces on functional lines: health, welfare, education, housing, and unemployment. were invited to serve on these committees along with technicians from relevant public agencies. Some CDAs, on the other hand, structured planning committees of technicians and parallel committees of citizens. In most cases, have-not citizens In most Model Cities programs, endless time has been spent fashioning complicated board, committee, and task force structures for the planning year. But the rights and responsibilities of the various elements of those structures are not defined and are ambiguous. Such the audience described the mecting this way: “Spitz and Mel Adams ran the meeting on their own, No representatives of a Hill group mod- erated or even sat on the stage. Spitz told the 300 residents that this huge meeting was an example of ‘participation in planning.’ To prove this, since there was a Jot of dissatisfaction in the audience, he called for ‘a ‘vote’ on each component of the proposal. The vote took this form: ‘Can I see the hands of al those in favor of a health clinic? All those opposed?’ It was alittle like asking who favors motherhood.” It was a combination of the deep suspicion aroused at this meeting and a long history of similar forms of “window-dressing participation” that led New Haven residents to demand control of the program. By way of contrast, it is useful to look at Denver where technicians learned that even the best intentioned among them are often unfamiliar with, and even in- sensitive to, the problems and aspirations of the poor. The technical director of the Model Cities program has described the way professional planners assumed that the residents, victimized by high-priced local storekeep- ers, “badly needed consumer education.” 1° The resi- dents, on the other hand, pointed out that the local storekeepers performed avaluable function. Although they overcharged, they also gave credit, offered advice, and frequently were the only neighborhood place to cash welfare or salary checks. As a result of this con- sultation, technicians and residents agreed to substitute the creation of needed neighborhood for a consumer education program. credit institutions in the 7 ARNSTEIN technicians, lawyers, and community organizers. With these ingredients, citigens have some genuine bargain- 6. PARTNERSHIP At this rung of the ladder, power is in fact redistributed through negotiation ketween citizens and powerholders. They agree to sharg planning and decision-making responsibilities through such structures as joint policy boards, planning coramittees and mechanisms for re- solving impasses. After the groundrules have been established through some farm of give-and-take, they are not subject to unilateral change. Partnership can wark most effectively when there is an organized power-base jn the commynity to which the citizen leaders are accpuntable; when the citizens group has the financial resoyrces ta pay its leaders reasonable honoraria for their time-consuming efforts; and when the group has the respurces to hire (and fire) its own 221 attests to the already cited criticisms of non-policy- It also urge. CDAs to experiment with subcontracts makingpolicyboardsandambiguouscomplicatedstruc- underwhichtheresidents’groupscouldhiretheirown tures, in addition to the following findings: 1. Most CDAs did not negotiate citizen par- trusted technicians. A more recent evaluation was cisculated in February ticipation requirements with residents. 2. Citizens, drawing on past negative experi- 1969 by OST], a private firm that entered into a con- tract with OEO to provide technical assistance and trajn- ing to citizens involved in Model Cities programs in the northeast region of the country. OSTI's report to OEO corroborates the earlier study. In addition it states: 2 ences with local powerholders, were extremely sus- picious of this new panacea program. They were legiti- mately distrustful of city hall’s motives. 3. Most CDAs were not working with citizens’ groups that were genuinely representative of model neighborhoods and accountable to neighborhood con- stituencies. As in so many of the poverty programs, those wha were involved were more representative of the upwardly mobile working-class. Thus their ac- quiescence to plans prepared by city agencies was not In practically no Mcadel Cities structure does citi- zen patticipaticn mean truly shared decision- making, such that citizens might view themselves as“thepartnersinthisprogram. .,.” likely to reflect the views of the unemployed, the young, the more militant residents, and the hard-core poor. In general, citizens are finding it impossible to have a significant impact on the comprehensive planning which is going on. In most cases the staff planners of the CDA and the plaryners of existing agencies are carrying out the actual planning with citizens having a peripheral role of watchdog and, ultimately, the “rubber stamp” of the plan gen- erated. In cases where citizens fave the direct responsibility for generating program plans, the time period allowed and the independent technical 4. Residents who were participating in as many as three to five meetings per week were unaware of their minimum rights, responsibilities, and the options avail- able ta them under the program. For example, they did nat realize that they were not required to accept techni- cal help from city technicians they distrusted. resources being made available to them are not adequate to allow them to do anything more than generate very traditional approaches to the prob- lems they are attempting to solve. 5. Most of the technical assistance provided by CDAs and city agencies was of third-rate quality, paternalistic, and condescending. Agency technicians did not suggest innovative options. They reacted bu- reaucratically when the residents pressed for innovative approaches, The vested interests of the old-line city agencies were amajor—albeit hidden—agenda. In general, little or na thought has been given to the means of insuring continued citizen partici- pation during the stage of implementation. In most cases, traditiqnal agencies are envisaged as the implementors of [lode] Cities pragrams and few mechanisms have peen developed for encouraging organizational chapge or change in the method of program delivery within these agencies or for in- suring that citizeng will have some influence over these agencies as they implement Model Cities programs. ... 6. Most CDAs were not engaged in planning that was comprehensive enough to expose and deal with the roots of urban decay. They engaged in “‘meetingitis”’ and were supporting strategies that resulted in “proj- ectitis,"” the outcome of which was a “laundry list’’ of traditional programs to be conducted by traditional agencies in the traditional manner under which slums emerged in the first place. By and large, peaple are once again being planned for. In Most situations the major plan- ning decisions are peing made by CDA staff and approved in a formalistic way by policy boards. 7. Residents were not getting enough informa- tion from CDAs to enable them to review CDA de- veloped plans or to initiate plans of their own as re- quired by HUD. At best, they were getting superficial information. copies of official HUD materials. we At worst, they were not even getting. 8. Most residents were unaware of their rights to be reimbursed for expenses incurred because of par- ticipation—babysitting, transportation costs, and so on. 9. The training of residents, which would en- able them to understand the labyrinth of the federal- state-city systems and networks of subsystems, was an item that most CDAs did not even consider. These findings led to a new public interpretation of HUD's approach to citizen participation. Though the requirements for the seventy-five ‘‘second-round” Model City grantees were not changed, HUD's twenty-seven page technical bulletin on citizen participation repeat- edly advocated that cities share power with residents. cies. It has a veto power in that no plans may be sub- mitted by the CDA to the city council until they have been reviewed, and any differences of opinion have been successfully negotiated with the AWC. Representatives oftheAWC (whichisafederationofneighborhood organizations grouped into sixteen neighborhood “*hubs’’) may attend all meetings of CDA task forces, planning committees, or subcommittees. Though the city council has final veto power over the plan (by federal law), the AWC believes it has a neighborhood constituency that is strong enough to negotiate any eleventh-hour objections the city council might raise when itconsiders such AWC proposed in- novations as an AWC Land Bank, an AWC Economic Development Corporation, and an experimental income maintenance program for 900 poor families. 7. DELEGATED POWER In most cases where power has come to be shared it| — between citizens and public officials can les taken by the citizens, not given by the city. There aIso result in citizens achieving dominant decision- is nothing new about that process. Since those who have making authority over a particular plan or program. power normally want to hang onto it, historically it has Model City policy'boards or CAA delegate agencies on s hadtobewrestedbythepowerlessratherthanproffered whichcitizenshaveaclearmajorityofseatsandgenuine by the powerful. specified powers are typical examples. At this level, the Such a working partnership was negotiated by the ladder has been scaled to the point where citizens hold residentsinthePhiladelphiamodelneighborhood.Like thesignificantcardstoassureaccountabilityofthepro- most applicants for a Model Cities grant, Philadelphia gram to them. To resolve differences, powerholders wrote its more than 400 page application and waved it need to start the bargaining process rather than respond at a hastily called meeting of community leaders. When those present were asked for an endorsement, they angrily protested the city’s failure to consult them on preparation of the extensive application. A community spokesman threatened to mobilize a neighborhood pro- Ohio; Minneapolis, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; test against the application unless the city agreed to give Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; and Oakland, the citizens a couple of weeks to review the application California. and recommend changes. The officials agreed. “In New Haven, residents of the Hill neighborhood At their next meeting, citizens handed the city ofi- have created a corporation that has been delegated the cials a substitute citizen participation section that power to prepare the entire Model Cities plan. The city, changed the groundrules from a weak citizens’ ad- which received a $117,000 planning grant from HUD, visory role to a strong shared power agreement. Phila- has subcontracted $110,000 of it to the neighborhood delphia’s application to HUD included the citizens’ corporation to hire its own planning staff and consul- substitutionwordforword.(Italsoincludedanew tants.TheHillNeighborhoodCorporationhaseleven citizen prepared introductory chapter that changed the representatives on the twenty-one-member CDA board city’s description of the model neighborhood from a which assures it a majority voice when its proposed plan paternalisticdescriptionofproblemstoarealisticanaly- isreviewedbytheCDA. sis of its strengths, weaknesses, and potentials.) Consequently, the proposed policy-making committee of the Philadelphia CDA was revamped to give five out obtained a subcontract from the CDA for more than .interesting coexistence model for hostile citizen groups of eleven seats to the residents’ organization, which is called the Area Wide Council (AWC). The AWC be resolved through negotiation. This isaparticularly $20,000 per month, which it used to maintain the neigh- borhood organization, to pay citizen leaders $7 per meeting for their planning services, and to pay the salaries of a staff of community organizers, planners, andothertechnicians.AWChasthepowertoinitiatecilshavefinalvetopowersevenwhencitizenshavethe plans of its own, to engage in joint planning with CDA majority of seats on the CDA Board. In Richmond, committees,andtoreviewplansinitiatedbycityagen- California,thecitycouncilagreedtoacitizens’counter- 222 AIP JOURNAL JULY 1969 to pressure from the other end. Such a dominant decision-making role has been at- tained by residents in a handful of Model Cities includ- ing Cambridge, Massachusetts; Dayton, and Columbus, Another model of delegated power is separate and parallel groups of citizens and powerholders, with pro- . vision for citizen veto if differences of opinion cannot _ ~ . ‘too embittered toward city hall—as a result of past “collaborative efforts’’—to engage in joint planning. Since al Model Cities programs require approval by the city council before HUD will fund them, city coun- ing influence over the outcome of the plan (as long as both parties find it useful to maintain the partnership). One community leader described it “like coming to city hall with hat on head instead of in hand.” In the Model Cities program only about fifteen of the so-called first generation of seventy-five cities have reached some significant degree of power-sharing with residents. In al but one of those cities, it was angry citizen demands, rather than city initiative, that led to the negotiated sharing of power.* The negotiations were triggered by citizens who had been enraged by previous forms of alleged participation. They were both angry and sophisticated enough to refuse to be “conned” again. They threatened to oppose the awarding of a planning grant to the city. They sent delegations to HUD in Washington. They used abrasive language. Negotiation took place under a cloud of suspicion and rancor. 8. CITIZEN CONTROL Demands for community controlled schools, black con- trol, and neighborhood control are on the increase. Though no one in the nation has absolute control, it is very important that the rhetoric not be confused with intent. People are simply demanding that degree of power (or control) which guarantees that participants or residents can govern a program or an institution, be in full charge of policy and managerial aspects, and be able to negotiate the conditions under which “outsiders” may change them. A neighborhood corporation with no intermediaries between it and the source of funds is the model most frequently advocated. A small number of such experi- mental corporations are already producing goods and/or social services. Several others are reportedly in the development stage, and new models for control will undoubtedly emerge as the have-nots continue to press for greater degrees of power over their lives. Though the bitter struggle for community control of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville schools in New York City has aroused great fears in the headline reading public, less publicized experiments are demonstrating that the have-nots can indeed improve their lot by handling the ARNSTEIN to develop a series of economic enterprises ranging from a novel combination shopping-center-public-housing project to a loan guarantee program for local building contractors. The membership and board of the non-. profit corporation is composed of leaders of major com- munity organizations in the black neighborhood. 2. Approximately $1 million ($595,751 for the second year) was awarded to the Southwest Alabama FarmersCooperativeAssociation(SWAFCA) inSelma, Alabama, for a ten-county marketing cooperative for food and livestock. Despite local attempts to intimidate the coop (which included the use of force to stop trucks on the way to market), first year membership grew to 1,150 farmers who earned $52,000 on the sale of their new crops. The elected coop board is composed of two poor black farmers from each of the ten economi- cally depressed counties. 3. Approximately $600,000 supplemental grant) was granted to the Albina Cor- poration and the Albina Investment Trust to create a black-operated, black-owned manufacturing concern us- ing inexperienced management and unskilled minority group personnel from the Albina district. The profit- making wool and metal fabrication plant will be owned by its employees through a deferred compensation trust plan. 4. Approximately $800,000 ($400,000 for the second year) was awarded to the Harlem Common- wealth Council to demonstrate that a community-based ($300,000 in a veto, but the details of that agreement are ambiguous and have not been tested. Various delegated power arrangements are also emerging in the Community Action Program as a result of demands from the neighborhoods and OEO’s most recent instruction guidelines which urged CAAs “to exceed (the) basic requirements” for resident participa- tion.4 In some cities, CAAs have issued subcontracts to resident dominated groups to plan and/or operate one or more decentralized neighborhood program components like a multipurpose service center or a Headstart pro- gram. These contracts usually include an agreed upon line-by-line budget and program specifications. They also usually in¢lude a specific statement of the significant powers that have been, delegated, for example: policy- making; hiring and firing; issuing subcontracts for building, buying, or leasing. (Some of the subcontracts are so broad that they verge on models for citizen control.) development corporation can catalyze and implement an . economic development program with broad community support and participation. After only eighteen months of program development and negotiation, the council will soon launch several large-scale ventures including operation of two supermarkets, an auto service and repair center (with built-in manpower training pro- gtam), a finance company for families earning less than $4,000 per year, and a data processing company. The al black Harlem-based board is already managing a metal castings foundry. Though several citizen groups (and their mayors ) use the rhetoric of citizen control, no Model City can meet the criteria of citizen control since final approval power and accountability rest with the city council. Daniel P. Moynihan argues that city councils are representative of the community, but Adam Walinsky illustrates the nonrepresentativeness of this kind of representation: 15 other federal agencies. Examples include: 1. A $1.8 million grant was awarded to the Hough Area Development Corporation in Cleveland to plan economic development programs in the ghetto and program. Some are even demonstrating that they can do al this with just one arm because they are forced to use their other one to deal with a continuing barrage of local opposition triggered by the announcement that a federal grant has been .given to a community group or an all black group. 1 Who . . . exercises “control” through the repre- sentative process? In the Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto of New York there are 450,000 people—as many as in the entire city of Cincinnati, more than in Most of these experimental programs have been capi- talized with research and demonstration funds from the Office of Economic Opportunity in cooperation with theentirestateofVermont. Yettheareahasonly one high school, and 80 per cent of its teen-agers are dropouts; the infant mortality rate is twice the national average; there are over 8000 buildings abandoned by evesyone but the rats, yet the arca received not one dollag pf urban renewal funds entire job of planning, policy-making, and managing a 223 NOTES 1 The literature on poverty and discrimination and their effects on people is extensive. As an introduction, the following will be 224 AIP JOURNAL JULY 1969 during the entire first 15 years of that program’s operation; the unemployment rate is known only to God. Clearly, Bedford-Stuyvesant has some special needs; yet it has always been lost in the midst of the city’s eight million. In fact, it took a lawsuit to win for this vast area, in the year 1968, its first Congressman. In what sense can the repre- sentative system be said to have “spoken for” this community, during the long years of neglect and decay? Walinsky’s point on Bedford-Stuyvesant has general Yale University Press, 1968). applicability to the ghettos from coast to coast. It is therefore likely that in those ghettos where residents have achieved a significant degree of power in the Model Cities planning process, the first-year action plans will call for the creation of some new community institutions entirely governed by residents with a speci- fied sum of money contracted to them. If the ground- rules for these programs are clear and if citizens under- 2 The poster is one of about 350 produced in May or June 1968 at Atélier Populaire, a graphics center launched by students from the Sorbonne’s Ecole des Beaux Art and Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. stand that achieving a genuine place in the pluralistic the American Institute of Planners, XXXIV, No. 5 (September scene subjects them to its legitimate forms of give-and- 1968), 290-1. 5U.S., Department of Housing and Urban Development, take, then these kinds of programs might begin to Workable Program for Community Improvement, Answers on Citt- demonstrate how to counteract the various corrosive political and socioeconomic forces that plague the poor. Community Action Agencies,” CAP Grant 9499. In cities likely to become predominantly black 7Robert Coles, ‘Social Struggle and Weariness,” Psychiatry, X XVII (November 1964), 305-15. I am also indebted to Daniel strident M. Fox of Harvard University for some of his general insights into citizens’groupslikeAWCofPhiladelphiawilleven-therapybeingusedasadiversionfromgenuinecitizenparticipation. through population growth, it is unlikely that tually demand legal power for neighborhood 8See, Gordon Fellman, “Neighborhood Protest of an Urban self- Highway,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXXV, government. Their grand design is more likely to call No. 2 (March 1969), 118-22. for a black city ‘hall, achieved by the elective process. 9 James V. Cunningham, “Resident Participation, Unpublished Report prepared for the Ford Foundation, August 1967, p. 54. In cities destined to foreseeable future, it is quite likely that counterpart CDA.11U.S., Department of Housing and Urban Development, tain demands for resource with residents and anticipated the need for a period in which a allocation weighted in favor representative citizens group could be engaged, and the ambiguities remain predominantly white for the 10 Interview with Maxine Kurtz, Technical Director, Denver groups to AWC will press for separatist forms of “Citizen Participation in Model Cities,” Technical Assistance Bulle- neighborhood government that can create and control tin, No. 3 (December 1968). decentralized public services such as police protection, 12 Organization for Social and Technical Innovation, Six-Month Progress Report to Office of Economic Opportunity, Region 1, education systems, and health facilities. Much may February 1, 1969, pp. 27, 28, and 35. depend on the willingness of city governments to enter- 13 In Cambridge, Massachusetts, city hall offered to share power of the poor, reversing gross imbalances of the past. of authority, structure, and process would be resolved. At the re- quest of the mayor, HUD allowed the city to spend several months community control are; of Model Cities planning funds for community organization activi- it supports separatism; it creates balkanization of public ties. During these months, staff from the city manager's office also Among the arguments.against helped the residents draft a city ordinance that created a CDA com- it enables posed of sixteen elected residents and eight appointed public and minority group “hustlers” to be just as opportunistic private agency representatives. This resident-dominated body has services; it is more costly and less efficient; and disdainful of the have-nots as their the power to hire and fire CDA staff, approve al plans, review all white prede- model city budgets and contracts, set policy, and so forth. The cessors; it is incompatible with merit systems and pro- ordinance, which was unanimously passed by the city council also fessionalism; and ironically enough, itcan turn includes a requirement that all Model City plans must be approved out to be by a majority of residents in the neighborhood through a refer- a new Mickey Mouse game for the have-nots by allow- endum. Final approval power rests with the city council by federal ing them to gain control but not allowing them sufh- statute. . 14U.S., Office of Economic Opportunity, OEO Instruction, cient dollar resources to succeed.*® These arguments are Participation of the Poor in the Planning, Conduct and Evaluation not to be taken lightly. But neither can we take lightly of Community Action Programs (Washington, D.C.: December 1, the arguments of embittered advocates 1968), pp. 1-2. of community 15 Adam Walinsky, “Review of Maximum Feasible Misunder- control—that every other means of trying to end their standing” by Daniel P. Moynihan, New York Times Book Review, victimization has failed! February 2, 1969. helpful: B. H. Bagdikian, Iv the Midst of Plenty: The Poor in’ America’ (New York: Beacon, 1964); Paul Jacobs, “The Brutalizing of America,” Dissent, XT (Autumn 196-1), p. 423-8; Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Random House, 1967); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); L. J. Duhl, The Urban Condition; People and Policy in the Metropolis. (New York: Basic Books, 1963); William H. Grier and P. M. Cobbs, Black Rage (New York: Basic Books, 1968); Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1962); Peter Marris and Martin Rein, Dilemmas of Social Reform: Poverty and Community Action in the United States (New York: Atherton Press, 1967); Mollie Orshansky, “Who's Who Among the Poor: A Demographic View of Poverty,” Social Security Bulletin, XXVIL (July 1965), 3-32; and Richard T. Titmuss, Essays on the Welfare State (New Haven: 3 This typology is an outgrowth of a more crude typology I circulated in March 1967 in a HUD staff discussion paper titled “Rhetoric and Reality.” The earlier typology consisted of eight levels that were less discrete types and did not necessarily suggest a chronological progression: Inform, Consult, Joint Planning, Negotiate, Decide, Delegate, Advocate Planning, and Neighbor- hood Control. : 4For an article of some possible employment strategies, see, Edmund M. Burke, “Citizen Participation Strategies,” Journal of zen Participation, Program Guide 7, February, 1966, pp. 1 and 6. 6David Austin, “Study of Resident Participants in Twenty 16 For thoughtful academic analyses of some of the potentials and pitfalls of emerging neighborhood control models, see, Alan Altshuler, “The Demapd For Participation in Large American_ Cities,” An Unpublished Paper prepared for the Urban Institute, December 1968; and Hans .C, Spiegel and Stephen D. Mitten- | thal, “Neighborhood Pqwer apd Control, Implications for Urban Planning,” A Report pr¢pared fos the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Nayembey 1968. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arnstein Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1969 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/bdb5e9cb2e9f7559217304f4bee83fc4.pdf dc28c305ca5dac7724e782731dd36847 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The National Design Service Subject The topic of the resource Minutes of meeting of NDS Group on 19.5.77 Description An account of the resource NEW ARCHITECTURE MOVEMENT The National Design Service Group Association. to the metropolitan death-wish syndrome, which dampened optimistic change. Minutes of Meeting on 19.5.77 at J.S.A.'s. Present: John Allan, John Murray, Neville Morgan & David Roebuck JeA. introduced meeting, suggesting that following the endorsement of J.M.'s work at Blackpool, our current task was to develov the work to the level of concerted action and be in a position to report real progress at the 3rd Congress. Much like the Unionization Group we had now to build on the foundatioonf theory already acheived by approaching outside bodies and taking interim steps towards the albeit indefined ultimate goal. DR. agreed that it should now be action's turn to influence and modify the theory. change: Community Groups, SERA, Supports ete. Jeli. recommended that our approach should be twofold, reflecting the two agencies involved in the process of institutionalised social building; on the one hand to the architects et al. by means of the public sector unions, and on the other to the tenants and communities by means of such bodies as the National Tenants NM. urged, to general agreement, that NAM's method was generally to work within the structure towards achieving change, rather than by "direct action’ on the streets — the latter being too easy prey to various sorts of official control. D.R. suggested that the preferred means was to 'de-officialise! the official types of services, while at the same time coordinating the 'unofficial' agencies of Ji. thought that criteria for selection of a particular Local Authority for development of our ideas, should include the readiness amongst the rank and file architects, housing officers etc. to act collectively through their union to acheive changes, the existence of a state of 'institutional instability’ ( e.¢. going through a process of being rehoused in new offices, or work=sharing with other agencies) and the likelyltiood that non®London authorities were less prone RESOLVED P.T.O. /2 NAM NDS. Meeting RESOLVED: 19.5677 her colleagues within the Authority. Gopies of this minute to: Next NDS. Meeting: John Murray's, 5, Milton Avenue, N. 6. Thursday, 2nd June, at 7.30 pm. ISA. 29/5/77 Cm Other avenues: Canvass suggestion that Tass / Building Design Staffs Union National Advisory Committee's task of making comparative study of the public and private sectors takes into consideration the N.D.S. proposal. ixplore possibilities of using Birmingham Authority as N.D.S. testbed by building on G.B.A.C. contacts and encouraging D.R.'s friend Claire to rally J.M. to investigate and make contact with National Tenants Association and Shelter. Jelie also to reread his papers with a view to producing a concise discussion paper for use in approaching outside bodies. JeA. to investigate the National Building Agency. DR. to investigate the Housing Corporation, N.l. to investigate NALGO ACTION as a possible vehicle for achieving changes. John Murray, Neville Morgan, David Roebuck, Mary Scott & NAM Liasom Group. Drag tna yf ne SuednQ ADH Ry . Res emASA, Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource JSA Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 19.5.77 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/739ed751b8192b860b33c05918f782fa.pdf 74078630bd6cd0edd2fc32a719723e5c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource NDS Group Subject The topic of the resource Minutes of meeting of NDS Group on 2.6. 77 Description An account of the resource NGI ALCINTE= TURE MevEMEDT i ~dWbPapareAiagymnnshoui~gveelpellicle, LAS| SotmheaeasorlecloneafAA 197%.YadbocmfoetTonle.J, 25 IM sumpocted might bo exrvttotule % dp suns af 3-4 Arclultet> bypartmenk fordoutactuel fast 2rheng teebisiby a] tobeArclubicte Tenant, Could Car be queled talkerihrernbying OM anontasS, IM Choe LIZAT ofSone 2ypay cago-dnbicleLyMales. YU, Tiere fate WT. 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VA - 23 IM rf orled mn. onfaa bien poten on Miteonal Asercahe~ of (euits Eedaakas cual Arsiatiar of Murweupal Aulboulior ,de “tll ny 0 mela well. ths forte fat etext MOS muliig wt a ven) “9 | ved, 3-0HeepHeeli-4{ Mavadend23dime197at7:30ponaf25StGungesMenus 4-0 Dishibufion: — There paecont Neville. Megan, Mary Scott, lean Group). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Murray Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2.6.77 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/4955637d6c938807250190160c62f70f.pdf f5ab61498263d237be9ee736cc3788c7 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/d17572da4bcc2c5fa2c17f38cab4efba.pdf 144ff3262e704c9b4f40f1e4888812af Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interim Proposals Subject The topic of the resource Six bullet points for an 'effective Public Design Service' Description An account of the resource Interim Proposals To achieve an effective Public Design Service the NAM Public Design Group proposes local authority design and build teams which are area based and which will be accountable to users and tenants. We suggest the following interim proposals which are feasible now and which create the potential for further change : : LOCAL AREA CONTROL OVER RESOURCES. x DESIGN TEAMS SHOULD BE AREA BASED INSTEAD OF FUNCTION BASED. . AREA DESIGN TEAMS SHOULD BE MULTIDISCIPLINARY. = JOB ARCHITECTS SHOULD REPORT DIRECTLY TO COMMITTEE. . ABOLISH POSTS BETWEEN TEAM LEADER AND CHIEF ARCHITECT. Public Design Group New Architecture 9 Poland Street London W 1 Movement * ESTABLISH JOINT WORKING GROUPS WITH DIRECT LABOUR ORGANISATIONS. For further information contact : Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource PDS Group Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/4b3c14cefec204ca5d84327a72a64c0f.pdf fb61daa500d59abc3875e3330cd161b1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Account Subject The topic of the resource ACID Supplement (GLC) "Reform of Local Authority Planning & Architecture 10 pp Description An account of the resource There is little doubt that architects in general are well intentionea, their aim is basically to benefit society in (seme vague way) and people Cin they are imprisoned in their traditional role of entrepreneurs for the ruling elite, whose objectives may be very different. Thus, even when engaged in projeects of the highest. social relevance - housing.’ schools, etc. - the architect may fiRi that he is forced to accept Subsstandard)sites,‘ee costlimits, ’ shoddy workmanship- and all the other Architects may talk about technological solutions,. velitical solutions or secial solutions »- anything to absolve themselves of sponsibility for the unhappy state of buildings today... birt..the anchitect.isneithen.politisien or industrialist end he has Little influence in either field (thanks mainly to the RIBA) Radical Chenves in architec pg can only come about when society itself, first undergoes a transformation - + when the balanceof tenAisi? Yet society is changing end architects will be ef ordinary people, is a significant feature These groups will grow in strength and number over the next few years until opposition te the interests The Labour Party, at their recent conference in Blackpool, committed themselves to a policy of some form of land nationalisation. While © welcoming this step, there is an obviousdanger Oaiteleadingtoevenmorecentreslisetionand oSRRCOMMEt:clear(adil:oa erosionoftherightsofindividualsandsmall wee : communities. O ‘ i; ; en Pee(8oy American (town pldnnin? «is they a can no longer ¢ Be. Getting City Hall in New Yor to Amentify wad othe & given (8)jane Jacobs once elias “aatke atte ae Wey. [Serpea “Neighbourhood control” is REFORM OF LOGAL AUTHORITY PLANNING AND ARCHT TECTURE - piedHe. J" forced eventually to adant their F ee:)ir ;re*: When John’ Ruskin trefused toaccept its. whole outlook end working methods, whether they want to or not. Gold Medal in 1874 he wrote; “The.— The emergence of local amenity groups, community pom oo oe te exalt the power of their own proiession over the imiind OL the public, power ‘Deeng if in the preseat century synonymous with i 4 i, ai ree. onsandneighbour! d - Ne Ae 9 goty * Qe oS ACOcd aS V1L0Mn srouze of and % all kinds, dedicated tofighting bad planning, architecture which cares nothing for the needs wealth’ a generalised sense). However, as professiorials, manifestations of the meagre value thet a middle-class dominated society puts updén provisions under-orivileged. Society gets its masters demand ... high rise workers to live in, feceless:office others to work in. ghettos for the towers for ce Tis Bae ian ated spl governmeat - at apt ee lienated local government and big . t now obsessed with erentasa tion, Americans are conzing usiness wil ave 1B .,“ioe teenoe providsdfor f realise.“Ghatbigcityadministra.: tluns are such jugzernauts thar constitutionally. for the the buildings — Such a policy must, we believe, be combined with the legal recognition of community organisations and a constitutional change to ensure that they have a say and control overlocal issues - planning, + education, welfare, etc. Radical local authority architects can assist in the emergence of such local power structures not only by supporting their local groups and lesking information to others, but also by giving constant and wide publicittyo alternative methods of designing housing, schools, towns, etc. which will encompass full participetion (before decisions are reached) for thoseaffected. Letus examine some alternatives. Participation much abused, devalued and misunderstood. Participation simply means a return to the architects! traditional role - that of interpreter of the client's requirements and the fulfilling of these in accordance with the latters best interests. No worthwhile architecture has been, or will be, achieved without a healthy relationship and understanding between designer and client. Prior to industrialisation, the architect's client was usually on the same wavelength as himself - the cultured patron who could discuss 'styles', knew the latest fashions and tastes. Or, for the majority, it was a case of getting Fred the builder down the high street o kneck something up ~- using tried and tested craft based technioues and forms. For the peasant it was often a case of build it yourself - the perfect intekration of client, builder and architect, or ‘participation’. Client Today we are informed that our real client must be anonymous. We refer to him/her by the abstract term'people', 'the users' or 'them'. We have a false client to compensate - the administratorwh,o interprets what is best for the real client yet who is even more out of touch with 'them' than we are, sitting all day on our behinds, trying to conjure up attractive shapes which have little relevance or meaning for the human beings who will be forced to inhabit or work in them. The whole parevhernalia of the social sciences - surveys, computer predictions, ‘rational’ appraisals, density evaluations - are employed as substitute for real contact with those who we are really responsible to. These techniques are sectioned officially for they are merely another side of authoritarian control in fasionable pseudo-objective garb - the statistics are in the hands of the authority to be manipulated as they think fit - often they are not even disclosed, Beware of those who justify their actions with spurious technological/ Illustration, by David Knight, MSIA, from the Skeffington report The word 'participation' has been core The mnainsprings of local government, activity in the London of future wih lie in the k with which people ident ¢ ‘through which they express their yneeas and deniands. ' For all their faults, the Lon- don boroughs are beginning to /understand this and aet upon if, They are the’ real successes. of 'these first five vears. If Lenron local government. is to live again, it is they who deserve the en ‘courageiient and the suppor. @ anei BIa nicaStata analCSE wandBncatchmanehteLEee e,BeeTEebeFne TRS @ ct c as ee ee, The aim is to describe objectively the subjectivo views or. this to be the case. The numbers are used in a comparative way: one thing is 3 isaSS reainecethtataene conceptualisations of these people and if possible to put: numbers on to both these concepts and the patterns which underlie them. Putting numbers to subjective experionce is something psychologists have done for many years— worker ratings, discretionary awards, public opinion polls and even the hit parade are common situations in which subjective experience is turned into numbers. So it seems likely that people can use numbers meaningfully to express their thoughts, and many psychological studies have proved better or worse than another. It is only a short jump to: introduce degrees into this comparison and to label therm. Lological mumbo jumbo. We need more designers who can apprise the problems through historical enalysis and social and cultural criteria drawn from direct empirical experience. A job which one would expect equipped for. fmuveus tell the ; from, a Dui affeet them © ‘T have a Vision of the F uture, chum, The workers’ flatsin fields of soya beans Tower up like silver pencils, score on score: | And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come From microphones in communal canteens “No Right! No Wrong! All's perfect, fevermore. © [] High-rise towers have proved a disastrous experiment in urban dwelling. They give many of their occupants acute uneasiness. Some people arrange their furniture so as to avoid any view of the ver- tiginous plunge from their thir- tieth-floor window. Fer mothers with small children, they present insoluble problems ofplay and supervision. The eleySion become places of dirt and danger. The wholesale buildozing of little streets and houses to make way for them destroys delicate net- works of service and friendship which are simply not recreated between different floors in new apartment houses. The ground areas between the towers, which were supposed to provide needed air and space and greenness, can become windy deserts below vast buildings which tunnel the weather down their vertical sides as dco mountain ranges. Some town planners even main- tain that. the claim made for high-rise dwellings — that other- wise even more little houses would be scattered over the countryside — is not borne out by economic or spatial necessity. In a number of cities, areas of similar size, with alternations of four to eight floor blocks round enclosed gardens and courtyards, can house virtually the same number of people and provide the intimacy and security which parents in particular jook for. Objections contact with the eventual users of our buildings at the briefing stag Objections from architects to this are always in terms of operational problems, not on vrinciple. In the field of housing they can be summarised as follows:+ ‘People do not know what they want! "How can progress be made - people only like what they know! (3) 'If you ask people what they went they will say a ‘house and garden', and of course they cannot heve thatti! The first statement is3 a i anybody who has We ask nothing less than direct ever had anything to do with community action will tell vou. people can usual. 7 ‘ee hen it concerns them directly X environmental iy and coherently - it is thers to ask them. statement is an insult to us as a Ith» The variation - it is to imply that, ata ULUEQ, the user will ask for some outlandish personal folly which will be. totally unsuited to future occupants. If we are unable to conduct vith clients, putting forward alternatives and discussion limitations, construction techniques, elc. we are not much use as a profession. One suspects hat these sort of objections stem from experience in private practice where the architect has to deal with a power elite, used to bullying their own way through. Ordinary people tend to be much more receptive and co~opverative. Private ¥ mind. the architect to be new solutions, cost 3 Sector if we wish to find solutions to woTM (yy The third objection usually comes from an architect who himself lives in a house with a gerden. What arrogance, to deny anyone what he has himself! Those who really believe in the 'scarcity of land! myth should themselves rent a flat at the ton of the nearest point block. We would go a long way to bettering buildings if architects designed with themselves in the participatory design of mass housing, let us turn to the private sector - wheré consumer pressure exists. You would not find too msny system—built concrete towers here. Whatever our job is, or should be, we seem to be more concerned with side issues or irrelevant conceptalisations. The growth of a separate'management:' structure in Local Authority departments is worsening this situation. Architects at the top do not concern themselves with the design of buildings any more, but employ a whole range of irrelevant management tools such as ‘coordination’, 'rationalisation', -‘decision centralisation’, etc. The results are often a sort of bureaucratic architecture designed to be understood by administrators - simplified components and grid layouts (see Ronan Points, MACE, Thamesmead). It is with the entrenched attitudes of 'management' that our biggest struggle lies. they will stoutly maintain that they are mere architects, tools of the councillors, while simultaneously playing puny political games behind locked doors. We shall be tackling ways of breaking these barriers down in future editions of ACID news. Workload There are more architects in Great Britain than in any other country. This shows up in a vast local Authority like the GLC where qualified architects are doing jobs well below their capacity - often quite menial jobs. Yet we believe that there is enough work to be spread evenly. One fault is that jobs are just too BIG - especially housing jobs. A vast estate like Thamesmead is designed, it seems, in the nineteenth century Beaux-Arts tradition of a master plan with the architecture conforming to a coordinated and consistent master plan. The designhierarchy is similarly archaic - a small group of policy makers delegate sections to groups who must conform to the overall technology and style. The end product is often a sea of ugly, grey, inhuman concrete ~- and highly uneconomic as well. All in the name of consistency - the sort of thing only architects appreciate - so long as they do not have to live there. It is design by balsa wood and birds eye view autocrats and has nothing to do with people or living or anything. Scale of Work To implement the kind of 'real client' participation outlined above and @) They say a camel ‘is a horse designed by a committee, “but in my experience that is a pretty, good shot atit.[should expectahorse- designing committee to come up with something possessing several different kinds of legs, and also much smaller .than the original expectation. A spider would be near the mark. @ THE GREATER London Coun- til and the Inner London Educa- tion Authority together bave an annual revenue budget of £350m, and an annual capital budget of a further £150m.-—-£500m. a year -total spending. This, as Desmond Piummer, the G.L.C.’s leader, is fond of pointing out, is “big business by any standards.” (Compare for instance, Ford Moior’s annual turnover of £488m.) . How is this vast organization,’ with over 100,000 full- and part- time employees, managed ? What replaces the profit motive which motivates managers in the private sector ? / Mr. «Gaffney, who is Tory “member for Ealing, regards recent changes at Counly Hall as pari of “a major revolution ‘through local government. Value ‘for money has become a_ substi- ‘tute for the profit motive”, The ‘traditional approach that you had certain services to provide, and pro- vided a first-class service froma the available resources, has had to be modified in the face of.“ scream- ing inflation” and the huge scale of the G.L.C’s activitics, “It is not now enough to offer a first: class service. You must do it at the least possible cost”, says Mr. Gafiney. This is where the management ‘tool of planned programming and |budgeting, now being grafted on to the G.L.C.’s rather hierarchical and _departmentalized administrative system, offers such dividends ic a. public authority. For it not only. gives the clected members,to whom the political decisions on how! much to spend an what must always belong, a more meaningful picture of the cost and benefit of any par- ticular course, but-—quite as impor- tant—-for the first time pronises to give them a sound basis for com- paring the value-for-money [o7. cost-and-benefit) tag of competing alternatives. spreading AGahanMkEI CEiaeaA WI to employ our architecturd manpower to its fullest capacity, we propose that housing and other jobs be broken down into small units about the size of a housing association scheme each with its own job architect and group of tenant-clients ob community representatives. From then on the job architect, in consultation with his client, is free to come uo with whatever solution he thinks best - free from all constraints of ‘conforming to 'an overall concept', 'consistency', coherence' and all the rest of that meaningless architectural claptrap. His only constraints would be the usual ones - Byelaws, Planning, etc. The educational or housing administrators would still play theirrole in this arrangement, except the rules they followed would be changed so that they no longer had overall power to ‘interpret’ tenants'or teachers'or kids' requirements. The architect could ask them directt This would also lend itself to other forms of housing, say, if a tenant wanted to go for self build he would be allocated a plot with the architect as advisor. Private tenants could apply for plots. Rehabilitation could be easily incorporated into this arrangement. Young architects in both private and public sectors would get a chence. A variety of competitions could be held, students could be given their own (small?) jeb instead of being used as cheap detailing laboun, architects would spend perhaps 50% of their time in the district they were designing for, instead of 1% as at present. Perhaps local. Authorities could employ most of their architectural staff as consultants ~ it is a notorious fact that private architects can achieve better results quicker than those in employment bypessing much of the bureaucracy and clumsy management. Ferhaps one of the first things to do to improve local authority architecture is to abolish the architecture departments. 2eceasecainwine awares 220kckca eta ncaaasada etaethetceonattiie iheedeliseisSaiBiaSD i PLANNING REFORM It is not much good considering alternative proposals for resolving a situation if circumstances will prevent you from adopting them. Yet this is fundamentally the problem at Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, or any other central redevelopment site of significance - for whatever may be the solution in terms of the public interest, the initiative in a development project basically rests with the landowner, who needs not to make his actions accountable to the public. The exception occurs when the local authority holds the land, but on central urban sites of a commercial nature, councils generally argue that they ought not to enter on enterprises involving financial speculation with public funds. As a consequence, in the process of redevelopment many businesses are dispossessed, although it is well known that they play a significant part in the life of the area. The question then is whether the local authority ought not to reconsider the ethics of its attitude towards speculative development. When, for instance, the London ‘'ransport Board is sinking £90 million in constructing the Fleet Line, which published estimates say will augment property values in south~east London alone by £100 million, of which it will not recoup any, is not this a clear case of public funds. being employed to foster commercial speculation, and on an enormous scale? The conclusion is that the public authority is acting as nothing less than ayproperty developer, albeit a highly philanthropic one. Equally therefore, the public authority may take the initiative in the redevelopment of Piccadilly Circus and any other urban centre. if this were the case, then is it possible to consider which alternatives are in the best interests of the public, a situation which would be far more positive than that which exists at present. eceoeeeaneoeeeee To pursue the question a bit further, as architects and planners we are very aware of the shortage of public funds for providing facilities in local authority schemes - to the extent that projects suffer from the absence of social and environmental amenities. The example quoted of the L.T.B. show that there are substantial financial resources created through development, “THERE -is a feeling that they have had as much change as they can take.” This remark by a Greater London Coun cil “ofiicial sums up the current mood ‘of antagonism against a rash of mas- sive development projects which could ‘alter the character of the capital’s cen- tral area beyend recognition. Extreme public disquiet is showing a variety of forms. The outery against Sir Basil Spence’s design for a new office block fer Government use on the site of Queen Annc’s Mansions by St James’s Park has boen based largely on aesthetics and bulk in a sensitive area, close enough to the Houses of Parliament for Members to take an active critical interest. Piccadilly Circus stirs up opposition ‘for different reasons. There, not only { the seale of any development coneern, but also the whole ive issue of speculative offices and associated profits, with the loss of a jhost of small business activities, such as istrip clubs, amusements arcades, shops cand restaurants, in favour of bigger, ‘blander places which can afford the higher rents. ® (The distribution of prosperity isdangerously skewed. Withit ai affluent economy, minorities who _ are handicapped by ethnic preju- ‘dice or age or sickness tend to be. ieft behind to observe vicariously on television how the luckier three-quarters live. And, in plane- ‘tary society as a whole, it is threc- quarters who live badly and, as their numbers rise, face bleaiz: prospects of living better. To restore balance and hope, to moderate the despairs and pres- sures, to achieve common policies for .a viable political order, are thus the preconditions of any decent human environment on ‘Planet Earth. _ © LT think: it is something to do with the public attitude towards the environmen Phere js a climate 0 VU atte >STVSTtsaad OTL ing contidence that it will.” ® the Fleet Line producing a nett profit of at least £10 miliion. Another very recent example occurs in a residential development by a Sussex council who paid £24 million for some farm land whose value as a farm was a mere £17,000; the nett profit here being in excess of £2 million. . o aie co had ee oewe: deRab onese edeae aae acesa paced ihe esdeSeieeseae aeen a RElS aSe Be «i ' Tf estate agents aré right in sensing a 12 per cent rise In West End office rents in the past year, it would bring the capital gain to around £10 millions, jess interest charges and maintenance costs. +. de a eeereeeeeooeee e ~“Camden’s irritation with the continuing emptiness of Centre Point--and its sister building, Space House, off Wingsway —--is two-edged., Not only are there 11,000 families on the ‘council’s housing waiting list while the 36 flats of Centre Point stand empty, ‘but it is estimated that the /council has Jost nearly £1 mii- lion in rates; because the two buildings, being empty, pay only half rates. “Tt is a lunatic use of the and. If we cannot do better than that, it’ is a great criticism of the way our society carries on,” Mrs Miller said. If the council is able to force a showdown over Centre Point it will be the first body te do so. ‘The developers have so far been content to sit on en asset which is rapidly gaining in’ capital vaiue as rents in Lon- don continue to rise. The theory behind this ts presumably that as most office lettings are for a fixed period ‘of five, seven or more years, it is more profitable to get, +say, £8 a square foot next year than settle for £6 this year, ‘The snag has been that with office rents continuing to rise—one cstate agent esti- ‘mated by as much as 12 per eent jo the West End in the past year alone—there hes never been 4 strong inceniive for Oldhani states to close 3 nent in land is “ ise who gat hers deal. ‘ Its emptiness, as such, 1s not likely to frighten the The project cost £5 millions. On the basis that its 150,000 square feet covid developers. have been rented at £4 a isquare foot in 1964, the build- ing would have been wer £9 miliions—-£4 millions profit. Last year it was estimated that if Mr Hyams could get £6 2 square foot, the capital ‘value of the building would ‘be over £13 millions, giving him a profit of £8 millions. eeHeBowe6 eae ‘, \*% carats *e There seems to be no reason why some, if not all, of these profits should not go into the local authority purse to spend on social provisions. After all, it is the community that is creating the profit. To re-restablish public initiative in development projects, to substantiate the economic basis of public building, would be to redirect town planning out of the rut which, to quote from a recent article in the Guardian, only consists in granting planning consents, to its true role of meeting the needs of the community. This is an issue which politicians’in this country have actively supported for many years. Winston Churchill, speaking on the People's Rights in his reforming Budget of 1909, said hope you will understand that when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the precess then with the individual land~owner. T have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who wakes money by unearned incre morally a worse man than anyone e his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. it is not the individual I attack, it is the system. Tt is not the man who vis bad, it is the law which is bad. Tt is not theyman who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other man do; it is the State which would be blameworthy were it not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice. We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law.' The outcome of the reforms was curtailed by the advent of the First World War and opposition from the House of Lords. But in 1931 the Labour Government of Ramsey MacDonald passed the Finance het which introduced the principle of Land Value taxation It was an impropitious time for such a measure, the world economic crisis and the collapse of the Government leading to the Coelition, caused the Act to be suspended and eventually repealed. The issue was raised again, in 1936 when, following a Renort by its Finance Coiimittee, the London County Council aporoved a policy for legislation to give Lt effect. As the Government declined to act, the L.C.C. tabled a Private Bill, the London Rating (Site Values) Bill of 1938. The Bill wes defeated and once again war intervened to frustrate reform which had mach supvort from local authorities in the country. the economic rights of the community with respect to land. Because it is this issue which forms the basis AAAS (Eee ofplanninglaw,thereformsshouldbestudiedinany \\ <<ae consideration of planning reform. X To conclude in our present times, the Government in \ 1965 presented the Land Commission, of which the opening paragraph reads: 'For centuries the claim of private landowners to develop their land unhindered and to enjoy the exclusive right to profit from socially created values when their lend is developed has been questioned, especially when the land is sold to the comminity which itself has created the value realised. The view that control over development must be exercised by the community is not now seriously disputed and it is generally accepted that the value attached to land by A. All planning proposals to be published on an obligatory basis. The information to be thorough, factual and available in time for objections to be made. All interested parties in an organisation seeking planning approval should be named. beginning of a retreat from realis- ine their full human potential. ®;: 9 7 ui starvation. When we remember ‘under what continuous stimulus of natural variety ~ of colour, of ‘scent, of sound and light and congeea et ete oo Each of the measures mentioned above sought reform of HELD STA i the right to develop it is a value which has ” a substantially been created by the community. A growing population, increasingly making their homes in ro i | ie | great cities, has not only made effective public control over land indispensable; it has also made indefensible a system which allows landowners or land % penenyevaapeeneesnaeteencomment 7. anor-1ieeeree le BmyNtTH.themiddieofthelastcen- 5 co wW # e Sas very large, in value of urban land resulting either . onaieee from government action, whether central or local, or from the growth of social wealth and population’. a Sis the vetrictions Xl’ about heights of building were, ‘relaxed so that landlords might make pavements shuffle through thick exhaust fumes over- looked by that symbol of speculators enterprise - the ultimate Architects’! and Planners' non-event Centre Point (now empty for eight years). © '.7} We do notfully understand the If satisfactory civilised urban standards are ever to be achieved it is evident that now is the time for a cool, hard look at the operants in planning and design and to ask how despite teams of seemingly skilled professionals at Central and Local Government level the urban scene has become steadily worse since the last war. i touch — the first men began to develop their imaginative grasp upon living reality and feel their ? athe ‘ Concurrent with such an examination, planning controls creative humanity, we may. wonder what will be the result of must be overhauled as an emergency measure, legislation must be brought to bring about monitoring systems which subject all planning proposals to real scrutiny in public interest - a basis for this is outlined below:- acontinuous adaptation ofhuman more money, the skyline of the City of longer-term results of extreme cultural, ethical and emotional _way towards fully conscious and existence, over centuries, to ‘towering buildings, concrete walls, personal isolation, darkened skies, roaring traffic, raucous noise, see ssacalsccesaMhanciDinnaka wlRO aSa Nna A APRTBEaOScsii fis iat i= For the unconvinced I suggest a walk from Oxford London seen above the Thames must have been the most beautiful in Europe. SARISF-A j 5BIE Circus to Tottenham Court Road on a late night “We can se this from the paintings of shopping evening. » Canaletio and hear it from Words- ; ‘ : wills !worth’s sonnet On Westminster Bridge. People packed like herd enimals on inadequate - = 7 any Silt _polluted water and dirty streets.. Such an urban environment might begin to produce human whose very ability to survive in such conditions could mark the beings. Be Demolition of any building to be the subject of a permission with full opportunity for the people in the area to object. A time lag should be introduceé inte the procedure to ailow proper consideraticn to take place. All urban fabric to be given conservation area status so that redevelopment takes place only after thorough appraisal. All buildings tc be listed and classified as part of the conservation process So as to avoid the 'fashionable' and ‘obvious set piece! preservation stances. - Monitoring groups to be established on a formal Kee es | h - ‘ yehae To. ~ : @% : ° is basis both inside (Professional participation) and ©J All major building and development schemes to be appraised by a body elected by the oil dock ins ( wae ( )Erie Lyons in AJ ()Paul Jennings (Guardian 4 > e eser Strieter penalties (1)Evenibg Standard (2)Architects Journal led So the working party has been pre- sented with such ideas as stric trols for demolition, the 0: a tax on the value added ¢ planning consent, stricter penalti unlet offices and shops in new develop- ments in central areas and str regulations for the protection f servation areas, In addition, 0 the problem of ensuring how fonants of long standing, both res j tial and businesses, should be equivalent premises, when r 5 development, and at rents in scale with their previous ievel. / Delaying tactics are also a possibility, It is not generally realised that : ship of land is not a pre-req the submission of a planning ls “ion. Nowadays the owner has to he informed but there is nothing to stop = Beinedieetm Baw ie 4 j basis covering locaal infiilll schemes totc nati:onal4 eccnomi+c|/indeluastria4l,/ Dondon with al our elaborate plan: sdalew anentpryl tcc hy be eh ecome as Te a aes pid Bg ‘aa transport pohicy colusmaidnreicenstlty. “It's late to get a gitip. Wt 1 | i " 4 : © int Bis would demand esecess t 5 ~ ana shat - 7 ee . aut plans and proposals they have no right to irampie down Dic | i and work in conjunction with shadow structures .of iaa familiar streets. and disregard the ; i arrech’itecCtuss. : pplleenners 34 sSoolliicelitvoorrs, engi¢neersok SOCi GLOLV SUS » etc.,; heing an organised version or ‘character and scale and peopolfea : : ‘oeSs walitasty? city simply because it is convenient, i ‘ economic, or highly profitable. B uiathastetets cd aa - ‘ 6 - | : comment | 2.2 Public interest avpriasal P.T.A. | | outside (Public participation) the Central and Local anyone, providing they ah in the forms correctly and know what they are about, from putting forward theiy own i 7 ideas for proper consideration by the : | 4 te 4 when he pushed in an application to i \11 schemes produced by public authorities should convert Centre Point into flats, though { 4 rott Sante a : . be vetted by internally elected professionals av . this one was referred back for techn calreasons. However, Itseems me- 4 4 an officer level below that in contact with what extraordinary that filibustering 0! ‘ | time basis and their comment would be made public. MTA.opalata at wark 4 seec bs ate . Mr Anth@sy |Crosland oe nat halton,majoraeveopmentmWceniras ; ii vee quality of work is suriic biy high no department need fear this type of appraisal London at least until the verdict is ‘available on the Greater London Development Plan. Other suggestions shave included some kind of planing 1 oe hon bering bodies to be established on a twe tier i : Lend i eae “ : Pl g Public participation. inauiry. commission te consider the pwronbylerm. 4 anid a ian “ny at 4 4 a “ . acs 4 4 : : ‘a y 4 i Ldatl: 9 Governmmeenntt FPlaanninging =and Archi:tectduenrevis ses sieniean des departments. 5 Professional h fessional participation. de : i, re sot : . - = 3 committees . These groups would serve on a limited this sort which could give a breathing Space, has not been moreprevelent. \ 2.1 Area Yetting groups A.V.G. intreduce the London (Ce Buliding) aay Extreme, ‘ many existing should be published permissions. the whole spectrum of planning installations. from ning COnuBEE he oeue e kican. Absatdragasl, a theird-rAartcehitectAsm!ericaJnournciatly',s lie Qn a street or neighbourhood basis these groups Sut developers, public anc Tate, ‘must somehow be made awere ‘thet protest groups. AeV.G. together with all planning This would operate at a town. city or regional ms v regione 12, e references: o Slidtp aes: nate0'sli Iho council. Mr Berman showed the way Uy or Hd od ineffective body the R Fi Arts Commissi ineffective body the Royal Fine Arts Commission. . “ebdly :; A.V.G.'s described above. The intention here (3}Roger Walters in . Times interview. would be to replace and revitalise and put on a more socially conscious basis that tired and )John Bet jeman. )Observer Groups of P.I.A.'s could join in assessing nationally significant proposals such as mn installati cas} OWS ACID GLC Architecture Club News, Room 671(D),County Hall North Block Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource ACID Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/ac34bd3ac22c8b9fdf92b012ce29b1e1.pdf b4c86e5e019bcba88537df7264b13a8a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter Subject The topic of the resource Letter to Hawser Trunnion re RIBA Community Architecture Working Group Description An account of the resource q4th June 1977 Dear Hawser Trunnion, 197 Camberwell Grove London SES QO1 737 2618 I'm veplying to your letter about the RIBA's community architecture working group. I'm doing thais privately so as to avoid giving rise to pre conceptions. When I started to work on ‘Fight Blight! I had no other aim than to investigate alternative ways of tackling the way people live in cities. This was preceded py campaigns which I had led with architects (even RIBA members, no less) against motorways in Glasgow, CDAs in Glasgow, the GLDP and Ringways in London, an office block in Haymarket in Edinburgh. Itm saying all this by way of references. The subsequent work I'm doing at the RIBA on community architecture has as wide a brief as that as well. Not to prove a point, noe ane whatseever remotely to do with ‘safeguarding professional interests' (another preconception) ~ just to find out who is doing what, and what needs to be changed to encourage this. For all I know, I may have met more people invohved in this subject on a practical base than you have. When Rod Hackney swears by the RIBA Form of contract or Fee Scale (which presumably damns him in your eyes) he doesn't do so to protect the profession, but because he reckons that it gives the Black Road, Saltiey, Belfast and Millom people the best deal he can. Jim Johnston (an RIBA Councillor as well as ASSIST) takes an cpposite view. Presumably he too is damned for being an RIDA Councillor, . I'm hkping to demystify architecture, community architecture and buildin What upsets me is your preference ofthe ‘statutory or public bodies! as agents of change, rather than private "hartered institutions. Have a look at some of the photographs in Fight Blignt to see what these grand public bodies @o-for the slaves who are their unwilling tenants; in Lewisham not even allowed to choose their own wallpaper, in Southwark not allowed to choose the plants to grow outside their own windows. The totalitariansism of local. authorities is quite horrendous = yet I wonder how many NAM members are working for them accepting this ~ whilst criticising the politics of Persia. It is my hope that a full discussion of the relationship between designer and user within the profession, instigated and prompted by the RIBA will force designers to consider the new dimension of the occupants. I cannot see any evidence whatscever that in even a liberal or pseudo liberal autherity (such as Neweastle and Byker) the same changes could become firmly accepted. A close hook at the pressures surrounding the truth of this. I think the RIBA can help change the way that architects are prepared to work - a development£ do not detect in local authorities. I enclose £2 for past present ond future issues of Slate. Yours sincerely NeAAs Ne Cine rh es * Howser Trunnion, New Arch}itecture Movement. CARAS i{= ee PE Community architecture is beset by myths and half truths relating to the role of professionals, the rele of the public and the role of the authorities. Those talking loudest are often those not involved in the day to day supervision of a community insspared development (Partick Housing Trust, Pearman St Co operative, Black Road 2 etc) but those enjoying themselve: giving advice without responsibility. os course, there's room for both. SNL aa eeGalLl ae atSR the Byker 'experiment' will indicate Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Charles McKean Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 14 June 1977 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/33ba5205461219f217f33bfbd6c6fa5e.pdf f6f27139635af0cdefe2930623045921 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Letter Subject The topic of the resource Letter to C McKean of RIBA Community Architecture Working Group Description An account of the resource Charles MeKean Community Architecture Working Group Royal Institute of British Architects 66 Portland Place London Wl 1 t bear Charles McKean “@ thank you for your invitation to participate in the RIBA working Group on Coamunity Architecture which we «wre, however, unable to accept. ve feel that this important topic should more properly be the subject for public debdate and so, given the non-accountability of the profession, it would be immppropriate to discuss it in the context you propose, Therefore we are reluctant to add any weight whéch we may have bpe participating on this occasion, Our view stems froa a principle widely held witnin NAM that statutory or public bodies within the building industry and society at large) are more appropriate agencies for change than private chartered institutions. Tt asssars to us that no matter how the terus of reference of the working group aud conference are drawn, it as axiowatic that the X1sA's primary role of eafeguerding professional interests as they now stand is irreconcilable with the purported intentions of the brief, Sinilarly we feel the edootion by the KIVA of any of the other issues on hich .is working: to achieve change is likely at best only to modify aopescances leaving the structure intact. Ye hepe nonetheless that you will find our developing work of intarest anc that possibly we may meet in the future in circumstances more on the lines we h.ve imolied. Yours sincerely Hawaer Trmmnion for NDS/NAN f : Liason Grenp Caroli Greup. NDS Group New Architecture Movement 9 Poland Street Lendon Wl NN aab A sath eh anmalierat os soinsaU oieSige vecespiNncRRAsSteaiine wi a dota cee onl aie iliAdes f co John Mian, Wn Murrey ; “ Neville Morgen, Many $ccAh Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hawser Trunnion Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Allan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 1977 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/3fd5a982419ece9db9e84c952716eb3d.pdf cd009f1deaa07117f289570b38386c55 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource THE PRACTICE OF COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE Subject The topic of the resource RIBA CAWG Report setting out case for a Community Aid Fund. Report opposes local authority public architecture services Description An account of the resource THE PRACTICE OF COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE: the case for a Community Aid Fund. Royal Institute of British Architects. fe , t yei Jy, ery >Do>s a) Baa ’2 : [ oh p20ae ob Ate eet23 Are sorte Beat AS Ah 7oN This paper sets out the case for a Community Aid Fund to be established within the framework of the Government's urban programme. The Fund would make professional services available directly to groups and individuals to satisfy needs at present unmet through existing channels. Introduction community groups. community. —— ape 1. The Community Architecture Working Group of the RIBA was formed in late 1976. It was established as a result of the increasing concern, within the profession, at the difficulties encountered in attempting to provide adequate professional services for certain community needs. The nature of those needs and the current attempts to provide services to meet them are indicated in the case studies which accompany this report. Whilst they vary widely in scope they all show a clear need for professional assistance and in certain respects share a common background in the These problems continue to raise fundamental questions both about the nature and organisation of professional assistance itself and more particularly 2. In carrying out this task, the Working Group has gathered evidence In response to these concerns the Community Architecture Working b) to explore the problems involved in providing such services. c) to identify areas of current and future need. d) to recommend appropriate action to enable professional skills and resources to match more adequately the needs of the wider from national bodies including the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Town and Country Planning Association, Shelter and the Civic Trust, and has examined over 60 case studies where community groups have received or are S ————— receiving, professional help. 33 of these studies are annexed to this report. problems of obtaining and financing that assistance. about the organisation and level of funding for the physical environment. Group was set up with the following broad terms of reference:- a) examine the kinds of professional services currently provided to Evidence From The Case Studies conclusions:- :2’ be met in the future unless radical changes are made. shown to exist. accessible. 3. The evidence from the case studies suggests the following a) (that there is a strong demand for professional help to community groups which is not being met adequately, either by public service or by private practice, and that it is unlikely to that at present the types of demand vary widely, ranging from the improvement of older properties to environmental education. The eight types shown in the attached list of case Studies highlight the gaps between the main areas of finance for the physical environment and specific community needs. Even if the legislative and professional framework changes in the future to meet these needs it seems likely that others will be that these needs are not a temporary phenomenon and demand is likely to continue and grow particularly if professional services are better advertised and made more readily that there are considerable social, environmental and economic benefits to be derived from meeting this demand quickly. Where residents, whether tenants or owners, have added their own efforts to over-stressed local services these have manifested themselves in a better maintained physical environment and greater public spirit. Community projects represent good value for money by ensuring appropriate solutions and reducing maintenance and vandalism costs. Also where local people have been prepared to do work for themselves there have been considerable savings in capital costs, provided that the necessary professional support is available to carry out proper co-ordination and ensure adequate quality. Moreover, particularly in housing, the arrest of further deterioration now is helping to avoid the cost and disruption of subsequent demolition and replacement. e) _that the existence of professional help can enable communities jto derive maximum benefit from existing legislation, for instance by helping to speed up the take up of improvement grants for older housing and by ensuring the quality of the work carried out. The existence of such expertise can therefore make a positive contribution to the success and cost effectiveness of Government programmes. Current Problems In Meeting The Demand and thirdly the lack of resources for fees. providing professional services. 4, From the available evidence it emerges that the main reasons why the demand for professional services is not being adequately met are firstly the present structure of local authorities, secondly lack of legislative provision 5. In the public sector, some of the problems of local authority professional services have already been identified by the New Architecture Movement's report on Community Architecture. They include lack of resources both financial and staff, in some cases lack of commitment to the idea of community architecture, both among staff and elected members, and an organisational inability to respond quickly and sensitively to local community needs. Furthermore, an additional fundamental point, not adequately dealt with by N.A.M., is that there can be inherent conflicts of interest between, for example, particular community groups and the policies of their local authority. This can arise,for instance, in the case of local groups objecting to specific Compulsory Purchase Order proceedings or lobbying for alterations to Structure Plans. If public service professionals, as currently employed, were to aid community groups in such cases they would be acting against the corporate policies of their employing authorities. This is sometimes done but it cannot be judged to be a satisfactory means of 6. The form of legislation can create problems which effectively restrict access to adequate professional advice, as in the case of Urban Aid schemes where costed sketch schemes are often required before a grant is made but no support is available for the preparation of the inception work. A similar Situation arises in the cases of work on Manpower Services Commission projects and Improvement Grants, where the use of adequate professional advice is inhibited by the lack of specific financing provisions within the legislation. - for aid. or carry the financial risks involved. 7. In the private sector, the profession is unable to provide an adequate service for projects when no provision is made for fees or when payment of fees is inadequate or seriously delayed. From an analysis of the case studies it is clear that where it has been possible to ascertain costs, architects have received no more on average than 1/6 of the fees to which they are entitled. In almost all cases, they have pointed out that the inception of a project up to feasibility stage is more difficult in working for a community client than for any other. The client as an identifiable organisation may not yet exist, or if it does, it may be unclear about what is required or what is achievable. Considerable time and effort have therefore to be devoted to the project to bring it to a stage at which a local authority, or other sponsoring body, can approve it and determine grant, if indeed the project is accepted as qualifying 8. The uncertainty experienced by private practice over payment, particularly for feasibility studies, means that few practices, especially small ones of the kind best suited to this work, can afford to offer a full time service. Accordingly, professional input is either reduced to a point at which ‘it is barely effective, or is carried out on a part time basis, which in the end benefits neither the community nor the profession. The recent state of the building industry means that very few practices are in a position to subsidise 9. It has been suggested that financial help for professional services is available through Legal Aid, but this is seldom the case. Legal Aid is only available to those with very nominal disposable assets. Householders who wish to improve their homes for instance, who in most cases have to find their share of the cost of doing so, will obviously have some disposable assets, so although they may have no other resources with which to pay for professional advice, the very fact that they are in a position to require aid usually renders them ineligible for Legal Aid. Suggested Action 10. There is already an awareness within the Department of the Environment, the professions and informed public opinion, of the social necessity for communities to be more closely involved in determining their physical environment. There are many overlapping developments ranging from changes in tenure and control, as shown by the ‘tenants’ charter' and the co-operative movement, to changes in participation and access as shown in recent planning and housing legislation. The RIBA itself is involved in studies concerning the matching of professional skills to needs, including the study of the Role of the Architectural Profession in the Work of Public Authorities, and investigations into alternative forms of practice which will indicate medium and long term lines of development. The specific recommendation of this report however is for immediate action in the short term to provide a source of funds for communities to pay for their own professional advice on environmental matters. us To some extent, some of the cases examined could, and arguably shoud, have fallen within the responsibility of the local authorities concerned. However, if local authorities are to meet the demand for professional services sensitive to the needs of local communities then both professional and political attitudes and structures will have to undergo radical changes. However desirable such changes may be, they are long term solutions. Even if such changes were made there will still be situations where residents are at variance with the established authority or where the authority has no particular involvement or no resources are available. For these reasons it is Suggested that there will always be a need for independent professional advice and services both to assist community groups and to act as conciliators when conflicts arise. Furthermore this service should be seen as a valid and important extension of public service in the broadest sense. CommunAidtFuynd 13. The RIBA therefore proposes that a national Community Aid Fund be set up, sponsored by the Department of the Environment. Such a system would involve problems of accountability and clearly it will be necessary to establish some machinery whereby the authenticity of projects and the bona fides of community groups can be ascertained as there is no precedent in this country for channelling public funds direct to community groups. The following alternatives may be worth considering: by analogy with the Law Society and Legal Aid, money could be channelled through a joint professional committee or it could be channelled through a joint professional committee or it could be channelled through the National Council for Social Services or system could be organised here. programme. 12. The need for these services is pressing now but is likely to increase in { the near future as the new initiatives to encourage the involvement and | concern of communities in the development of their physical environment, take effect. The services, as shown in the case studies, include community environmental education, for residents to learn about their opportunities and rights as well as professional assistance for specific problems. The former, although very important, is largely outside the scope of this report: it is to " In the United States, the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is currently considering a programme of grants direct to neighbourhood organisations which could, in part, be used to provide the professional advice they need, and the National Endowment for the Arts {an approximate equivalent to the British Arts Council) is empowered as an independent agency to make funds available to private individuals and the latter that the recommendation is addressed. through an independent agency siinilar to the Housing Corporation. 14. Examples from overseas also serve as a useful pointer to how such a community groups through its Architectural and Environmental Arts In Holland a scheme has been introduced whereby private practice architects can be paid out of public funds to work with local community groups. The scheme operates in a number of towns including Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and early results indicate that the Dutch Government expect it to be expanded. Recommendation 15. The RIBA recommends that joint discussions be arranged through the Department of the Environment with all interested parties to develop the practical shape of a Community Aid Fund to meet the needs described in this report. These discussions might examine the extent, scope, management and | accountability of such a fund. The RIBA believes that these aspects are capable of solution and that a Community Aid Fund would be a valuable contribution towards satisfying certain basic environmental and social needs. a) South Field Square, Bradford Archite-cJothn Brunton & Partners. Cli-eSnheltter Housing and Renewal Experiment. Project: The improvement of the properties and subsequent preparation of evidence for a public inquiry against clearance. 75 properties. Briefed May 1974, first fees received November 1975 from a housing association. Actual cost of fees £887, including voluntary help, total cost including voluntary help estimated at £2,000: money received - £500. The local authority has refused to remove South Field Square from its clearance programme, which means there is no public source of funds to finance this sort of work for the local residents. The Square is a listed building. Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales Architect -Chris Whittaker of Stephen George & Partners, Client - South Wales Anti-Poverty Action Centre, followed by Merthyr Housing Group, followed by Merthyr Tydfil Housing Association. Over a hundred small old houses have been looked at and schemes prepared for two infill sites since 1976. So far the cost to the practice has exceeded £10,000. No money has yet been transferred to the Houstng Association. In this long development stage there has been a lot of wastage while the association the council, the Housing Corporation, and the District Valuer open up that narrow band of houses that are too poor to find private buyers but which can still be rehabilitated. The practice now has an office in the town, but should it have had to Carry the costs so far on its own? Confidential Community Case Studies Category 1: Poor Housing Areas b) The following case studies illustrate the variety of community projects for which professional services have been required; they are typical of the activities which would benefit from the establishment of a Community Aid Fund. They are listed under 8 main subject areas. The DOE's 1976 Housing Condition and Social Surveys indicated that nearly 20% of the country's housing was in need of attention, mostly of repair, and that the need was greater where there was a concentration of elderly people and poorer families. Although the surveys show a decline in the number of unfit houses, particularly in whole areas, there are still a number of existing situations where residents, either singly or in communities, are threatened by demolition and clearance. It is in this category that the Fund would have an immediate benefit, in providing residents with professional help both to defend their homes against clearance and to prepare alternative proposals, and also to improve them. St Andrews Street, Development Co-operative, Beverley A project involving 30 new-build and 30 rehabilitated houses for a housing co-operative; involving bringing the residents together, establishing the co-operative, carrying out the professional work, and establishing credibility for the co-operative, without which the street would have been demolished and the community dispersed. The professional skills provided came free from three members of the Hull School of Architecture. No fees were paid, but the assessed cost of the professional service was approximately £3,000. The benefits of their efforts is demonstrated by the fact that the houses are now being rehabilitated. d) e) c) f) g) Qucens Road, Kingston-upon-Hull Representing 168 house owners against demolition proposals at a public inquiry. Preparation of scheme up to public inquiry took 15 months, estimated cost of professional help £2,000. Help came from members of the Hull School of Architecture, free of charge. Professional work included detailed house survey, a comprehensive social survey, structural report, plans for rehabilitation, preparation of specification, costings, preparation of an alternative plan for the area, a phasing programme, organising a case for a public enquiry. RedevelopmenotfpriorityareasintheAngel, Islington,London Staff and students of the Polytechnic of North London were first approached in September 1973, and work was carried out over the following year. The purpose of the project was to translate the planning proposal for the area into architectural design for the benefit of local community and for council members. The principal contribution the project made was to demonstrate to members of the council and their architects’ department that considerably more rehabilitation of so-called ‘poor building’ was possible than that proposed by their planning study. As a result of the demonstration, the council had adopted a policy of fewer 'clean sweeps’. The cost of professional services has not been assessed. 13_150-year old cottages, the Meadows, Kidsgrove Rod Hackney Associates were bricfed to represent the owners at a public enquiry. The time involved in the preparation of material, and the assessed cost of professional feces are not stated. No fees or expenses were paid. Parton, West Cumbria Representation by Rod Hackney Associates on behalf of local residents at a public enquiry to save Bank Yard Row and White Row. A housing association was prepared to acquire the houses and rehabilitate them. Bank Yard Row was saved, but White Row was not. No professional fees or expenses were recovered for White Row. They are likely to be recovered for Bank Yard Row as part of the rehabilitation costs. ' -10- Moor End, Northenden, Manchester Rod Hackney Associates represented all the local residents at a public enquiry at which Manchester City Council withdrew its case , so allowing residents to carry on with improvement proposals. The architect had to finance his professional work over five years from first being asked to help the residents until such time as they received their grants for improvement. 1 - 23 Nealden St, Lambeth, London The study and investigation of an alternative form of renewal in Nealden St, as against the comprehensive redevelopment proposed by the Borough. The study was carried out by the Housing Renewal Unit on behalf of the Solon Housing Association and a residents association. Actual cost of fees- £7,000; money received £2,500 in instalments during the project. The money came from Solon, which does not normally have the money to finance studies of this nature. Despite that, however, the HRU's proposals turned out to be substantially cheaper in terms of capital investment requirement and more cost effective in social terms than the development proposals by Lambeth. Leedsbatcobkacks A survey by the Housing Renewal Unit of a cellular renewal approach was applied to Leeds, with the Leeds Civic Trusts and the Leeds Community Housing Working Party as clients. Cost of the study in professional fees £1,000 but only fares were paid. The purpose was to explore the opportunities of a gradual approach to renewal for the remaining 30,000 back-to-backs in Leeds. There is no official source of funds to pay for such theoretical and general studies which would be done on behalf of local authorities. ASSIST, Govan, Glasgow The project started within the Department of Architecture at the University of Strathclyde, with a grant of £10,000 each from the Wates Foundation and the Scottish Development Department. The sced money has borne fruit in a changed attitude to rehabilitation of tenements in Glasgow. This is manifested by some 12,000 houses now in housing action areas all over the city which might otherwise have been destroyed. As is customary in such projects, the money received was from special sources. It was hard enough to raise the money in 1971, and might now be impossible. Carlisle and Cumberland, Portsmouth The Housing Renewal Unit prepared detailed evidence and alternative proposals for 85 houses - phase 1 of a clearance area of approximately 350 houses. Project included survey of house conditions, household attitudes and decisions on the range of rehabilitation options. The professional work involved is likely to cost up to £5,000, and a fee of £50 is to be paid. The money will come from Shelter, the client being a combination of the residents association and Shelter. The Consultants are now carrying out Phases Two and Three of this job for no further fee. -ll- m) -ampaign Nottingham a) Camlachie School, Gallowgate, Glasgow A project to defend 77 old properties apainst a Compulsory Purchase Order, and make representations at a Public Inquiry. Work included educating the inhabitants on procedure, social and house surveys, preparing alternative plans, and making the case for the enquiry. -The architects, D Nicholson-Cole and M Chiuini will receive no fee unless the residents win their case, although the solicitor involved will receive his costs through Legal Aid. Much of the architects’ time was spent on giving quasi-legal advice, planning matters, housing legislation, and doing surveys. Category 2: Community Buildings Community groups May wish to use a building, usually an existing one, for their own community purpose. They require professional assistance to prepare a technical argument in order to secure finance. Conversion work partly carried out by Community Industry with specialist contractors, initiated by the teachers running the community school. ASSIST provided advice on feasibility, on conversion, negotiations with Education Authorities, Fire Master, Building Control, Planning etc. designed the conversion, negotiated with the electrical] and plumbing contractors, supervised their work and co-ordinated the Construction process. Problems included the high level of vandalism and theft from the site, and the unreliable nature of the community workforce. Architectural input in such projects must have continuity given the inexperience of the client. To expect such projects to be Squeezed into any office as unpaid work handed from architect to architect is to invite disaster. Assessed cost of fees £1,500: fees received —nil. Dixon Hall Day Centre, Govan Hill, Glasgow Conversion of a public hall for use as a day centre for pensioners. ASSIST were asked to produce ideas for the conversion, and to produce a scheme sufficiently detailed to form the basis for an Urban Aid Grant. This necessitated taking the project to production drawing Stape, as the local authority had to be assured that all necessary building regulations were complied with. If work does not proceed, assessed fees would come to £2,500 of which ASSIST may receive £1,000. Note: Much of ASSIST's work is at stages A and B (inception and feasibility). Most grant giving bodies do not pay for this stage of the work. c) Govanhill Community Rooms, Govanhill, Glasgow This is the conversion and alteration of two temporary school class- rooms for the Govanhill Youth and Community Youth Association. Problems included those arising from the use of job creation labour, and the fact that JCP programmes allow only 10% over salary costs for overheads which is wholly inadequate to cover the real costs of housing, supporting and supervising young and fairly inexperienced architect. There is uncertainty about the liability for professional negligence of a practice sponsoring a JCP architect. ASSIST receive no payment for supervision, nor for providing accommodation, phones, nor secretarial services used by the JCP architect. The architect was financed under the JCP programme but the JCP Grants are insufficient to cover adequately the professional services. Bridstow Village Hall, Ross on Wye, Herefordshire The repair or renewal of the village hall for which grants would be available as long as work began before April 1979. In rural areas, the village hall or community centre is more often than not the focal point for social and recreational activities. Yet most organisations using them are generally short of funds. They are reluctant to spend part of their very limited resources in engaging professional consultants. The result is that they either attempt to do it themselves in which case they may fail to meet the criteria for funds, or are led into a package deal without adequate safepuards on their side. When the committee sought grant aid from the County Council, they had not sought any professional advice and had wasitd valuable time. The result was the village hall committee failed to seek professional advice early enough in the year to ensure the most economic solution to the problem was found, and the application was not submitted in time for planning permission. Brilley Village Hall, Brilley, Herefordshire The extension and improvement to the village hall, a converted redundant village school. The committee did not seek professional advice and submitted a grant application which did not make the best use of the money or space. The estimate of costs first submitted by the committee for their own scheme turned out to be based on the use of voluntary labour. Now the scope of the work is fully appreciated it is apparent that the work will be beyond their capabilities. The project will now have to be carried out in two phases spread over two years due to insufficient thought at the initial stage regarding the way the building was to be improved and the cost of this work. Although redundant village schools can make extremely good village halls with careful consideration at the design stage, committees, usually short of funds, attempt to design the conversion themselves without professional advice. The result is unnecessary delay, additional costs and in some cases the aborting of the project. =a ai d) e) Lenton Community Centre, Nottingham Nottingham Community Arts and Crafts Centre The conversion of the Old Dispensary at Gregory Boulevard, into an Arts and Crafts Centre. David Nicholson-Cole prepared proposals ior a group of local people, and did the typing and graphics for the report. He thereafter worked on the preparation of a Manpower Services Commission application. All professional services were donated although the architect had a university salary on which to live. The project had dual objectives in aiming to provide working space for craftsmen to earn their living and also to teach their craft, both of which would alleviate inner city problems. Architectural advice was necessary but there was no moncy to pay for it. Merseyside Carribean Centre, Liverpool8 Since the project is funded under the Urban Programme, the Merseyside Carribean Council had to apply initially to Liverpool City Council. In order to make a proper application, a substantial amount of architectural services was required in advance: - agreement of the brief, finding them a site, negotiations with various local authority departments, site appraisal and investigation, sketch plans, outline of a realistic cost estimate. These services were provided by James Hunter Associates, Liverpool planning approval, and the production architects. If the application Programme applications in Liverpool have a success rate of 1 in 10) the Council would have been unable services. A community aid fund would make it easier for voluntary organisations to take a positive attitude towards environmental change. The reason is that the absence of expert knowledge can cause organisations to come unstuck when regulations and legislation surrounding architectural and environmental issues. The value of preliminary work prior to grant aid application being made was approximately £2,500. Nottingham City offered the Tenants Association a portion of a baths building built in the thirties, £2,000 conversion. Architect David Nicholson-Cole produced a feasibility study for the cheapest possible plan which cost £9,000. After that the City Council architect did the necessary working drawings and provided other professional services, and David Nicholson-Cole's task was to monitor the building work and help the residents. Services were donated free by the architect. The Tenants’ Association, being composed of council tenants, had no finance to pay for professional fees, yet the architect's help multiplied the money available to tenants by four and a half, simply by finding out what they needed and working out the best plan. The action of the City Council doing the architectural drawings based on the architects drawings, negotiating with the builders and supervising the work was the ideal compromise. had been unsuccessful (Urban to pay for these architectural confronted with a host of was offered to pay for the Day Work andCentrefor Radford Community Care Group,Nottingham David Nicholson-Cole was asked by the Action Resource Centre to prepare plans for a site selected by the Radford Care Group to provide a day centre in which old people could spend the day. Architect prepared plans for the site, obtained costings from a builder, and fresh drawings for local authority approvals and tenders. No fees received for feasibility work; fees payable after an Urban Aid grant is received on a time basis. Without the professional work, the old people of Radford would have been unable to accept the donation of a redundant prefab nor make an application for an Urban Aid grant for the new building. A Community Aid Fund would have enabled the Radford Care Group to feel that the success of the project did not depend entirely on the continuing generosity of one person. Category 3: Conversions Similarly in kind to Category 2, this category includes the conversion of buildings for a variety of uses, including the provision of small scale workshops. a) Margaret Street Baths, Everton, Liverpool 5 100 years old building closed in 1974. Local voluntary organisations assisted by the Liverpool Council for Social Service, produced a scheme for the conversion of the baths to a sports centre for use by un-clubbable teenagers who were causing havoc on the streets. This required detailed negotiations with various councillors and officers of the local authority. Initial design work, costings and organisation of the funding was worked out by architects Jim Hunter and Nigel Worth. Without expert knowledge it is certain that this scheme would have floundered in early stages. Architectural services for inception and feasibility were donated free to the project. The value of these services was approximately £2,000. In addition to this, assistance had been provided by the staff at LCVS. b) Rotherhithe Workshops, Hope Sufferance Wharf, Southwark, London SE16 The renovation of warchouses and conversion to craft workshops and a dance studio on behalf of the Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust. This was a particularly difficult task in converting historic warehouses into low cost workshops, using paid direct labour teams, and inexperienced site management. The professional fees involyed came to at least £7,000, which were paid in full. However they were paid out of a number of grants, which took a very long time to assemble. In addition to that, initial feasibility studies were provided free of charge -although without those feasibility studies the project would never have been started. The immense amount of inception work which this project required was provided on a voluntary basis. The lack of funds for the planning stage undoubtedly led to higher costs later on. Sis c) Brunel Exhibition Project, London Si:16 d) Working out schemes _that Category 4: _Anti-vandalism a) ‘ Angela Street, Liverpool The project consisted of landscaping a former junkyard, followed by the restoration of Brunel's Engine House for the Thames Tunnel. The scheme was funded by a variety of charities, an appeal, local authority and DOE funds. There have been many difficulties causing substantial delay including obtaining the use of the site, the release of funds, the necessary approvals, agreement on specification, and raising more finance. Once again, the body of the work was done by Nicholas Falk on a voluntary basis. Some £3,242 worth of professional fees have been incurred to date by the architects Duffy, Eley, Giffone Worthington in addition to £1,938 worth of abortive work. Total amount of money received so far - £500. This case study reveals yet again the difficulty of getting schemes started -particularly where they involve older buildings which require very much more negotiation than the construction of new ones, and hence more professional fees. t mest fall within approved government prograanmdmbuedgsetse.g.inrelationtotheD.O.E.'sIndustrial Improvement Areas or the M.S.C.'s Special Opportunities Programme. Often 'third force' agencies are needed, particularly where there are multiple objectives and several sources of finance to be tapped. A good example of this problem is the difficulty that the Job Building Action Group (JAG) has had in setting up a training workshop and related flatted factories in Lambeth. Thougn Wicholas Falk helped the group devise a scheme involving a number of different voluntary groups, JAG lacked the capacity properly to evaluate the various possible sites and press the case’ for one of them. The Industrial Buildings Preservation Trust has spent around £500 on working up schemes for converting buildings owned by the GLC into workshops, and it is easy for a voluntary body's resources to be exhausted if nothing goes ahead. Local residents' or tenants' groups require professional help to combat vandalism, often in post-war developments, where the built environment has contributed to the problem. Hunter Associates of Liverpool were commissioned under the Inner Area Studies to carry out a scheme of Defensible Space in blocks of four storey walk-up flats in inner demonstrated the extent to which living conditions in those flats were virtually untenable, and it tested out some methods of improving them. The point of the inclusion of this in these case studies is that the money came from a special research fund. There is no normal source of finance to pay for this sort of work, although it is essential if improved living conditions for tenants are to be achieved. Liverpool. This experiment b) Tower Hill Estate, Kirkby, Knowsley c) Withens Centre, Cantril Farm, Liverpool Category 5: Use of derelict land The Lively Arts Centre, Dock St. London On behalf of the Half Moon Community Theatre, the Community end Resource Planning Group prepared a report looking at the revival of the surrounding area near Wiltons Music Hall. The report recommended refurbishing empty and derelict warchousing, out of doors activities on derelict land, the provision of low cost housing, #nd associated industrial units, whereas the centre of the square will be used by the local community for various activities. Joint clients were the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and the professional fees were assessed at £5,500. No fees have been received, and none are likely to be unless the scheme proceeds. =n lie a) This is a virtually uninhabited scheme of deck access, multi-storey maisonettes with low income families. In addition to the unsuitability of accommodation for low income families, the construction of the buildings is technically poor. Pre-cast concrete cladding panels leak at the joints, access decks leak water into the flats below, and condensation is rife. The tenants commissioned Hunter Associates to prepare technical reports in some cases required to back up legal action undertaken under Section 99 of the Public Health Act. Although some of the services can be obtained under the Legal Aid scheme, in practice the time scale relating to such payments is too long to work. A community aid fund would allow harrassed tenants groups to participate in the improvement of their own living conditions. The value of the consulting work was approximately £1,000. No payment received. This is a multi-level district shopping centre in the centre of an overspill estate. Residents are harrassed by delinquent teenagers who use the centre and the communal deck access as an unofficial adventure playground. Cars parked in the underground carpark are prone to break-ins and vandalism. Hunter Associates were asked by the residents to report on ways to make this centre safer. This report involved a considerable amount of study, and produced 8 proposals. There is no finance available to pay for the preparation of this report or the recommendation. The availability of a community aid fund would allow similar groups of residents to purchase technical expertise and to contribute to the decision making. Value of consultancy work approx. £1,000. No payment received. Community groups can often find a short term use for waste land and need help in securing it and in providing a technical solution for its community use. The services provided by Inter-Action's NUBS in helping the establishment of Urban Farms fall into this category. =aia b) Use ofland bencath motorways The study of land beneath an elevated motorway showed that it could provide facilities for the local community including a self-build theatre, low cost community facilities, a shop, landscape improvements, and a community hall. These projects were completed by a group of local architects acting individually or as a member of the community design group over three years (1971-74). The funding was organised through a charitable trust, and fee paying projects subsidised unpaid or voluntary work. Not all the proposals have been taken up, and there is a large amount of derelict land still unused, Category 6: Area Studies c) Other references There are a number of publications on this subject giving details of projects carried out. They include the Civic Trust's Urban Wasteland” report and Norwich City Council's "Heritage over the Wensum". Local people not only require explanations of the planning authority's proposals, but also need to commission independent studies, and obtain advice in formulating alternative proposals. a) A continuous programme in Canterbury Involving students, local groups and professionals refining and developing plans to mect the needs for people living in the area. For example, a recurring problem was what to do with cars in the city centre. The local authority proposed a multi-storey car park. One result of the studies demonstrated that almost as many Cars as could be accommodated in the multi-storey, could be parked in the existing surface car parks simply by laying them out properly. Potential saving of £2 million. Secondly, alternative proposals were made for a site for a large office development in a residential area. The public enquiry came out in favour of those alternatives. Thirdly, the design and negotiation of a community garden on land that had been blighted by road proposals in the middle of a conservation area. This garden is now proceeding. None of these projects would have been carried out without the area studies produced free of charge. b) An investigation into the effects of industrial development upon rural communities for the Easter Ross residents group in Scotland. Community and Resource Planning Group (CRPG) were asked to report on the likely effect of major industrial decisions upon existing rural areas. The report was made available to residents of Easter Ross, was summarised on television and radio, and was discussed in the House of Commons. Publication of 2,000 copies of the report was funded by the residents group. Assessed cost of professional fees £15,000; fees received £5,000. c) Category 7: Adult Education and Environmental Education a) Environmental Education for Adults and Schools Involvement of the public in planning matters is now central to Government policy. Some planning decisions-on _ rehousing, relocation, transport etc - have a direct bearing on individuals and on companies. Yet there are few methods by which the non-professional can acquire the know-how to survive and prosper. One of the root causes of urban troubles could be the lack of such education, and the subsequent apathy or antipathy toward environmental matters. Work done in Urban Studies Centres and the Newcastle Architectural Workshop demonstrate the need for special educational units or centres. Best linked closely with a School of Architecture and within the area of a sympathetic local authority the unit should draw together different design professions and teachers. Sao Opinion survey of industrial development around the Moray Firth in Easter Ross. CPRG was asked to undertake an opinion survey of 5% of the families living in Easter Ross with a view to discovering the extent of movement of people into and out of the area, the adequacy of employment and local amenities, the views of local people concerning existing industry, and the attitude of local people towards communication of official information. The document demonstrated a clear picture of life in Easter Ross with rapid acceleration of people moving into the area during the last five years; the desperate need for more jobs and a general desire for industrial development to be more closely related to the size and scale of existing communities. Assessed cost of professional fees: £5,000; fees recieved £900. There is a pressing need for people to be more aware of their urban environment, its quality, need and potential. Innovation in the community architecture/education field is becoraing increasingly important if we are to satisfy the needs of society. Finance is urgently required to set up an experimental unit(s) in an inner city/partnership area for a minimum period of five years. Pilot work would be geared to the needs of the community and would be monitored over the trial period. - This work would relate to programmes already evolving through institutions such as the Urban Studies Centres and the Newcastle Architectural Workshop. The capital cost of setting up such a unit is expected to be in the region of £30,000 and running costs for a staff of 6-8 approximately £60,000. The Unit would be a major innovation in the fields of higher and professional education. y 8: Arbitration This category covers cases where professional help is required to produce technical evidence in rent tribunals or to settle disputes between agprieved residents. a) Rod Hackney Associates appeared on behalf of Pensioners who could not afford an increase in rent. 45 professional hours were spent in this case, with no indication from the client on how they could repay professional charges. The bill remains outstanding. Solicitors acting for the tenants obtained fees through the Legal Aid funding system, but the architect did not. The architects’ involvement was necessary because structural and condition surveys had to be drawn up. In addition, the clients were trying to persuade the landlord to improve the property. A schedule of work, of drawings and specifications were required as information for the arbitration. Without free professional advice in the building field, a successful case could not have been entertained. -20- Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource RIBA Community Architecture Working Group Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Decenber 1978 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/dc4369feadfeb1022f050a519d19cdca.pdf 754fc750fbbc3a249e5d94b12df73af9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource a REAL guide to Liverpool Subject The topic of the resource What architects do-some views from the ground by group of Liverpool architects Description An account of the resource ahs dt Merseyside Weak Architecture 1945 -1995? p 5 Raverttain and Price 10p . Blind Guide (25p &employedRIGAmember) We only work here! Written by a group of designers in Liverpool interested in looking for real solutions to thecitie yOoblems aREAL— torosea| Living ‘on’ Cities 1.WHAT DO ARCHITECTS DO? ~ 2.WHO CONTROLS US? 3. WHAT ARCHITECTS HAVE DONE IN LIVERPOOL. 1. WHAT ARCHITECTS DO — SOME VIEWS FROM THE GROUND. The following summarises discussions between people working for different arch’ ts practices during a series of ‘designers meetings’ held in Liverpool in the first uif of 1978. Most people know we have something to do with designing buildings, but what isitreally like? A. HOUSING — which makes up about 50% of al buildings built. 4. WHERE ARE WE NOW, AND HOW DO WE CONTINUE? In Liverpool one years housing output is made up by: Housing Co-ops and Associations doing about 1,000 conversions and 200 new houses. Council new housing, falling from 966 completions this year to less than 60 by 1982. Building companies ‘build for sale’, just started with 670 completions this year with a total of 2250 completed by 1982. Also there is the council’s modernisation programme programme and some grant improvement work, 5. THE ‘REPRODUCTION’ OF ARCHITECTS Clearance programmes have virtually stopped, and with Housing Associations rehabil- itating the remaining stock at a fairly constant rate or providing ‘specialist’ new houses (pensioners, young people etc.) the large numbers of empty sites around previously ear marked for council redevelopment will be now rapidly filled with low-density, suburban- type housing produced by the speculative divisions of Unit, Wimpey, Broseley and other familiar building firms. The council's own building programme is rapidly grinding toa halt. In Liverpool, the need is to organise and co-ordinate action and discussion between architects and other groups Designers need to open up a description of their skills which enables them to work alongside other groups rather than feeling that if they do not lead, they have failed. There is an increasing number of examples of environmental and building work being done in either a collective or co-operative way. These two articles are written partly from discussions held in the first half of this year by people interested in forming a non-professional group of building designers Now a clearer picture has emerged, a group will be formed in the autumn to continue analysis, formulate acticn on certain issues, and take on projects. If you are working in architecture or building design, want to know more about architectural organisation and practice, doing or needing projects which involve a Housing Associations are directly controlled by central government's Housing Corp- oration, originally intended to encourage small-scale organisations to develop housing which was more responsive to people’s needs (and architects and designers would be able to work more closely with tenants). The local authority system was seen to have become too cumbersome and type-cast. Now, however, the two Liverpool ‘giants’ which do the majority of the work have almost equally hierarchical structures. Another prob- lem is that the independence of associations from the local council and ‘democracy’ leaves them open to control in some cities by managers who pursue their own self-inter- est to the extent that they become like the old private landlords. Architects who discussed their work in a larger association felt they were being edged out of the hierarchy by more politically-oriented housing and building managers or surveyors. The idea of a closer relationship with tenants in design has faded as ‘feedback’ from tenants is chanelled in the form of the association management's briefing of the architectural team. Architects seldom have a place on a management team, and the con- trolling Housing Corporation itself has a distinct lack of architect members. Discussion of the range of different design possibilities, or factors such as the need for better methods of energy conservation to keep heating costs down in the future are therefore left out of the associations’ policies. In this situation design has become, like many other jobs, mechanistic: tight Housing Corporation control has squeezed design. Pressure on architects’ fees is forcing them to minimise time spent in the important early stages of design when liaison with tenants could be most useful. With only half a day during an average week spent on the drawing board, the rest of the time is taken up with form-filling and bureacratic pro- cedures, The cost of any such design choices as can be made is often outweighed pure- ly by the amount the cost of work rises while waiting for central government decisions. Preparatory work done on schemes which are subsequently axed is not paid for. Although architects can be rightly criticised for wasting money in the past, to cut out design altogether is both to threaten our jobs and waste even more money by not designing what tenants need. collective way of working etc., contact: ; ‘Designers Meeting’, c/o School of Architecture, University, Liverpool. The contributors to group discussion were:— Mike Brown, Paul Coats, Chris Cripps, Robb MacDona Bill Halsall, Jonty Godfrey, Frank Horton, Nigel J Graham Ward and others. The articles as published 4o not necessarily represent the Id, Don Field, Pete Gommon, ones, Alison Lindsay, Weak and its 1978 Conference in Liverpool: views of contributors. n from the RIBA‘s brochure for Merseyside Architecture The cover is take sares ‘Living in Cities. The Housing Co-ops, with a much smaller turnover, offer the possibility of tenant con- trol in that tenants’ co-ops own the houses by paying only a nominal membership fee. In-house architects are service agencies to the co-ops, and people working in this situation felt that, as a result, the housing product was a better deal for tenants. But the co-ops tend to be sited only in the city’s ‘crisis areas’ and don’t give an opportunity for better design as such: architects had become involved in forming a more direct relat- ionship with tenants, builders and the Housing Corporation in places in which any of the other housing solutions would be unworkable. The architect was merely outlining the rigours of housing legislation, circulars and cost-constraints (e.g. bog-roll holders are out this year — too expensive) to tenants, or explaining drawings to unskilled build- ers. Whether or not anyone thinks this is what architects should be doing, it points to the waste of the lengthy professional training needed to qualify for this job. Altern: atively, people with such skills can see how their time is spent in the implementation of tightly-controlled procedures which overrule such opportunities as might arise from more time to design, both in detail, and at the level of the whole way in which the existing street and community patterns are being reinforced. B. INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS Industrial building is one of the few areas being encouraged, and many private practices must have been cocking an eye in this direction as welfare state and other sectors have been cut back. But architects have not traditionally had much to do with factory design Such larger factories as are at present built on peripheral estates seem to be designed by developers and system builders or architects directly employed on a permanent basis by the insustries themselves. Most of these firms are south-eatern or internationally based, so their factories are not designed in Liverpool. Larger Liverpool-born firms, on the other hand, are doing little more than minor repair and extension work at present. Since 1974 the cuts in state expenditure have meant that resources have been redir- ected into stimulating industrial production. It is the state-developed Advance Factory Units which have produced a major source of industrial architecture work in Liverpool The developers are either the local authority, who use their own architects department, or the English Industrial Estates Corporation (EIEC) which uses private architects’ practices, though not as designers. Standard sets of plans and specifications, ‘proven as the most economical form of construction’ are handed to these architects to adapt to each site. Although these jobs are concentrated in the inner city where site preparation is complicated, architects can take little pride in the fact that they have designed every- thing below the ground floor slab! They then supervise construction, the whole job being on a reduced fee basis. Architects who work in this situation had many criticisms, but they were not sure whether they had the expertise, let alone the power, to participate in this field. Advance Factory Units are a direct transplant of EIEC’s forty years’ experience of spec- ulative building on areen-field sites. Their use on vacant, ‘problem’, inner-city land is not necessarily right. There are plenty of empty warehouses and industrial buildings around Liverpool’s dockland which could be converted, but in fact are now being demolished to feed the dwindling supply of vacant ‘problem’ sites! To convert existing buildings would mean a greater amount of architectural work and less waste, butwould meet resistance from financiers, developers and builders who claim that conversion work would not ‘sustain their present capacity in its existing form’. Part of the reason for the Advance Factory Programme, in addition to alleviating inner city construction un- employment is that the capacity of the construction industry should be kept up so that it will be able to cope with the next economic boom (and so more suburban factories again) — when itcomes. Waiting for the next boom, the present monetary halt in the traditional course of city expansion seems to be all that can be coped with. This, linked to the idea of in- jecting new life into the centres — ‘the old dying hearts of our civilisation’. Promotion of small manufacturers is supposed to seed new firms which will grow large, or feed new ideas to the large and perhaps be the basis for a new boom. The revival of the inner city then seems almost an attempt to re-run economic expansion in the way it worked from the nineteenth-century city to the emergence of the now-flagging twentieth-century metropolis and giant industries. But ...of the 44 Advance Factories developed by the local authority and now in use, the majority have attracted service rather than manu- facturing industries; and the service sector both ultimately depends on manufacturing, and isat present seen to be expanding only very temporarily. tstteronys urepras tomerren’s (NN cit Prodzms Architects were in the forefront of the ‘SNAP’ project which foreran the co-ops and siiowed how communities could have better housing without being smashed up. Now, a few years on, some have found themselves to have been turned into a ‘housing machine’, which although keeping streets intact is as isolated as ever from the other fun- damental problems, such as employment, which compound these as crisis areas. Architects working on Advance Factories could see the obvious inconsistency in using them. To replace industries that had been the life-blood of the nineteenth-century city with the suburban factory type is illogical. The liklihood that they employ labour from the surrounding community, which had been built for the old industries, is slim — the grant system discriminates against local firms using the units and in favour of attracting outsiders, and Liverpool! is more oriented to the one big employer, the docks, than to lots of small firms. Is it desirable for people to commute to work on One militant group of tenants has recently formed a co-op and successfully cam- painged for new houses on a vacant site: it remains to be seen whether this will provide an opportunity for a better architect-client relationship. ‘Build for Sale’, low-density, suburban-type schemes are designed by building firms as standard consumer models perfected over a very long period of time with perhaps some slight variations to suit this year’s or next yer’s fashion. This puts the user in the same position as when buying a Car or choosing soap powder from the supermarket shelf — it's all right if you can afford or your requirements ‘fit’ into the standard pattern, but you can never know whether you are getting what you want or what you are being made to want. The architect's traditional consultation with the client is out of the question. In fact the whole process from market research, design, local authority consent, contract planning to advertising is being computerised by some of the biggest firms — and more jobs are going down thedrain!. See below for private practice and local authority work in housing. central sites — a complete reversal of the original idea of moving industry to the suburbs? This is true also for goods transport: the accessibility of central sites compares unfavourably with the outskirts near the motorways. Does this mean that inner area industry will be the excuse for bringing back the idea of motorways in the old city? The scale of vandalism entails the defence of the ‘community’ factory, resulting in high fences. The need for lots of open space for storage and transport is also inapprop- riate to the close-knit character of the inner city. Architects could contribute to these problems by showing what sort of physical solutions are possible. The profession, however, is appealing for architectural leadership in creating small enterprises housed in old buildings. One or two such projects may get off the ground, but the local authority is producing more than 20 units a year. Even if 40 small firms a year are born, creating, optimistically, 400 jobs, they are not going to go far in a Merseyside which announced over 8,500 redundancies in major industries in the first three months of this year and has unemployment in some inner areas running as high as 32%. No, what is needed is for architects to forget their entrepreneurial role (which isn’t going to create much impact anyway), and concentrate on simply using their skill as designers to create solutions which make it possible for the ideas of exist- ing local people and groups to be realised. A deeper dimension to the problem may be seen in that twelve giant firms account for 50% of employment. Only one of these is both locally-rooted and powerful enough to be considered internationally secure. The rest are either subsidiaries of national or foreign-based conglomerates which bear no allegiance to the area, or relatively out-worn local firms starved of the capital needed to re-equip. The furore over encouraging small firms and re-kindling the spirit of the free market and private entreprise can be seen as a smokescreen which provides optimism and diverts attention from the problems which the centralisation of big industrial capital is now posing. ‘Official Architects’ in the council's architects department control the building work of council committees. In the fifties and sixties the department was being built up on a big programme of work, some of it being put out to private practice. Although part of the state, these architects stand out for parity in status with private practices in the profession: the profession, in turn, has often been criticised for regarding its ‘official’ members as second rate. In Liverpool, the council architect's staff committee se. is to be dominated by people who are politically conservative and paradoxically, broadly opposed to an extension of state activity! With a run-down in council housing development and the growth of ‘Build for Sale’, for example, a proposal that the design and marketing functions of this new type of housing should be kept in the department never got through in spite of the fact that it was strongly backed by NALGO. Support from within the department was stalled. This was partly due to confusion created when members of the Association of Official Architects (the officer-architects’ union recognised by RIBA) warned of the danger of loss of professional status if they became too strongly identified with NALGO. The fact that surveyors constitute a strong element of the same staff committee compounds the problem: they have less to lose. Firstly, for example, the housing im- provement work that has been coming to the department has been done by surveyors who have lower fee scales. This is justified by the fact that overheads on an office built Up on massive housing developrrents are too high to allow a full architectural service. Active thinking on design, architects jobs and quality of service to tenants which could ultimately lead to reduced costs — al miss out. A second example is that surveyors have welcomed the council's share of the Advance Factory.programme, and indeed all types of industrial building on local authority sites in that the preparatory surveys and ground works fall fully within their speciality. But again, the opportunity for the type of deeper analysis of designs suitable to the locality (as outlined under ‘industrial building’ above) is lost. Employment in the architects department is down 30-40% on two years ago. Mech- anical and electrical service engineers working in the department hardly exist now, and work is going out to private consultants. The remaining supervision work on the council’s housing programme is running out. Designs still being prepared are axed as cleared sites go to ‘Build for Sale’. Educational work is at rock bottom. A programme of building for the police which has kept work levels up since 1970 is tailing off. The recently announced Maritime Museum project on the docks has gone out to competition with the council's department just on the list. Meanwhile there is no defence of the architects’ real potential, and attempts to make their services directly available to the community would be blocked for not going through proper channels. . Qrtta atatnat oe eleect C. THE LOCAL AUTHORITY ARCHITECTS’ DEPARTMENT D. PRIVATE PRACTICE. Architecture is effectively controlled by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) which constitutes the majority on the Architects Registration Council UK (ARCUK). An insight into the nature of RIBA can be had from a look at the people it has gathered for its annual conference, held in Liverpool in July 1978, titled ‘Living in Cities’ and calling for a ‘general commitment to the ideas of community architecture’ Firstly, a lot of members are excluded by the cost — £65 for three and a half days Fifty buraries are offered to help counteract this to people who can offer a few ‘well- chosen words’ on why they should go, but this is on the level of a competition on the back of a Cornflakes packet. So much for architectural communities — the same would apply to much of the rest of the city’s community. Looking at what was covered by the conference speakers it can be seen that the whole spectrum of a city politics is covered — the church, industry, land, the local and county authorities, central government, the USA, all on the first morning. The second day covers the inner city partnership programme (ICPP), and housing by a local councillor, local officer, housing associations and co-ops, private developer and finally, a county officer. A closer look confirms that the conference is an annual bandwaggon, a showpiece, revealing that RIBA is unable to make a serious attempt to assist with the city’s and architects’ problems. At the centre of the public image of architectural work is the private practice, similar to the medical or legal practice. There are lots of these practices in Liverpool. Their local club is the Liverpool Architectural Society (LAS) and they are represented in the North West Regional Council of the RIBA. The five or six largest firms appear to dom- inate the LAS, but below these there are twenty or more firms with two or more part- nersm and a whole host of further smaller firms. As in all small enterprises there is an intimacy about these latter which is a relief from the big hierarchies, although those who work in them are dependent on the partners’ relationship with clients and have to help cultivate the right social climate in the firm, whoever the client may be. 2. WHO CONTROLS US, WHO REPRESENTS US? While the larger and better established firms get what little number of jobs do come to them through the organisation of the profession, the smaller and medium-sized local firm is in fact extremely vulnerable and dependent on what clients it can attract. Desian skill is very much within this context. In one discussion in our group, for example, the job of working for a private housing developer was described as: to aim at a certain market: must have Georgian windows; areas to be designed strictly dictated and un- related to government minimum standards; no direct contact with house buyers; no garages; no ‘little extras’ in houses; no storage etc Another type of local practice as represented was based on ‘community’ and housing association work. In this case lack of finacial rewards is, at least initially, replaced by the satisfaction of working with, and the support of,the local community. These arch: itects were playing a part in community development. Architects have often been prime movers in the declaration of GIAs, HAAs or community schemes which have later been backed or taken over by the state. The resulting organisations such as the co-ops have then farmed a certain amount of work back to private practices. In this way, schemes get the more specifically ‘architectural’ attention which isabsent ‘in-house’, and seems to be only attainable within the old professional set-up The co-op which has fought successfully for its own new housing (mentioned above), for example, looked at inter- nationally-famous housing architects such as Darbourne and Darke before deciding ona local practice. Existing housing associations or co-op ‘in house’ architects were not con- sidered The Anglican Bishop begins by introducing the ‘social climate’ of Liverpool — thereby instating the the profession firmly outside the embarrassment of its position in worldy politics? The result is often politcal naiveté. Next, the object of the architect's work, the city fabric, is stated in a primarily visual and aesthetic way. The visual aspect may be an important part of an architect's work, but the primacy of the ‘aesthetic’ blinds many employed architects both in their education and later in practice, to their manipulation by developers, builders and others whose motives can be less easily acceptable. Will the speaker in this case, Theo Crosby, repeat his former mistakes? His praise of Cumbernauld New Town in 1962 points to his ‘visual blindness’: “Nearby (the municipal centre) on the north edge of the hill will be a group of tower blocks. From the hill there will be spectacular views in all directions, and this centre, with its wide terraces and broad flights of steps, could be the most exciting big new thing in Britain.”’ Fifteen years later, a Sunday Times popular splash against architects led pub- lic opinion that the centre was, in fact, “expensive, out of character, impractically sited on a windy hill. . wives were left to trudge the endless walkways and ramps to a city centre that, isolated from the passing pedistrian, couldn’t fail to be dull.” Next, John Worthington introduces “‘the private initiative”, dealing with industry in terms of “creating work through small entreprises, self-help”. This is coupled with David Palmer, a Chartered Surveyor, appealing to financiers to help with non-profit- making development of ‘difficult’ inner city sites. Land, finance and industry which are at the base of Liverpool's problems are skirted around. The conference official stimulus paper, “Living in Cities ” sees the problem as one of “a graduated balance between ‘the little things and the big things’ ...in a free market economy.” Good sites, roads, well-housed labour and a local authority with an empathy towards private enterprise are all that is needed, and “there is no reason why these things should not be provided” !To reduce such closures as that of Triumph at Speke or any other of Liverpool's recent disasters to this is naive. Furthermore, Palmer's appeal to goodwill from financiers (usually mostly insurance and pension funds) on land development can be little more than a cosmetic measure when they generally have to underwrite high land values to maintain high profit rates so that such things as‘our' pension funds keep pace with inflation. Does the professional practice have a part to play in the community? Some combine community action and involvement with getting their bread and butter from such design work as results from this activity Professional ‘independence’ may have some edge in communities over agencies hampered by local or national state departmentalism Attempts by local groups to organise their own lives always cross departmental and disciplinary lines, and in so doing often expose some of the real conflicting interests which the local authority sustains. The former Community Development Projects, backed by the state, did this and where disbanded when they exposed local interests of ‘big capitals’. Opposition to recent attempts by Liverpool community groups, under the umbrella of the LCVS, to gain a say in the DoE’s partnership scheme is a more recent example. Some architects have realised the need for community organisation, but in returning to the ‘bread and butter’ aichitectural practice for community groups, such design work as comes their way can only represent Community control within the confines of a design process as defined by the ethics and codes of professional practice There is a dilemma between private practice (architectural private enterprise) and community work. The ethic of independence combined with service in itself conflicts with the iater-disciplinary involvement needed in effective community control. This dilemma is also present in other small practices trying to maintain professional integrity in the face of increasingly desperate and competitive commercial and other clients. At the same time, Monopolies Commission investigation of the fee-scale, the rising cost of insurance, and the increasingly precarious legitimacy of the architectural profession loom large as factors in the insecurity of these firms OD. PRIVATE PRACTICE. While the larger and better established firms get what little number of jobs do come to them through the organisation of the profession, the smaller and medium-sized local firm is in fact extremely vulnerable and dependent on what clients it can attract. Design skill is very much within this context. In one discussion in our group, for example, the job of working for a private housing developer was described as: to aim at a certain market; must have Georgian windows; areas to be designed strictly dictated and un- related to government minimum standards; no direct contact with house buyers; no garages; no ‘little extras’ in houses; no storage etc Architecture is effectively controlled by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) which constitutes the majority on the Architects Registration Council UK {ARCUK). An insight into the nature of RIBA can be had from a look at the people it has gathered for its annual conference, held in Liverpool in July 1978, titled ‘Living in Cities’ and calling for a ‘general commitment to the ideas of community architecture’ Firstly, a lot of members are excluded by the cost — £65 for three and a half days Fifty buraries are offered to help counteract this to people who can offer a few ‘well: chosen words’ on why they should go, but this is on the level of a competition on the back of a Cornflakes packet. So much for architectural communities — the same would apply to much of the rest of the city’s community. Looking at what was covered by the conference speakers it can be seen that the whole spectrum ofa city politics is covered — the church, industry, land, the local and county authorities, central government, the USA, all on the first morning. The second day covers the inner city partnership programme (ICPP), and housing by a local councillor, local officer, housing associations and co-ops, private developer and finally, a county officer. A closer look confirms that the conference is an annual bandwagqqon, a showpiece, revealing that RIBA is unable to make a serious attempt to ass'st with the city’s and architects’ problems. The Anglican Bishop begins by introducing the ‘social climate’ of Liverpool! — thereby instating the the profession firmly outside the embarrassment of its position in worldy politics? The result is often politcal naiveté. Next, the object of the architect's work, the city fabric, is stated in a primarily visual and aesthetic way. The visual aspect may be an important part of an architect’s work, but the primacy of the ‘aesthetic’ blinds many employed architects both in their education and later in practice, to their manipulation by developers, builders and others whose motives can be less easily acceptable. Will the speaker in this case, Theo Crosby, repeat his former mistakes? His praise of Cumbernauld New Town in 1962 points to his ‘visual blindness’: “Nearby (the municipal centre) on the north edge of the hill will be a group of tower blocks. From the hill there will be spectacular views in all directions, and this centre, with its wide terraces and broad flights of steps, could be the most exciting big new thing in Britain.” Fifteen years later, a Sunday Times popular splash against architects led pub- lic opinion that the centre was, in fact, “expensive, out of character, impractically sited ona windy hill... wives were left to trudge the endless walkways and ramps to a city centre that, isolated from the passing pedistrian, couldn't fail to be dull.” Does the professional practice have a part to play in the community? Some combine community action and involvement with getting their bread and butter from such design work as results from this activity Professional ‘independence’ may have some edge in communities over agencies hampered by local or national state departmentalism Attempts by local groups to organise their own lives always cross departmental and disciplinary lines, and in so doing often expose some of the real conflicting interests which the local authority sustains. The former Community Development Projects, backed by the state, did this and where disbanded when they exposed local interests of ‘big capitals Opposition to recent attempts by Liverpool community groups, under the umbrella of the LCVS, to gaina say in the DoE’s partnership scheme is a more recent example. Some architects have realised the need for community organisation, but in returning to the ‘bread and butter’ a:chitectural practice for community groups, such design work as comes their way can only represent community control within the confines of a design process as defined by the ethics and codes of professional practice There is a dilemma between private practice (architectural private enterprise) and community work. The ethic of independence combined with service in itself conflicts with the inter-disciplinary involvement needed in effective community control. This dilemma is also present in other small practices trying to maintain professional integrity in the face of increasingly desperate and competitive commercial and other clients. At the same time, Monopolies Commission investigation of the fee-scale, the rising cost of nsurance, and the increasingly precarious legitimacy of the architectural profession loom large as factors in the insecurity of these firms 2. WHO CONTROLS US, WHO REPRESENTS US? At the centre of the public image of architectural work is the private practice, similar to the medical or legal practice. There are lots of these practices in Liverpool. Their local club is the Liverpool Architectural Society (LAS) and they are represented in the North West Regional Council of the RIBA. The five or six largest firms appear to dom- inate the LAS, but below these there are twenty or more firms with two or more part- nersm and a whole host of further smaller firms. As in all small enterprises there is an intimacy about these latter which is a relief from the big hierarchies, although those who work in them are dependent on the partners’ relationship with clients and have to help cultivate the right social climate in the firm, whoever the client may be. Next, John Worthington introduces ‘‘the private initiative”, dealing with industry in terms of “creating work through small entreprises, self-help”. This is coupled with David Palmer, a Chartered Surveyor, appealing to financiers to help with non-profit- making development of ‘difficult’ inner city sites. Land, finance and industry which are at the base of Liverpool's problems are skirted around. The conference official stimulus paper, “Living in Cities ” sees the problem as one of “a graduated balance between ‘the little things and the big things’ ... ina free market economy.” Good sites, roads, well-housed labour and a local authority with an empathy towards private enterprise arealthatisneeded,and“thereisnoreasonwhythesethingsshouldnot be provided” !To reduce such closures as that of Triumph at Speke or any other of Liverpool's recent disasters to this is naive. Furthermore, Palmer's appeal to goodwill from financiers (usually mostly insurance and pension funds) on land development can be little more than a cosmetic measure when they generally have to underwrite high land values to maintain high profit rates so that such thingsas‘our pension funds keep pace with inflation. Another type of local practice as represented was based on ‘community’ and housing association work. In this case lack of finacial rewards is, at least initially, replaced by the satisfaction of working with, and the support of,the local community. These arch- itects were playing a part in community development. Architects have often been prime movers in the declaration of GIAs, HAAs or community schemes which have later been backed or taken over by the state. The resulting organisations such as the co-ops have then farmed a certain amount of work back to private practices. In this way, schemes get the more specifically ‘architectural’ attention which is absent ‘in-house’, and seems to be only attainable within the old professional set-up. The co-op which has fought successfully for its own new housing (mentioned above), for example, looked at inter- nationally-famous housing architects such as Darbourne and Darke before deciding ona local practice. Existing housing associations or co-op ‘in house’ architects were not con sidered Where do architects stand? Strangely, local architects may gain from this uncertainty, in that in the rush to beat deadlines forproposals for applications, d ments can only agree to resurrect their old building programmes rather than Grand the money on re-organising a joint attack. This is, however, architecture by default; mor ‘ so when the DoE itself appears to be laying the blame, perhaps rightly, for the fousin disasters of the last twenty years on the shoulders of architects. But as our owndis : cussions have shown, to cut design skills out of housing altogether (viz. run-down of local authorities and fee -cutting in housinig associaitions) may be to throw the b. with the bath water. ; eo Further speakers on housing are unlikely to give much help to the situation of arch- itects as we find them: Allan Roberts of Manchester is likely to give short shrift to architects for their performance with system builders in the public housing programme. Liverpool's new Liberal housing chairman has recently “slammed the ‘hare- brained architects and clever-dick planners’ for producing ‘zany and often bizarre- looking’ council housing estates in the past. ‘Good homes are not created by last year’s architectural competition winner’.” Finally, Tom Barron expounds ‘Build for Sale’ — the architectural component of which has already been mentioned: is the conference onOFF IDO |BRASOF RL -— : es pnyEX HowAdeyourAovAME\—~ — FACTORY Jogs gens? / NS évs I} organiser crazy when he asks us to desecrate our own jobs by asking ‘what isstopping developersbuildingmorehousesforsale?’ +f After skirting round industry and land, J.P. Mcllroy represents, under ‘the public initiative’ just how determined a stand a local authority can take in ‘empathising with private enterprise’. Formerly chief planning officer of Labour -controlled Bootle, now chief executive of Tory-controlled Sefton, created out of Bootle and Southport after re-organisation, he has been known as a strong officer, perhaps above local politics. The effect of attracting private enterprise on the local community in Bootle, however. is questionable. A vast area of working class housing was removed, for example, to make way for the Stanley office development. Although this was justified as creating jobs for Bootle, the offices pull in workers from all over Merseyside, and certainly don’t discriminate in favour of local people with a background in manufacturing and port employment. Similarly, in conjunction with Ravenseft, Bootle wasprovided under Mcllroy with the New Strand shopping centre which gaveoutlets for major shopping chains while local shopkeepers went to the wall after promises of relocation made in return for passive acceptance of the necessary CPOs, fizzled out. To sum up, the profession founds us on the church and an aesthetic basis which blinds us in our compliance with the forces which control us. We may be gingered into another year of drudgery by a vision of small enterprise workshops and land develop- ment which will never get to the real problems. We have a local authority in which we are squeezed out between ‘attracting big business’ (using outside architects) and an in- ability to relate to the local community. And we are being by-passed in housing, both in the public and private sectors. We need a new political basis for organising ourselves. The RIBA continues to ‘represent’ us by drawing its alliances with the management of a political establishment which can still, in fact, do nothing but run the old city and its communities down The RIBA tries to excuse itself for doing this, and for letting a lot of its members go down, by trying to create an atmosphere of ‘regenerating the old city’ and ‘community architecture’ while our jobs disappear. The RIBA is rightly associated with the architects responsible for the disasters of the last 20 years, but bankrupt in terms of the representation of architects as they now stand. Thesearebuttwoexamplesofsomethingwhichhasbeenparallelledintheema ingofLiverpool.WhiletheimageofthewelfarestatehadbeenthatofSi e worstaspectsofwhollyfreeenterprise,peoplearerealisinghowthelocal Lea has complied in the rape of local communities; wholesale Gestruction ae reco! was justified as attracting industries — but these are now leaving town The confusion of the architects’ fall between private enterprise ange Sa ne continues in the next morning's discussion of the ICPP. Des Nevonee eRe ebfafsecdtwoFheNnethheTLrieyaesurpyanoeteherSEiOe raiealSOeusyaadthceireseeparate rs. The ICPP is thus unable to address itselfproperly tot e o saatlackinginthenecessaryeconomicteethtocreateaJohnat oe ral roblems. In Liverpool, local political instability (the former LIE nthe : hhasbeenreplacedbyaLib/ConpactwhenLabourgainedama}Can See clection’l further undermines because departmental policies are pitcne 9) each other for reasons of short-run political expediency. UNIVERSITY OF RIALTO Community Centre. eZmi ; by Commumty Architect SNAP PROJECT AREA New-buila Co-operative BENE Eos SSOP SMI EOGLIA Pies ies Se So/ : r SNAP improvement SHELTER’S original base KINGSLEY ROAD PRINCES AVENUE RATHBONE JOINERY WORKSHOP ADMIRAL STREET designed Plz Stetion > ~E " ROAD "DISTRICT CENTRE architect - STEBLE STREET BATHS CORN and YATES STREET HOUSINGaacCO-Ol’ Housing Co-op Rehab ESSEX STREET POLICE STATION ses ? S new uses for oldbuildings DS i> } MK “Zo< £ yy , es yeSis sem :a I ATon : . Wath Sa SS BRMeare Bieaol re ge BY NOE Ge he PH CBE R: 57 Peart e Sce43 35 PACK EDN ES au SERusfori f ‘<}|if cel}aed ;- pane ; : eS 30/2 ATi) y ae pal Eed| A bHee-}5;—f2erat| W f ) o2 A S ro°))I Otho LIVERPOOL ThWe Ae,ye *raine) , ie oO me BARA eS PARLIAMENT STREET Planning Blight" FAULKNERSQUARE Sate V—"o*m@BOEBEY BSSOY yoa cmtsy SQUARE Fehabilitation and Conversion eCOMeMUNITY SOG 3 rea race | CENTRE UPPER STANHOPE STREEY Commumity centre ED cee GRANBY STREET SHOPPING improvement Project MERLIN STREET First Urban Aid Community cenére WELLER STRRETS HOUSING CO-OP “TOWN TRAIL” OUR — examples of professional architecture in the community and the alternatives. be |shopping :Social secunty, 3. ARCHITECTS IN LIVERPOOL A look at the origins and post-war development of Liverpool will show the declining local architectural involvement in the changing power base of the city. It may also help to explain something of the situation we are in now, and point the way for a reformulated local organisation of architects which can play a stronger and more realistic role in what the planners who took part in one of our discussions characterised as in effect a policy of a “managed decline’ — which is something no-one knows how to handle. The RIBA conference stimulus question, ‘Should architects commit themselves to the entrepreneurial-catalyst role as professionsal leaders; is this a vested interest in disquise; if so does it matter?’ is entirely inappropriate to the position of local archi- tects and the demise of the inner city. In ignoring the rea/ industrial and economic base of the city it masks the true basis of a profession which is still a useful form of organ- isation to its largest and still successful national and international firms which are in alliance with big capital. Its purpose may be seen to encourage the continuance of an entrepreneurial attitude in its out-dated 19th century form among the mass of mem: bers led by the profession. This leaves local architects powerless to organise against the erosion of their position by an increasingly powerful central and local state working with ‘outside’ industrialists and developers who have the area in a stranglehold. Local practices still depend on ‘professional independence’ for their position, but are undefended against fee-cutting and loss of work to nationals. Local authority work is decreasing, while central state agencies such as the PSA increase their workload. Meanwhile, successful national and international practices, well capitalised and estab- lished at a higher turnover on lower fees, draw further into ‘unethical’ package dealing and speculative enterprise. There is little on the horizon to give Liverpool! hope that it has anything to gain from ‘international expansion’: yet the idea of a non-growth economy, participation in the management of decline, is as unpalatable to the city’s managers as it is to the local architects’ society. The latter seem content to cut each other's throats and sell out to outside interests (for example, the Liverpool Architect- ure Society’s passive acceptance of the demolition of the Lyceum, its own birthplace and part of ‘our architectural heritage’) in order that those in control will get what crumbs do come their way. In the 1930s, Liverpool's architects had an international reputation for what they were doing under the patronage of the port and related industries for the city itself. In a city which had been built up by its industrial bourgeoisie comparatively ‘overnight’, there had been a strong tradition of philanthropy followed by a model municipal government. The local authority were early in their patronage of architecture. Under Sir Lancelot Keay, the council housing developments of the 1930s attained a respectable architectural clothing which was coherent with the style of the city’s other great buildings, Both shared, for example, the influence of Dudok and the Dutch School School. Working class housing attained the image of equality with the city’s industrial base. But by the 1930s, the old industries were already in decline, and new ones seen to be needed. Keay’s housing culminated in the model community at Speke which was integrated with new factory building for modern industry. Liverpool was, then, an ideal setting for the 1948 RIBA conference to catch the utopian mood of the immediate post-war era. Keay, now the first public officer president of the RIBA sat comfortably next to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of the cathedral and at the pinnacle of private practice. Architects were entertained to tea at the home of the major industrialist Lord Leverhulme whose family was renowned for philanthropy (Port Sunlight) and patron- age of the arts. The RIBA banner was instated in the new cathedral by the Archbishop of York, and the LAS, celebrating its centenary, was acclaimed for its position as a foremost regional society in the RIBA. rc Aé ' i ' 4 J36 e < 2 m= 8 ' > - = PO} 2UBA OYA SOV3A90 JHL VYuViLiyY | aetndodun uv ojur , ueeg aaey fee 33S VW¥GUYA ATHO 4Se tl 4 vyONY q StLIN3W OL LON “S3HDNH * Say euNq ywouN 942 JO, $2503 Tyosu <q *‘kerted hidw3 341 J¥dS dQHS LN¥I¥A 30 "609, 943 UT 4379 UT perderseauy TTeN@ITUR 03 @2UepUCdweZI0> ye03024 = Ot Seetyeratza i] 1OOd:JUe a sOUTPTOH IWS. t ss they 3729939 ¥ 3SNNKH 91 HOAONG @ ‘L3N193Hd Se OL a fe27j730 Wrepow sbtse02d 27 UT AON “Pp @sou 37 340m eeu @usy2e Ayes JO G212e4IHOW Guy3ueyIUe sua Aq Wate BYR J0J /OHS SSI13ISN 3HON NIAZ P2TINZAIq 2UealoTaAVpar 943 eD4 Tw9p 943 P PIN wpyob sNidens DNIMOG Visa “Sdcl¥ JH1 a1 NHorF °32S 39 49013 gunsg Aig joodieAry SS3713SN3S SIHL MONS SUDLIYNANODD OVIGIING TATT dN AN VAN fone gloss sa3HTANIAR PIO We = 2903804207 suoiyin 133415 J 49 3c SLNTA 311 *aeAys aya 228A ITUA POTPPTS pue uno; 4302) @1OUA Oa 2eatuore ‘o"d ‘AW 1SHL Lhso1e *(OP TH puw 10179495 I! u-kq-A1E @LON SJOdo|ereq OU If "3 QUOF 9say Aled *uoyTes>ep q ple peuu02, © 3¥ 26U2 290s O42 JO SpiwY 637 SOUCTA SY Cd Ut pegrsosep 419307 © PEND hing w#yNb *3 ‘wnesk] oyy Uywied pInon "qn st#O4UTPT ING peretr © epead ysyTousp oF H3UesUOD UO BayetT eay3 OU Sunnok'q YT :5::: WarBOGTwasnotrevival|CaaSTRERIEE;GERdtRhemovement ofinternaet-s tonal industries to Merseyside encouraged by state regional policy. While planned net towns were the basis of peripheral expansion, the old city retained its atmosphere ca dereliction inherited from the war, and still remaining after a lack of state control habitual to a continuing conservative local authority (planning committee chairmen of the time are heard to be accused of using development control to bolster up a clique of local practices). Liverpool's first Labour council only came in 1955. : The post-war generation of architects were less concerned with making buildings which were locally acclaimed than establishing their international reputations. It was the /nternationa! Style. This ran true to the disestablishment of focal capital and the need to ally with outside, rather than local interests to be successful. By the early 1960s Liverpool had a combination of a stronger Labour leader wanting a planned revitalisation of the city, the standard approach by a developer (Ravenseft again) to round up an unprecedented parcel of central land for a shopping precinct (St. John’s), proposals for motorway development round the city centre, and the emergence of arch- itect-plans for city development. Holford, an ex- Liverpool architecture student, was a professor in Liverpool at the time. He had been director of the war-time state Planning and Resources Agency, and strongly recommended another of the internationalist and utopian socialist post-war generation, Shankland to prepare a plan. (The fact that and Shankland’s practice was designing private hotels in Jamaica at the time — ‘breaMdodern It is important to note that the butter work?’ — didn’t appear contradictory). reform and Style, originated ina mood of left-wing social Movement, the International the method of a utopian harmony between a working class and capital: it was to cfaoprimtal in the post- restructuring the built environment alongside the restructuring of war era. establishment was on the way out. Shankland Pe Liverpool's older architectural road be demolishe 1965 posed that nearly all buildings within the proposed inner ringoutof date : merit’ for the reason that they were ‘unlessofarchitectural ofhighbuilding,‘toconte | of building capital). There was a policy repor Y we (Restructuring skyline’. Ata timewhen the Buena thetraditionofthewaterfront pedestrian/tra alae inTowns’wasinvogue,therewastobeacompletetopavethewayoer ee walkways. Hisproposals were oe asystem of high-level but since (het TN based Se fortheyoungergenerationoflocalarchitects, », ee are and the new In lustries, brought work to go round, 2 large proportion velopers, such as Ravenseft, was aval a andcentralise fact building the most tightly-controlled isa ediHeOAe oreo firmsandsystemsdevelopers The impetus of building aae The position of architects working in planning at the time has been aptly summar ised: “We were not planners and we had no concept of urban change. Our naive enthusiasm and pre-occupation with built architectural form must have been a headache for the inner city residents we met. We talked about how the areas were going to be well designed in the future; Hey talked about the lack of jobs and the bloody-mindedness of Town Hall officials. We were miles apart and we could not even see it.” The emerging economic crisis brought home the idiocy of reconstruction, and an increasingly devastated commmunity strengthened its opposition. Under Amos the policy changed from what could be conceived to what could be afforded. Develop- ment plans were limited to areas which were likely to see significant change in the short term. Rehab, community projects and Urban Aid programmes replaced recon struction. SNAP took place in 1969. More recent planning policy in an atmosphere of even greater uncertainty is to monitor social and economic trends in order to present coherent policy options as clearly as possible. Architect-planners could not be further ‘our’ BEFORE (right) amd AFTER (below) in the Tntenm Planning Policy Statement under Borin practices of the time. well-known. 7 ement of a separate planning department hee1haTiandarchitects’independentcontrolover Whe e satl A lot of the new planning staff were still architects by training, but (Rain, washing and football eee no ntrolofthecity’sgrowthandarchitecturalleadershipofitsimplement on ret Spada programme became divorced: this further weakened thepotential stronlipiasrpaeinthebuildingofthecity.BorextendedShanklandsmethods sakete LS(1963),stillinwhatnowseemsthestaggeringlybanalarchitect-plan o ie Sealing for‘more data. The NBA's report on the sie housing Tae ee arate j _taking into account the outlined First prope coat Transportation StudY 11969) perfected the proposed TheMere temonthebasisofnearuniversalcar-ownership.These,andother a mreoptoortrsway a ithin the era in which statistics were used blindly to justify reconstructions : In a context of unlimited work, the passing of local firms’ contro! was probably un- bute Liverpool sou has 2 fist divinon beans p) f eee andCrgeniseronof/tse/fisoutofKeywithwhatalotofarch- 4.WHERE ARE WE ACTION. ? NOW? ASPECTS OF ORGANISATION AND ACTION aie ; . Theexample of Liverpool's history indicates radical State aénd private capital. 7A form of orgganainsiastiaotnion isneeded whicChHIETiGscapablseeeofr standing how the forms of control which architects face have chanel Th eine fa Certain sections of both the state and private capital have grown to the point whe professional organisation’, ethics and ideas no longer hold sway over an increasing! i specific and technically-defined logic of big capital’s and giant Geganleattonsv grote Working for these, architects, along with many other skills including management need to defend themselves (and increasingly do) on union lines. But membership of even white collar unions is seen to contradict the ‘profession’ and ‘being an architect’, although many of these unions are based on defence of skills. The private-independent streak and professional pride run deep, even when architects are badly paid down- trodden and overtaken by better-organised skills. : ive? collective or co-operative . Ol raig reporting in the Liverpool Echo, May 1978 liverinseciets The Property Boom’, London: Pan 1968 , propcsats forSe As, however, ‘Local Government becomesgo Part of the way to so’ vingJthe pr ationoflocalauthority willonly eracs architects eltheyie 7;InterimPlanningPolicyState’ LiverpoolCityPlannin ‘C:ityit ii’ ' feySar BigBusiness oe ' uchnick,‘UrbanRenewalinLiverpool’,Occ.Pap.onSoc.Admin.NoS3,COT] a. ’ architecturewhentheyare Seon: i - See REFERENCES: Liverpool lDistricttLabour Part y, Housing Poliicy Statement, 1978 pene VEISOUCe Demantiing Merseyside: the collapse of Regional Policy’, New Statesman, 21.4.78 . lve, ‘Large Firms on Merseyside’, i |Poly, 1978 RIESMembershipList,1977"ert a Pt : Ceemy.CumbernauldNewTown’,ArchitectsYearBook10,1962 Conner jameson, ‘British Architecture: 30 Wasted Years’, Sunday Times 6.2.77 Tae ‘onaghy, ‘Inner Cities: Government Response’, RIBAJ July 1978 . ieat merenos‘BritishInnerCityPlanning:apersonalview’,Architect’sYearBook1974 eeewLitiverpoolCityCaeDnetpraertPmlean’t,,1965” ae ofcommuniOtFyotherwiseunrelatedtogia inLiverpooln’,eunpub.d=raft,LiverpoolUniversitiyoe forms practices of Post-War Planning aswioilfotchoemrmercial Le eatsmn Newoncnsummary inArchitecturean ey andeconomic baseofcities. tfrag¢mented ,butm e q NeusareasraeaingProfessions.’NAM1977 rch. Movt. (continued) ‘Publi i StatedepartmentsDeocallySHON“ fewrch.Movt.‘WorkingforWhat?TheCaseforTradeUnionOrganisation somewha' manageme! informerlyandmergedunderacorporate i X 197; SAGManifestoinAJ,3.5.78peasLene a centralised ise. rfunectioneee withprivateenterpris Jolhohn Bennington, ’‘Local Government Becomes Big Business’, COP 1976 which enables the state to keep pace aRaaeea Proposals arising from NAM’s recent conference on 2 Public Design Service (PDS) have pointed out how an architectural ideology founded primarily on private practice has given even local authority building programmes the image of private enterprise specifically from major new ideas coming from farming out projects to private practice and competitions. At the same time as bringing the local authorities into line with private enterprise In this way, architects have been becoming involved in specific corruption scandals in handling contracts with private building firms. Finally, now, local authority architects are again caught between private enterprise and the state, torn between their profession and unionisation as their departments are dismantled. These two articles are written partly from discussions held in the first half of this year by people interested in forming a non-professional group of building designers . Now a clearer picture has emerged, a group will be formed in the autumn to continue analysis, formulate action on certain issues, and take on projects. If you are working in architecture or building design, want to know more about architectural organisation and practice, doing or needing projects which involve a collective way of working etc., contact: ‘Designers Meeting’, c/o School of Architecture, University, Liverpool. A stronger, more democratic basis for planned control over the city’s development is needed and some planners in local authorities are moving In the direction of creating a basis for this. Local architects, having barely got over the passing of control from the city architects department and local practice, and then the architect-planner and nat- ional practice, must be now prepared to think in terms ofparticipating in decisions on the city’s development, not as leaders, but from a more realistic definition of their skills. (At least, then, the dangers of repetition of the blame for the tower blocks and the concrete jungle of the sixties could not be repeated). Private practice in a society founded on the free market and private enterprise !s still the basis of the Royal Institute of British Architects. As such they may effectively represent the interests of the management of a few large offices which act as consultants or leaders on the reorganisation of state or provate projects. The ethics and requirements of practice of these are increasingly far from those of employed architects and even medium and smaller private practices. By remaining under their domination, the majority of architects cannot help themselves. One current defence of professionals is that by the Salaried Architects Group inthe RIBA. This is likely to continue the tradition of a succession of ineffective union-type challenges within the RIBA unless it can completely expose the latter’s foundation on private enterprise and recognise that their defence of the ‘profession’ is tantamount to 4 defence of craft skill. The New Architecture Movement on the other hand, ha opened up the possibility of unionisation outside the profession through the AUEW white collar section, TASS — there are no TASS architect members in the North West yet. Ther a re a hanful of architects in the building industry’s STAMP, but this new organisation still has no policy on the building firms’ strengthening grip on design. In Liverpool, the need is to organise and co-ordinate action and discussion between architects and other groups along these lines. Designers need to open up adescription of their skills which enables them to work alongside other groups rather than feeling that if they do not lead, they have failed. There is an increasing number of examples of environmental and building work being done in either a collective or co-operative way. The contributors to group discussion were:— Mike Brown, Paul Coats, Chris Cripps, Robb MacDonald, Don Field, Pete Gommon, Bill Halsall, Jonty Godfrey, Frank Horton, Nigel Jones, Alison Lindsay, Graham Ward and others. The articles as published do not necessarily represent the views of contributors. Architects working In both the state and private sectorscould unite in mutual defence if the basis was an understanding of how their work fitted into the growth, change and interaction of private andstate capitals — rather than ae ums , sph competitive discourse confined to building form and techniques {which are, any increasingly outside our control). : ThePDSisaproposedreformationoflocalauthorityarchitectsdopeee ing in local areas. The RIBA’s move into ‘community architecture ,W' ich a a S te practice in the community, would be a similar venture if based on true par Se oiPaiaetivepractice.Whichisthebetterformat?Statepineoss eT from the relatively weak and private enterprise-oriented RIBA, whose prac 5. THE ‘REPRODUCTION’ OF ARCHITECTS Entry into the architectural profession is almost exclusively in the hands of the schools of architecture. Liverpool has two schools, at the University and the Poly If the first is too accademic, international in its outlook and disregards ; Liverpool, the second is too practical and local-signed to be more ‘practical’ and local in its caucus. These two schools have played the major role in supplying the members of the local architectural establishment (in addition to many architects for other areas). Only a few technicians and part-timers now make the grade, and this is not without a hard struggle during their attendance at the schools). going on. Of course, these general criticisms of architectural education are experienced by — individuals. In fact, education is very much a biographical process which isrevealed in the life cycle of individuals. Therefore, the following, partly factual, partly fictitious case study of Joey Bishop, a working class kid who makes the architectural grade, exams helped assessment and nearly al project work with little emphasis on written elped a poor exam performance and rewarded his consistent effort. jtectural education. +1 ie |' |at }| ly ——ssy —— + Pu r HF igCees a -- 4 | .@}| + ~— = a “ysoo iE 5 | 1 con ©t- Loe f HL Ls i an t nt \ (i ne fF|}— a Wace,an zCSE,EnglishLanguage2,EnglishLiterature1,Geography1, JoeyAeae andEngineeringDrawing1,Physics1.CSEhadbeengoodfor The process of producing professional architects is dominated by several bodies, notably the RIBA, who monitor intake standards and the content of courses. The RIBA Education and Practice Committee (EPEC) plays an important role in the con- trol of education. EPEC makes recommendations to the RIBA Council, where, if agreed to, they become policy and are put into effect by EPEC and its committees. One of the most important of the EPEC committees is the visiting board. Both the Liverpool schools have recently had visiting board inspections. The outcome ofa visit- ing board inspection Is a confidential report to the head of the school in which recommendations on standards and conditions are made. The weapon of refusal to re- cognise a course is a powerful force in the schools’ educational policy. Joey was born and brought up in a two bedroomed terraced house with no bath room and an outside toilet. He attended the local state primary school, he was a well btehaved and highly regarded pupil. He was expected to pass the 11+ and go on to the local grammar school. In 1962 Joey failed the 11+ examination — and was already classified by the system as a failure. Rather than the local Collegiate or Institute, it was Earle Road Secondary Modern School, ‘Never mind, Joey, there is always the 13+”, his mother had said. The 13+ never took place for Joey, and that was how much his mum knew about education. In fact, Earle Road’s greatest claim to fame was 4 first division footballer. Enquiries among both staff and students at both schools suggest a sparse under- standing of the way their architectural education ts controlled. The two aspects of architectural education, ‘skill teaching’ anda ‘liberal education’ are encompassed by both schools to different degrees, perhaps depending on whether salaried or manager- jal positions are aimed at. The Liverpool schools don’t seem to question whether their establishments are sutiable for achieving the aims of learning, which of the many architects, technicians or builders in the city they could'leatn their skills from, or how this should be done. The result is an ad-hoc exchange of arhitects’ contributions to teaching programmes in the schools in return for qualified people to staff their offices: this depends on personal contact and there is little awareness of what is really Things started to happen for Joey in his first year at secondary school; ‘he worked well and fully deserved his high position in class’ to quote his school report. He never asked many questions, but just got on and did things consistently well. To his teachers Joey was a good pupil from a good home, he was never in trouble, and always conscientious .. .head prefect material. When he was 14, Joey’s parents visited the eco andweretoldthatJoeystoodagoodchanceofdoingquitewellatCSE.They eenbreredanesayesbrightfuturefortheirson,theydidn’tknowwhatCSEwas Fords Cerin + 'poe aqualification, enough to keep Joey away from the docks or Ns aan ae y this tended towipe out Joey's previous failure at 11. The CSE and RenESRC wouldbeJoey's ‘saviour’.MrJames,thewoodworkteacher,who dbVAISERERKS inners than you have sawn wood’, was very influencial on Joey's the doing that urrounded by spoke shaves and planes Joey was in his element. It was Rbounthewinter:eee andnotthethinkingaboutit.MrJamestalkedalot Recreate Fine education and Joey was impressed. Secondary school years passed at English laser 2 ne about them. Top of the class after top of theclass. Bad only edithath pelling) he shone at geography and technical drawing. It was suggest- at hecouldaimforajobasadraughtsman. The discussion of fundamental issues is non-existent in both the Liverpool schools. What discussion that does take place centres around such issues as course content, the desirability of lectures as opposed to seminars, year structure as opposed to work-bases or exams as opposed to continual assessment, to the exclusion of all else. Any protest is futile, disunited and ineffectual. For example, student criticism of the courses ‘jacking in real life content’ is dismissed as being of small value simply by virtue of the fact that each student is there only for 3 or 5 years. Prehensi % icate inReais so itwas off to Anfield Comprehensive Schoo! with his CSE certif FROM THE COMMUNITY TO ARCHITECTURE ..... sere ieacoecomprehensivetotake‘A’levels.‘Everthoughtaboutdoing load isgene He oe. the goegraphy teacher had asked. In for a penny !n for a pound, bit ofa surprise Se results were no surprise to Joey’s English teacher, they were 4 what was going © Joey but more than anything else he didn’t really have any idea it was all about oa mowevaly and perhaps more importantly, no-one explained what really understoc AR fact, it wasn’t until his later years of university education that he Joey was od what matriculation meant. The family had misgivings, perhaps aiming too high. However, the school fought hard for a trial year at the com: might raise some questions about arch ’iii Joey Bishop is an architect, he was trained at the Liverpoo {University iSchool of arcnitectare! He is the only child of Joseph and Mary Bishop. Joseph isachargeliand in a local facory, Mary owns a small knitwear shop. They're a Liverpool family, the most prosperous and comfortably off in their neighbourhood. They own their or . terraced house, and Joey’s first real job is to process an improvement grant applicatio for his parents’ house. ciliata Joey's first task at the comprehensive was to decide which ‘A‘ levels to try for. Joey had been good at geography and had enjoyed the projects associated with it, so it was geography ‘A’ level for him. Geology was interesting and there were plenty of field trips so he had a stab at that as well. However, before Joey could get on with his ‘A’ levels he had to get one 'O' level in English. After two attempts he succeeded in passing with grade 5. Whatever came later, this, perhaps more than anything, proved to be the greatest failing of Joey's education. At the beginning of the upper sixth,, many of his school mates were considering teachers training colledes, polytechnics and universities. The headmaster at Anfield thought it might be worth Joey trying out an application form for university in addition to the technical colleges and polytechnics he was trying for. What to apply for? The only possibility seemed to be planning, well geography and planning went together. Six choices of university doing undergraduate planning degrees. . Sheffield, Birmingham Aston, Heriot Watt, Newcastle, Cardiff, Manchester. No offers, no interviews, in fact nothing. Joey felt hard done by. Brixton College of Building made him an offer of two C's and so did the local polytechnic, so Joey set his mind on one of these, at least, that was until September and the’A’ level results came along. Joey got an A and a B. The staff at Anfield thought it would be a good idea to go to a university, but it wasn’t as easy as that. Then came September 1970, and the UCCA clearing scheme; Course Code 5100, Architecture, Liverpool School of Architecture — without knowing what ‘architecture’ was, Joey was off on his architecture education. ‘Architecture, what's architecture?’ thought Joey. The postman brought him an answer in the form of a programme of pre-term work. A book list, from which Joey was to select two and write an essay. Already Joey was at 4 disadvantage. The letter also asked him to make a diary about his thoughts and react ions in observing and studying some designed artifact. ‘What's a designed artifact?’ Joey thought. His confusion was made worse by the helpful clarification ‘anything from a teaspoon to 4city’. The jargon of architectural education was introduced early on in Joey's education, even before he arrived at the school of architecture. Joey wrote about a block of high rise flats for his pre-term essay. He noted the simplicity and symmetry of the design. He wrote about the external facade of the block of flats, the surface patterns, colours and textures. Even at this stage, with only a few preconceptions, Joey assumed architecture was something to do with ‘facades’. He thought little of his home surroundings, a house without a bathroom in.an area suffering planning blight. He thought nothing about the community. In fact, despite living at home he was to become increasingly separat- ed from his home background. He was progressively cut off from the life of hissocial group and family; neither was he a member of the ‘street gang’ and, even at univers ity, sex came late for Joey. After all, he always did his homework. Arca tecsered fFae= Wet ope — Joey consistently equated architecture with drawing, so he thought he'd be ok. He knew he had done well at technical drawing and he thought his woodwork would be useful, Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The graphic artist, from the school of art knew how to draw, Joey thought, or at least it sounded as if he did. Joey never s2 him draw. One of Joey's first projects had something to do with the ‘considers’ .on of a line’. ‘As for his woodwork experience, well, that wasn’t really on either. The yea! Joey arrived at the school of architecture the one and only craftsman technician was being laid off, Whilst Joey was at the school the workshop turned into 4 glorified model making room withalittle used wind tunnel in one corner. : Architecture must have something to do with buildings, Joey thought, but people at the school of architecture kept telling him it was more than just buildings. In fact, during his first week at the school, Joey came to the conclusion that it was glossy architecture in the university and buildings in the polytechnic. For a short time the folk singing, records, wine and coffee till the early hours: became part of Joey’s life. An occasional visit to the halls of residence to visit ‘friends’. He replaced his football scarf with a school of architecture scarf and stopped ‘going to the match’ on Saturday afternoon. In his second year Joey questioned the value of a sketch design for 2 community centre in an area of high rise housing, when the local community had said they didn’t want one. At the external review of his work, the examiner suggested that Joey got on wath wba he was told to do without questioning projects. ; as ee Haan oe to concentrate on working, 4 language he knew well, Joey kepta easene rawingskillsdevelopedtoafineartandhedrewhiswaythrough Seciea : honours degrees. Professional practice and part three examinations in, but that aspect is another story. After fifteen years of ‘graft’, Joey had made it; an architect. coceretats school of architecture was no different than secondary school or the See Sistine Soeseee of hurdles, the scholarship fence which he had jumped by, Teetinesseea eae-Heacquiredfactsratherthanhandlingandusing eed aeal Tones Ps ed to thinkdifferently, to experiment to learn but he only Relsea hiner Be is personality. In this respect the school of architecture neither indered him. eeHaeendofthecourseJoeyiswellonthewaytobeingafullypaidupmember i urgeoisie — and he doesn’t understand how it happened. PES Uatie nen the school of architecture Joey was taught many lessons. He Seaeta noc x ofparty-goingandconversationtogetherwiththepatina anvehinatlierenee: isdrivetoworkandachievewasreinforced,and,if ee eien Mey ceue increasingly competitive. Joey certainly became a highly selt- Gea shone La Aa even arrogant. Equally, he was alienated and drawn away resha SEhGGIGE meee a .Finally, the practical skills he had acquired were too open, Joaeihcd osennh ecture design skills must be arcane. ranemnitting ae a powerful socialising mechanism as well as a knowledge Graledueston palyaere oe eauOn is a subtle, but important part of the architect- EMauEISeT IST;.rchitecturaleducationisamajorpartoftheprocessof se ttioniintalclise : eo of continually recreating and maintaining the architects thi tandawaranes ociety. In fact, itis an indictment of Liverpool's educationalists enes of this is buried in the sand. ; Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Group of Liverpool Designers Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 https://nam.maydayrooms.org/files/original/33158cdf2a51d538181ef19936ae6317.pdf 0842fbc285558df975d6e2392d014589 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Design Group Description An account of the resource Argued that it was only through the public sector that the majority of people could have access to the land and resources needed for housing, education and other essential services. The task was therefore to reform the practice of architecture in local councils to provide an accessible and accountable design service. The Public Design Group proposed reforms to the practice of architecture in local councils to provide a design service accessible and accountable to local people and service users. The following 6 Interim Proposals were developed which were later initiated and implemented in Haringey Council 1979-1985 by NAM members. <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Local area control over resources </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Design teams to be area based </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Area design teams to be multi-disciplinary </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Project architects to report directly to committee</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Abolish posts between Team Leader and Chief Architect </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Joint working groups with Direct Labour Organisations</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource PDS GROUP Subject The topic of the resource Various papers and historical reports including Netherlands Community Architecture Description An account of the resource PDS GfeuP Aa) 18- Mav. 79 CG PRAaTICS @) eee Talealeact — AlGuecitivePadice ovillunlG « CA—Haxe44,)erestha1botaat ons we actug aunaebyer ~1 : bd | ° fase pale foot eb Elsah saya. epee alples ofice eet are, F ep ee ee cifinl To p—tedack She chant ‘ f Seiihvieehphe 4tel Hates fePRE | | OPadTeSEfl nyenemree itlPaaryoubart eeiresos Te | ee wkei ghe ysig et Fadyale eit SeoiynWnere he Ph Sacanges beginby do 4 ' a ana — - — %“=aT oe fee is anedp pal ae rbataet apes An re Mot PMN oeeT ve ThattoDesiy,, ® braae ae—ia Sa oe footlags Te ee Hetae lenopoaoegUeap — ; tlBg alin cagefe a ailepeeeEheLeei ee fein daWerzts iP 7a asoe Lrseorciatiaenee astetubenyeei ft nt ese | cmt —_— ee Se = ai i htheateG=age See ee HF ieee peq] A eeeylL ia ( anit, ard usar A - eee eeoii | Thun fle Yn daiclucdipars egindend by 1 C capitanoiegS geen pein q alfroAidgy, BHbecameWisceueceofRee ° eee aeseee AvilaleeatSAUthSieia,Se MI ae cox We Irot Me an selite & tact atte eumeluer Ot tneSON aac epeeee tteate [— p (a :Fe ————_—_—. — ee aN PhMnferet? toepostion1 ee anda jer Srtat iny epee Prochie Clots rutt oP — @ laceafte.He(\4¢FelicatitysRokyAilEexsketetra.eectsal ne atLeast fran ave fence the arcncts u—ele Sy Ch Seylepms LA Ft [hams THe OfPrwt—a a pidotce “ — : Remap oe iy: g 7 pode ioack}arATSCTy | aa precTlieiFcidetesecteyWafrcestheprevadlg G MVteAA‘shee es collate, le toe tyoa ae in lbhut, bett, i cally on SE iontictcAe Tere bene Olieoftounre>IieSaidMovot. 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Gets tt —ste a ybueg)Lt Micongquoldy tHebe Tew 4 Af L SolefSouee i sa 2Shull Of buldhg ThocyloWesat tesfeds : fe the ) Apne,t alcat procuctosby : ey Convtceeu ie Aevelus Hoey awn AW aa eel /oo at shuha« ae mi S| on.ioe: Se jpeg /SRU 2 Pony Cole yutansaf Liphihied | Uonl WedthangAosalueifaff7 Lot eh evade \JPhe Hurrah 2Q 4Gwile? ees lishack WJ G) AMlnrA fo preload in.bs | anyAlas”duby 29 | ee aie We wt hains Pp Design. Semeex “Se pin\i x ms a as =a -- hy, may ¥ oT: — } a& ‘ ones *) Us a ' r fr | | |i iK { Dear “ igen. rr Aig,e~) — =< 82, Kimberley Rd. Leicester, July 16th. '79 o nS your group rep, please can you get your group to discuss and &ct on the following: The preparation for Congress is now underway and @ arart &genda h&s peen drawn up Oy the Liaison Group. Acopy of this agenda Will oe circulated to &ll groups in the Liaison Group Minutes. £. Annual report (brief), and motions (if any): These will be needed by the first week of October So that they can be sorted out and printed in time to send to people before Congress. - So start Writing now. » 0. Display panel(s): We would like each &roup to prepare a bright, attractive, zappy display panel Showing in an easy to assimilate form the Work, projects and activities they have deen involved in. This will form an exhivition Giving 4n introduction to i. Workshop topics; lhis year we are departing from previous practice and organising workshops (Some of them With sympathetic people from outside N.A.M.) which cut &cross our oWn specialist &roups. You should ve Betting @ more detailed list soon. Can you Send us any criticisms of existing workshops or Proposals Tor new ones that you may have, preferably before mid-August. We can obviously change things right up till the beginning of Congress, but it Would be vetter to get things sorted Out &S soon &8 possible for effective Publicity ete. N.A.W.'3 work at the Congress. For those of us who are not so well organised - a timetable: r id-August: suggestions re. workshops. 1979 N.A.M. Congress, ist. week in Octover: Annual report &nd motions. Novemoer: display panels. Bev. Daa Prepwrals Now you've got no excuses, We look forward to hearing from you. Yours fraternally (or Sidlingly?) Jobn Mitchell, for Congress organising cttee. _ ‘ rar é j a Aaa ye ; 42 5) lhasland Sa. Mm,{-éINAIASpCal)=La (Dy‘typeCyile5bytwd.}.!a ectBsoepeif u‘, (oi. Cl- fos lS? Ne L Adon SE f Pease reply to above address, or Phone Leicester \daytime) if you've got any queries. 671513 ext ge NM lO FUTURE cote- Should Rap cpag Ted Eeposh aeWieGeyaeLys.Y. ee Lech bel Dine G, [Min saggyeld auc if bes Ment te pact, po ette eae ro ED. Proge,feaemnTaee Bb 3 reteGarcon, obenMetall,teMary, e‘of ‘ 4ptmKplnpteLf,feyhyeiTieee eel ASty-Fe cae DSState, 32 Bri&ceho Meleganr Meo dipriofcSfepaeld DLO, 4:0 DEGAe cithelaeser, e<aA[lobiast AbshatoeSsocaAIPe ne Rea or 2: —— oe =: a PoloGraewee.ti®nprtayeartuclhhbnPN4fartss « eo MantLs tfrre. Depry a*Geoulp iat Group eBelectfeo« a (htad« c A Laos ae a a eer pocet esthiloYueG « Ponaukitcun ros precoato ae NpavelleledhyLn clb»eThelTclyena~ (AY Ulichasacttandipstes S.ReetolerlnehorltiltedBeeGAprs!)| F2 dulyMictgofEtucatlnnGroup tbealtel. G2 fdweny oF war Srmenns Sherk Ulm « f acocun ae jo see of Fe85n- o nie~vemaclayUarctilzoture,teet—a(ey KEL | bo +bre dpeuned nin nio~ hareatk Sy Som Cr-hetzhX~ t theopelicah 1stlS ca beArena it 52 Crtistel scheotls, Speculataiootn ant ofit willbeers eq Uirhidfo Mrefta,eait 10 Wiki Fare Prot « Sop nev qritnEgo Huon Dobra Sc UAtSerdceuP LELRERT :(obo~ Mifell) a 2 mol ance bodewieKheAmeSoSage « No ene | VO MELT MEETING: _ . 3 lest i.; | u7, 60 Commwnity AremtecTULE COmFEMGnee « profotl7teli ee 5at.deh, Ee ee aaa 7 tlaae ebOthewre.Minto&praySOEAe aayeder| it the goat tmtagh yp)beat ict Ga ypen Wife pa LA. ARCHITECT'S DEPARTMENTS — UNDER THE AXE? job Cen 25% | iia <r a pet if (N ae (ANskein , With the Conservative Government now seemingly entrenched for a five year term the effects of their promises to drastically reduce public spending, and to place major importance on the private sector, are Starting to be felt. The Conservative manifesto stated that they did not intend to use the construction industry as an economic regulator, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that they have to do this, and that the cuts will hit the industry severely. The Group of Eight have already reacted by lobbying the new Environment Secretary, Michael Heseltine, on a number of points, including their beleif that any further cuts will jeopardise the industry's chances of handling the country's future needs, and that the change in emphasis i to the private sector will cause many short-term problems. The construction unions have all expressed concern and threatened action, UCATT in particular has pledged to oppose any restrictions on D.L.O's. Various bodies concerned with housing, most notably Shelter and many Labour councils, have attacked the proposed drops in councilhouse building and increases in councilhouse sales. Soar Architects will of corse be as hard hit as everyone else concerned with the provision of buildings. Their workload must drop as the level of construction ddops (even allowing for labour intensive rehab work). They will have to design to even greater cost controls and to even lower standards, and will bear the blame for the resulvs. j ait Private practice may hope to gain from two possible sources, the transferal of work from L.A. architects departments and an upsurge in private sector building. L.A. architects departments are in a more difficult situation. They will be expected to bear most of the cutpacks in architectural services. If the government succeeds in it’s aims these departments will have work taken away from them, will suffer serious stafi reductions, will lose their heads and be absorbed in other departments to hide the losses, and their activities will be generally curtailed as much as possible. { di Yet although there have been many defences for general construction levels, council housing and direct labour, L.A. architects have so far not risen to the defence of their departments, and their jobs. The other interested bodies are defending themselves, why aren't L.A. architects? i i their cause any less defensible? Any such defence of L.A. architects departments must firstly consider @ number of points, including how effective the Conservatives can be with their policies, and where room will be left for local autonomy for .«f tae councils. Then the results of these considerations must be coupled | eis their cause any more’ hopeless than that of direct labour workers, is ‘if [ito arguments for the need for (and the worth and possibilities of) these in-house departments, ‘ It is of course impossible to say how succesful the Conservatives will } be with their attempted switch to the private sector, but a look at i council house sales can give us an idea, I A survey carried out by Shelter has shown that one in every six tenants who have bought their owm homes have lost them within twelve months due |} to failure to keep up payments. In the private sector the record isn't much better. Glasgow for instance has 120 applications to it's housing list every year from families who cannot keep up their mortage repayments: on private houses. Even with discounts the people who are tempted by ; Heseltines aprle of home ownership are not going to find it easy. There is some doubt that they will be even able to sell that many houses. ; Edinburgh has only sold 600 houses out of a stock of 57,000 since the war! with a continuous policy of house sales. This is a pattern repeated s throughout Sritain: witiz: the exception of London, Leeds and Birmingham and the rise of the minimum lending rate to 14% is bound to bring a reduction in all house sales, , ; Prypmmur -- Gg o- Papal Gre F Shuts bs Cc & sfes (aoe Moir ; re £ c /ats x NMRLS | —5 The implications of these figures are that in housing the private market will not be able to rise sufficiently to compensate for the drop in council houses, Even if developers do manage to build more houses who will buy them? There would anyway be a serious delay before private developers could increase their housebuilding, leaving another shortfall in housing starts, The Conservatives are therefore likely to be embarasse by the lack of housing starts over the next year and the pressure for Similarlyt}he Government will be under pressure when unemployment rises | especially in the building trades. The Conservatives may have a 44 seat majority but that does not mean that they can easily enforce their policies, They are reliant on the private sector to take advantage of the help they will be offering it. They are reliant on the money market to release enough capital for private investment, They are subject to pressure from various bodies including trade unions and local councils, 4 i bg The Conservatives will try to carry out their policies by means of Stricter control on the way that Local Authorities Spend their money. However they have also promised a certain amount of local autonomy. Mostly this autonomy will be in choosing which standard or service to Cut, but there will be some room for local decision making. They will find it hard to force some Labour Councils to abolish their D.L.0's or to sell their council houses. In the Same way Some Local Authorities wil., defend their architects departments, seeing them as an integral part of council buiding provision, ; ; 4 4 j L.A. architects departments have been the subject of much criticism in tH recent years, both from within the profession and outside. As part of a public service and a non-profit making institution they are naturally viewed as a threat to the prevailing ideology of individualism ana the market place. Cries of unfair competition can be heard from private practitioners , but what they are worried about is any competition, as building contractors are worried about D.L.0O's. Private practice already handles a substantial amount of local authority work and would be grateful to have more. 1 1)te Tenants and building users often associate L.A. architects departments | with all the faults of recent council house building. However a lot of the decisions which led to these faults were out of the architects vans and much of the work was done by private practices, Local authority | ; { TAs ee ,architects aren't blameless but they aren't the only culprits either. rp Local authority design has actually been receiving more favourable publicity recently, the AJ for instance has been criticised for it's m €mMphasis on local authority work. The prevailing ideology however leads to private practice being judged on it's better products, whilst local i authorities are judged by their failures. if To defend in-house departments it is necessary to to analyse what they | can offer that private practices can't. These departments are the only way of getting a continuity of service, with direct links to user % departments and the possibility of feedback, The London Borough cf { Hammersmith for example has co-ordinated and ‘integrated it's functions of; design, planning and housing management in an attempt to link housing ; policy implementation to actual housing needs. This integration would be i| impossible without in-house departments. (see AJ 25/4/79 pg 847) Unfortunately Hammersmith have not included their D.L.0O. in this integration, but it could be done, and it would lead to necessary links between design and construction, t The London Borough of Haringey have also reorganised their design process. They have restructured their architects department as a design co-operative in an attempt to overcome bureaucracy, give greater job Satisfaction, and to establish vital links with the community. The ; department has been split into area &roups who will do a cross-section of work and will have close contacts with tenants associations and community groups, The normal hierarchies have been flattened with job architects reporting direct to the Borough architect, team leaders only being responsible for job co-ordination. (see BD 4/5/79 vg +) }jf Dave Green/ public Design Service Group/ NAM/ June '79. f BANesting, ; “ai: E i ee am — L.A. architects departments could go much further in this direction. The ideas of Haringey and Hammersmith are Similar to the proposals of the New Architecture Movement's Public Design Service Group, as put : forward in their paper 'Community Architecture- a Public Design Service!*| These proposals include area control of resources, area based teams, f more responsibility for job architects, t.e flattening of hierarchies, and contacts with D.L.0's, One of the main problems with councils is that although councillors are elected on an area basis they serve on function committees where they have to make decisions on an assumed general interest. To safeguard ; local interests area committees are needed. These could be made up of representatives of tenants and.residents groups, trade unions and the local councillors, They could deal with the council matters that relate to their area, briefing architects and approving designs and standards. So that architects could relate to these area committees and make extra contact with the users of there buildings they nee? +o be organised! 3 on an area basis as well, For job architects to get involved in their work, and to take 7.- f responsibility for ti, it is necessary for them to report direct to committee, which would cut down irresponsible work done under blind ‘ orders. The present vertical structuring of architects departments sts from the lave 19th. Century model, which private practices have since changed to a system of multiple partners each with their own area of responsvdilit Local Authorities have however made more and more tiers of non-design ; staff to control the job architect. If the cuts are to hit anywhere it rid should be this hierarchical structure, through redeployment of staff, ae ; To spread the architects range of contacts, which would enable them to design more responsibly, joint working groups with D.L.0's could be 4 j set up. These could lead the way to an integrated design and build system, Te These changes would enable greater contact with tenants, and would give those tenants a greater say in their environment. It is by these means that a real community architecture could be established. Local authority architects therefore offer a unique Opportunity in architecture today, an integration of the building process in complete contrast to it's present fragmented state. ; a i Therfore we need to defend these departments both for their value now i and for their value in the future. The case is by no means hopeless. i Other local authority workers are fighting with some success to maintain } wtheir position as part of a service, and some of the more progressive \ councils have shown themselves sympathetic to ideas for reorganisation i i| put forward by staff, as at Haringey. The means of action for this defence need to be varied. Any attempts : >i at cutbacks or reorganisation should be met with alternative proposals, Organisation within NALGO should be attempted. The RIBA should be lobbied, if only to see their reaction. Councils need convincing of the worth of their architects departments and general publicity of the positive sides of local authority architectire is needed, i zy *'Community Architecture-a Public Design Service' is available from NAM, 9 Poland St. London W1 £1.00 A meeting of the PDS group to discuss the issues in this article will be held on Sat. July 7th at / SO rr2peSpee ers+ ere oe AD * raat’ oe Naeseed Hows= Cvaerored tcmad ¢wo) oN‘OQUN‘HA = Satis <n. ye Bom Hos urxckand ;‘ COmee ¥ e-oeaeNe\culeme)semeke Cw) The wad wr Ptebob ly jos eleqekee ERO MOK, houren P ger po Decauna eo Comm0rle ifyou Aare ay p 1! See nlaMela~ | “ )prpf afee Crrafa~;| +hefrertuceolnyet dian. 'ofh,oe ber shail nor empro iy 15 Of Statutory appr ' BRYAN HARRY RidFERSON. TASSac EL oe member shall not take scouts Pucement to shaw favour to anv denmMeNnd oF allow # Peice or product in der shall not carry ¢ company. . Pies authority. respo whom he isprofessin nee ~ s ciate 26 Amember wll 5 » sup sr ns . wate Ober * OfSEra genera with. Crawal of the labour of members without first tax, @ Datiot vote of 9 4 central government department. a foal authorrty, he whove of ine Mmambershio and two-tnirds of the vosca cast berg Public board or corporation or Comenercial firm or cOMoaNy shait in favour in the event of the necessary majority of voles be arrange win hes emplover that ine Susiness of that body so far as Obtained for strike achon, Ihe Execute Commitioe shail be tuiry Lrelates19architecture*SConductedinConformitywithtreCose authorisedtogwemeNecessarystnkeMOlCeOnDehsifofati Members concemed Ths procedure Sra atso apply in the Case of @ NOCh-Out by the employers as regards rejusas 0 accept their A marmber who is unable to ensure tratthe business of ms SMBIOVEr FS $0 Conducted shall furnish the RIBA with awnten decharanon of the facts ‘ f i si lermy 6.30 tuesday5 june PCL. 104-108 bolsover st-W/1, Rules : ——— 2.1 Armember shatt Not have such -Pe via exhibition -bar- refreshments | 5~ Sponsored by London branch of TASS Building Design Staff 25 Amembdor snail nor actin disregard of the Professional ablaarons OF Quahficatons of INE from who CEWVeS OF f0 Whom he months on arrears Deett snail rez @oniteciural business of 8nv body corporate or un NCOfoorate ime Seyord the terms iaig tne Executive Commit. .' The problems facing the building industry, both Shorter-term and Structural, have Produced a wide ranging and heated debate over recent years. At one stage, with the Iabour Party in office, the Partial nationalisation of the industry &long lines Proposed in Building Britain's Ratioren becdme & distinct POSSivility. The recent election of a Tory government, however, with their firm committment to monetarism aay ees his article Will take the form of @ review of Building Sritain's Future from the architect's Specific position Within the construction process. It will look &t changes in the organisation of the industry that &re necessary for the development of the New Architecture Movement's &im of a fully enterprise, has radically altereg this situation: CABIN has &ccountable ang democratic architectural Service. ie Suilding Britain's Future - Iabour's Policy on Construction. Ihe Labour Party. October 1977. 2. The Campaign Against Building Industry Nationelisation. This w&s the campaigning body set up by the contractors! organisations in opposition to Labour's Proposals. ( See 'Slate' no.g ) [HE NEED FoR CHANGE : construction Process, both to extend cooperation and understanding Within the industry and to increase Popular control over the design and Construction. The Toots of this split are complex, but for the last 150 years or So it has been a central element of 4rchitectural practice. It is a division of interests that has Produced, and is in turn reinforced by, the legal forms that govern Working relationships: it is inherent in the Contracting System. The effects of this division &nd the Problems it causes are obvious, as an R.I.B.A. official quoted in 5 Building Britain's Future has stated: is the Signal for the battle between the various parties - contractors, Su0-contractors, Suppliers and the various Professionals-— to commence, a battle which soon develops into a continuous tactical game of catch-as—catch-can, €&nd hard luck on the one left holding the baby when the music stops." There is an ODvious need to find ways in which this OppoSition and mistrust can be overcome, to create 4 relationship of cooperation between architects and Duilding Workers, where o- Building Britain's Future. p. 20, e@ch other's skills &nd abilities are recognised and can be creatively developed. A move in this direction requires not only @ change away from the contracting system and the conflict of interests it Produces, but also a Conscious effort to break down the dam& ging ideological divide between Professional and manual workers. This Process can be started OY Support for existing union Camp&igns around health and safety, unemployment, the lump, defence of direct labour, ina&dequate training and all the other problems Which not only affect Duilding workers, but also the Quality of the built environment and the Potential for constructive relationships between builder and architect. Cooperation can then begin to be built on the basis of common interest as workers in the construction industry. The section above has Srgued for changes Which start to increase democracy and Cooperation within the industry; of equal importance however, are attempts to make the industry as & whole more &ccountaple to the people who have to live in and With its products. Greater control is required over cost and Quality of Work. The problems and inefficiences of competitive tendering hawe been descrived very clearly in the document "Building with Direct Tabaueien They are also recognised by the Iabour Party: "... constant competition for each &nd every contract on the Sole basis of lowest tender price has not brought to the surface the most efficient contractor, or the best employer, but the 4. Building with Direct Iabour - Iocal authority building and the crisis in the construction industry. D.L. Collective. 1978 had TM effectively exploit Peculiarities of the market or the weakness of other Participants in the construction pidoestane; his SyStem, far from 8iving value for money, can often have disasterous effects on cost, quality and Subsequent m&intenance, especially for local authorities, During the Speculative boom Contractors to take on Work. When work is in short supply, on the other hand, competition for Public sector Contracts is fierce, and Contractors, having put in low original tender Prices, are often forced to cut corners: the resulting claims, skimped Work, bankruptcies and &SsSociated Problems al] push 4p costs and reduce quality. Although exaggerated during Periods of rapid expansion or depression, Poor quality ana high cost work are permanent features of a construction industry Organised around the contracting System. The result of al] this is that the Public Sector, which Commissions about a half of all building work in this country, has little real control over the cost and quality of work Produced, and it is the Public, Who pay for ang use the buildings, who Suffer the Consequences, o. Building sritain's Future. p.14 overall system of economic 4nd industrial planning. must be the development The most important aspect of control over the industry, of user control over the built environment, particularly at the local level. This requires not only a radical transformation Within &nd development It is on the the industry basis as a whole of these criteria - democratisation { of accountability | however, especially for architects, of existing architectural Services, but also a closer and longer term Cooperation between architects and builders; a cooperation Whereby links can be fostered between the entire building team and local tenants @roups and Community associations. From this a dialogue and understanding may develop, giving rise ® to @ quality and flexibility of work that is sensitive and responsive to local peculiarities ang the needs of the user. and popular control over the industry - and the implications they hold for architectural practice, that the Proposals contained in Building Britain's Future should be &nalysed, e, eee ee a enea eesMe Sew Process." THE LABOUR PARTY'S APPROACH : The severe recession facing the building industry has been 4 major factor Stimulating deoate; the Labour party's Proposals in Building Britain's Future are both a response to this immediate crisis and an attempt to solve some of the underlying structural Problems of the industry. These Problems, they argue, are vased on the fragmentation of the industry - a fragmentation of construction activity into Separate, finite contracts, and of construction organisation into numerous contractors, Sud-contractors, design Professionals etc.; reinforcing this fragmentation, and adding further Problems of its own, as outlined above, is the System of competitive tendering. The use, by government, of the construction industry &S &n economic regulator exacerbates this situation &nd makes for an industry characterised by its instability. This instability 4nd uncertainty causes Problems both for the contractors, with resulting large scale inefficiencies, &nd for the workforce, where job insecurity and lump la@oour make unionisation difficult, Siving rise to bad working conditions, appalling health and safety precautions and insufficient training. The extent of these defects and their complex inter- Connection lead the Iabour Party to conclude that: "None of them can be tackled in isolation; each makes sense only in the context of the others, and only a comprehensive &pproach can solve them. taken together they add Up, in our view toanSeeeecaseforradicalchangesintheconstruction 6. Building Britain's Future. p.20 De neEe >a C.I.M.B. o. Staoility of Work: Lo provide a stable flow of work industry, both terms of contractual of forward planning of a proportion the public client of the quantity to the construction and timing of work, and in from in terms proceedures. Systems for It proposes capital programmes, the extension & guarantee These "radical changes" take the form of a series of interventions in the organisation and the structure of the Quilding industry. The following is a Summary of these proposals, under the same Subheadings and in the same order as used in Building Britain's Future. 1. Puolic Spending: An "immediate and substantial" increase in public spending on construction is needed. 2. Working Conditions: By the registration of all employers and employees under the Construction Industry Manpower Board (C.I.M.B.) Standards of working conditions would be imposed on employers, JOD opportunities and manpower coordinated, 4 national apprentice training scheme established and trade union membership encouraged among registered employees. A levy on employers would provide fallback pay to all temporarily unemployed building workers registered under the C.I.M.B. In addition to this, a Code of Construction Site Practice would be drawn up ".prescribing high standards of safety and welfare 7 provision.". Public sector contracts would be limited to of future construction work against expenditure cuts, and a firms complying with this code and registered with the 7. Building Britain's Future. p.60 Would be ",.managed professionally as municipal enterprises" 8 reserve shelf of future spending programmes to be advanced or put back dependent on €conomic policy requirements. 4 Public Procurement Agency should be set up, based initially on the Property Services Agency of the D.0.E., to coordinate the letting of Public sector Contracts. There should be, in addition to this improved quantity and coordination of work, & move away from competitive tendering towards continuity and serial contracts, with a Code of Conduct laid down by the National Building Agency Covering negotiations between contractors and the Public client. To improve continuity Within the industry there Should be greater standardisation of building plans, Construction details €@nd components. 4. Public Ownership: This Would take three main forms. Firstly, the exp&nsion of direct labour departments, with national and regional Coordination, the right to tender for &ny work in the locality anda greater industrial democracy. These D.L.0.s &nd would operate in competition With private contractors. Secondly, the Setting up of a Publicly owned National Construction oe TEED, ",.basedinitiallyononeormorem&jorcon- tractors"; this Would take the form of a State holding company, Covering & number of different enterprises competing in n&étional and region@l construction markets. As with D.L.0.s, increased industrial democracy would be a feature of these enterprises, Thirdly, workers'cooperatives Would be encouraged at a4 local level through an extension of the Industrial 5. Building Britain's Future. p.61 9. Ibid. p.62 Common Ownership Act; these would operate mainly at the level of specialist Sud-contractors. In addition to this expansion of the public Sector, large private contractors should be brought into the Planning agreements System through an oi Planning agreements system. The Forestry Commission should Should ve used to promote the Standardisation of building | components. 6. Organisation: This , this suggests out of the hands of the R.I.B.A. & oody representing the whole industry, such as the Construction Industry Training Board. Recognising present exists between architects between design and construction, integration and as one way of achieving section proposes a closer that architectural education &nd put under the control of should be taken the conflict which at &nd contractors, a statutary Regulatory Board for Contracts, Procedures and Disputes in extension of the 1975 Industry Act. Building Materials: Increased public sector control of Production should be matched by increased control over the Supply of building materials. fo this end, a new state holding company, the Building Materials Corporation (B.M.C.), Should oe established. This would nationalise mineral rights and associated production facilities along with a range of monopoly materials Suppliers, including Pilkingtons, B.P.B. Industries, London brick, and one or more maéjor cement, ceramic tile, concrete roof tile, clay pipe, concrete slab and sanitary equipment manufacturers. Plumbing, heating and ventilation equipment producers Would be brought within the expand and diversify its activities and bulk timber importing consortia should be set up. This public sector involvement SpE rsenna 7 the Construction Industry, with trade union representation, hes been proposed as a means of solving these contractual disputes. In an attempt to secure a better deal for the client, Gesigners and contractors should be legally responsible for any faults in their work that might occur up to ten years after completion; a national indemnity scheme is Proposed to cover this liability. Among ways of ensuring greater client control over cost would be the greater independence of quantity Surveyors from the design team. In addition there are proposals for an independent Source of technical information for designers, possibly provided by the National Building Agency, and for a greater proportion of the industry's work to oe open to design competitions. This summary of the Iapour Party's proposals has been given in the form of a Shopping list, without comment or of the criteria established at the beginning of this article - the extension of democracy and cooperation within the industry, { criticism; its implications will now be examined in the light and the increase of popular control over the industry. CRITICISMS: Although different priorities &nd emphases might be Placed on many of the issues discussed in Building Britain's Future, there is little in the a@ims and intentions with Which to quarrel. A number of the proposals, however, seem to effectively contradict these stated aims and Severely restrict their 1. Contracting: Despite a lucid and coherent exposition of the problems and inefficiences of the contracting system, and particularly of its most common form, competitive tendering, the Proposals do nothing to undermine or replace this system of organisation in the construction industry. Continuity and serial contracts méy temper some of the worst excesses of the contracting systen, but the basic conflicts and divisions will remain. The Public Sector will still have little real control over the quality and cost of work, while public funds will continue to boost private profits, and the conditions will be created for further Widespread corruption. Especially important for architects, the continuation of this system will maintain the division of interests between architect and builder; the Labour Party's expressed desire for closer links between design and construction will not be achieved. Restricted to the private sector, this @pproach might be acceptable, put it also structures the proposals fora greatly expanded public Sector, both in direct labour and in the proposed National Construction Corporation. The advances represented by direct labour, both for the implementation. These will now be examined in greater detail. workforce and the client, have been clearly recognised, and a CRITICISus: 1. Contracting: Despite a lucid and coherent exposition of the problems particularly the proposals and inefficiences of the contracting system, and tendering, of its most do nothing in the construction méy temper but the basic contracts system, remain. The sector will cost of work, profits, and corruption. still have while public of this system architect and will maintain builder; the the division Labour Party's of interests expressed desire closer links achieved. Restricted be acceptable, greatly expanded will not be approach might the proposals both in direct Corporation. by direct labour, the proposed The advances represented both for the common form, to undermine competitive or replace this system of organisation the conditions Especially industry. Continuity some of the worst excesses conflicts and divisions will public little real funds will will be created important for architects, between design to the private out it also structures for a labour and in public sector, National Construction and construction sector, this and serial of the contracting control over the quality continue to boost private for further the continuation between for and widespread implementation. These will now be examined in greater detail. Although different priorities &nd emphases might be Placed on many of the issues discussed in Building Britain's Future, there is little in the a&ims and intentions with which to quarrel. A number of the proposals, however, seem to effectively contradict these stated aims and severely restrict their workforce and the client, have been clearly recognised, and a Significant expansion of D.L.0.s is planned, &llowing both an increase in new construction work undertaken and the right to compete for work with both private firms &nd other public bodies in the locality. For this expansion to take place, the document argues that D.L.0.s must ve "..run. as municipal enterprises, and not purely as local authority service departments." : This is & fundamental Shortcoming in the Iabour Party's Proposals. Some supporters of direct labour argue for competitive tendering on the grounds that it Will prove the efficiency of D.L.0.s against private contractors, but as Building Britain's Future itself contends, the original tender price bears little relation to subsequent cost, efficiency and quality of work. (It ais Worth noting that this form of Sccountability is not only ineffective, but also restrictive, in that the &ccounts of direct labour departments, at present open to public Scrutiny, Would have to become confidential, to avoid the passing on of information to Competitors.) All this is not to deny a need for close control of direct labour accounts but to say that competitive tendering does not provide a suitable basis for this control. Direct Labour departments offer the potential for the creation of locally based, democratically &ccountaple building teams working in close cooperation with both architects and users. The Iabour Party's insistence on their being run 4s "municipal enterprises" denies this potential by reinforcing the contractual 10. Building Britain's Future. p.s9 ll. See, for example, some of the depate in Slate 9, Split between architect and Duilder, and by replacing the concept of building as a service to the community with one in which Profit and loss predominate, with al] the adverse effects this Produces, as argued above, for building Workers, designers and clients. These criticisms can be extended to cover the proposals for 4 National Construction Corporation - Proposals which in themselves tend to five rise to further contradictions. Public Sector intervention On projects of a size and type not applicable to D.L.0.s would seem to be Sensible, and the Suggestion of taking profitable Sectors of the economy into public ownership With substantial internal democracy is & welcome break from past types of nationalisation. However, the relationship of this body, 48 organised at a regional level under the parent holding company, to the expanded D.L.0.s seems extremely unclear and needy of reexamination. The main point of disagreement with the Iabour Party's Proposals, therefore, is the acceptance of the contracting System &@s @ suitable basis for advancing the democratisation of the industry; this will severely restrict many of the professed aims, most importantly the closer integration of peep TT Proposals for greater standardisation through "..standard building plans, simple construction details, and a restricted 12 range of fixtures, fittings and components." are the logical primarily to reduce costs, it is also argued that greater construction and design. ere Standardisation: Outcome of the Labour Party's approach to the industry. Proposed 12. Building Britain's Future. p.352 standardisation will facilitate the introduction of the new contractual arrangements Suggested in the programme. While €conomies in construction are to be welcomed, the infinite variety of built form necessitated by different user needs, Sites,climates and other variables severely restricts €conomies through standardisation: the argument in favour of Standardisation for contractual reorganisation, on the other hand, becomes invalid if, as above, this form of reorganisation is found wanting. Standardisation to reduce unnecessary competition and waste m&y be desirable, but the limitations and restrictions can outweigh the limited financial savings produced. For workers in the industry, both in design and construction, it c@n represent a severe loss of job satisfaction and a sSub- stantial deskilling, at a time when the m@intenance and development of both traditional and new creative skills is essential. Technology should be used not to replace these skills, but to remove the drudgery from work and allow an increase in its creative ana fulfilling content. Equally, standardisation can be restrictive for Duilding users, limiting the possibility of their exercising control over the built environment; "standard plans" hardly seem a Satisfactory way of making buildings responsive to user needs. If we are to produce a colourful, varied, interesting and responsive environment, greater standard- isation, though valuable in some areas of the construction process, is more likely to be a hindrance than & help. o. Independence of the Quantity Surveyor. In another attempt to control costs to the Public client, Building Britain's Future proposes that "Quantity Surveyors rod could.... become technical auditors, employed by the client and 15 independent of the design team." This may well be appropriate to the private sector, but in the Public sector, where the client already employs "in-house" architects and quantity Surveyors, and architects remuneration is not based on fees, greater Separation of the two functions Would only be harmful. Instead, area-based, integrated design (and in the longer term bDuilding) teams should be developed in which all the different technical Specialists, including the quantity surveyor, would work closely together; greater control over both cost &nd quality in this context should fall to the real users at a local level, with Whom this team could establish an Ongoing &nd cooperative 14 relationship. ee core eeeteeel ere lo. Building sritain's Future. p.o6 14. For a further discussion of these ideas see "Community Architecture-— 4& Puolic Design Service ?", @ paper produced by the P.D.S. Group of the New Architecture Movement. zt CONCLUSION: This critique of Building Britain's Future, from the Position of architects in the public Sector, leads to the Suggestion of some ammendments to the Iabour Party's proposals. The most important of these changes is in the &4pproach to direct lapvour. The Iabour Party's committment to the expansion of direct lavour is to pve welcomed, but if a framework is to be Provided in which the Split between design and construction can be mended, this expansion must be on the basis of D.L.0.s &S service departments. In the same way as "in-house" architects departments are Sutomatically allocated the work of, for example, the pvorough they serve, direct labour Ouilding teams should automatically ve allocated the work of that architects department. This would necessitate new forms of cost control and accountability, but Would provide the basis fora regionally devolved and democratic extension of Public ownership. With local authority work asutomatically allocated to locally based direct labour teams, the role of the National Construction Corporation at a regional level would need reexamination. The N.C.C. should primarily be concerned with larger scale work not suitable to D.L.0.s. The same criticisms of contracting apply to the N.C.C. as to direct lébour. iF lhe incorporation of these proposals on direct labour and the N.C.C., along with @ reappraisal of standardisation | &nd cost control, as argued above, would leave little in the ] document with which to disagree. In this form it could both 4 q help the development of a militant, but positive and critical, defence of direct labour against the current attacks of the Conservatives and building contractors, while at the same time providing a longer term programme for radical and pro- gressive change throughout the industry. Public Design Service Group, The New Architecture Movement. 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The Fens mag try and encomeage mere th. thinrock ausathese ak (bufferoo me:matopla Mata on He trewnin Cynthia Cockebuen In fak I hewan’+ read eee Ele ba alee koMaecOteeaesSecasakaceeinergepttsitesghine refered—te preinieus (Mite Pn, tls eee haem le Ghee hasanes atc Sey Loeete : Sons aalhs oe phys a eae ee is (aJe Vue cetieenaleleteGetbecstenettnearthgoesnaebe weet thy He frome fm percha Lethe othe hepa ek uae a, Pe tagtealilosle ~ OE HLS saber sa, 4 na els poner Has» ercsica ake i Dear Friends, Mike Fleetwood Peta Sissons s Tues, 3rd. April, er vices to lanChristie ommun ity DexterWhitfield tion and 31 CLERKENWELL CLOSE The venue for the meeting has now been confirmed - {t will be held on Saturday 28th. April at the Digbeth Civic Hall in the centre of Birmingham. (We will be sending a map nearer the date). The meeting will take Place in Lecture room no. 1, will start at 10.30 am. anc will continue until about 5.30pm, The room wili hold about 100 people, so when we have heard from all the campaigns we have contacted, we may have to limit the number of delegates from any one campaign, To help us finalise these arrangements quickly, we need the following information; 1) The names (or at least numbers) of delegates you wish to send, 2) Approx. time of arrival, and whether you will need accommodation on Friday night. Please state whether delegates are willing to share a room. (Accommodation is being arranged with tenants in the Birmingham area.) 3) Whether you would need to make use of a creche for your children, the latest, (or phone). eee Anti-dampness campaign strategy meeting enants TELOFASeo So please fill in the Slip at the end of this letter and return it by Thurs. April l2th, at So far, we know that delegates will be coming from Glasgow, Edinburgh, South Wales, London, Sandwell, Manchester, and several other areas, We are making every effort to raise funds to help with delegates! travelling expenses, but obviously 1t would be a great help if campaigns could agree to pay their own delegates! expenses. Possible sources of finance might be ea local resource centre or law centre, local charitable trusts, or Council of Voluntary Service etc., or the usual fundraising events. However, if you have any problems raising the cash, let us know and we will tell you how much money we can put in towards your delegates costs. Brief papers are being prepared on the following; 1) Finance - how repairs/renedial work is financed; impact of the possible new Housing legislation. 2) Brief overview - of progress made by campaigns, drawing together common issues and problems, response of councils to demands, the scale of the problem. Types of estate, and kinds of dampness experienced etc, 8) Dampness and health, 2. Best wishes, jen aaa Deiilossee 3) Remedies - what causes anid what can be done about condensation, rising damp and penetrating damp. 5) Joint Action between tenants and DLO_workers,as in Sandwell, W.Bromwich. —— rantsandDLOworkers 4) The construction and contracting System, and the role of Direct Labour Organisations. 6) Historical background = development of council housing, high rise etc., housing cuts, attitudes to council housing, 7) Legal Action - different sorts of legal action, uses and limitations. We will be inviting people with Specialised knowledge - an architect, a public health inspector, a solicitor, and possibly a doctor - to come to the meeting to comment and answer questions on some of these issues. However, the emphasis will be on future Strategies for campaigns, rather than on a detailed discussion of these issues in isolation. Rs We enclose a questionnaire for you to complete and send back to us as soon as possible, to help in the drawing up of the "overview" paper. The questionnaire will also be duplicated and passed on to other delegates at the meeting. This will enable groups to see what the Situation is elsewhere and to contact groups with similar problems. It would be useful if delegates could bring material for an exhibition which will be displayed at the meeting - photos, leaflets, posters, and any surveys/reports which you may have prepared during your campaign, We feel it 1s important for delegates to discuss their contribution to the meeting with their groups beforehand, particularly the success/ problems met by your campaign, and possible future strategy to get your demands met. The meeting 1s being sponsored by UCATT Midland Region, but we are still waiting to hear from other organisations which we have approached for financial support. We look forward to hearing from you shortly. Local Plans Housing Finance SLUS 2Other Reports obtain. : Tequires as 0 Seat N . ven ; clarification or Registered office 9 Qucen Anne's Gate London SW1H 9BY Telephone 01-930 0611 SCAT Publications W y Registered England 1175699 6 March 1979 A pamphlet about tne Uistr..°, action Aree and Subject Plans which local authorities now have to prepare as a meons of try- ing to guide and control change ond development in their areas and as supplements to Structure Plans. It will show how all the important decisions about the use of land and resources within a Local Plan crea are detemined by political and economic forces beyond the control of the local council. It will also in- clude a stage by stage guide to the legal procedure for prepar- ing local plans and an action section suggesting how groups can exploit the procedure to meet some working class demands and to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of loca! planning within a market economy. The pamphlet is being prepared with help from the Southwark Low Project and North Southwark Commun- ity Development Group and wil! draw on the experience of gf in Coventry, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London, Manchester and other creas. (Publication late 1978) movement is finding itself more ye; the national and local press ortunately quick to seize on the sort of controversy obscures fan equally, if not more, important the amount of progress being made ft€rol in Management, design and ithin the movement. This pamphlet will describe the present and proposed systems of local authority housing finance and government controls, and will put housing finance into a wider economic context. It will be produced jointly with an economist atUniversity College, London and will attempt to unravel the complexit- ies of housing finance in as simple and straight forward a way as possible. It will explain where the money comes from, how council housebuilding, improvement, repairs, slum clearance, council mortgages etc are financed and how to use and understand a Housing Revenue Account etc. The pamphlet will show what happens to socialised housing ina capitalist system and how landowners, financiers and build- ers profit. The implications of the kind of policies proposed n the Green Paper on Housing Policy will be examined together with the need for and impact of radical alternatives td the present system. (Publicatior early 1979) As part of the subscription you will receive 2 other reports or pamphlets. These will be EITHER reports or pamphlets publish- ed by SCAT Publications covering issues on which Services to Community Action ond Tenants is currently working eg. the impoct of housing policies on employment in the housing sector, high heating costs and defects in council housing, build-for—sale schemes, OR reports or pamphlets produced by local campaigns and organisations to which Services to Community Action and Tenants has given advice and assist- ance. These local reports or pamphlets will be ones which have national relevance. They are also often difficult to ~ {e SladeWe % The Architects’ Journal DAL LVAIlMamis / ‘ticle this week, OUT OF THE PUBLIC | that much of the process of irk, by force of circumstance and 10 ignore tenants and as Such is i key principles for opening up jociations' contribution to the ibe pleased to receive your in take dictated letters Over x rynA L 7besey 4 \en ® sae VCR ROL, ee $UPke, CLIO ZL { Patrick Hannay Buildings Editor -_ The housing association movement is finding itself more e- If any of the analysis requires clarification or refuting, then we would be pleased to receive your comments. Eve George can take dictated letters over the phone. John Murray Esq NAM PDS Group c/o 5 Milton Avenue London N.6 Dear Mr Murray TM Yo Slate we % :x | fa Td Octobe 1912 A : Se ee ~ 7 an? UV fei, Registered office 9 Queen Anne's Gate London SWLH 9BY Telephone 01-930 0611 Rogistored England 1175699 6 March 1979 and more in the public eye; in its usual way, is unfortunately quick to seize on the financial scandals; this sort of controversy obscures what might be considered an equally, if not more, important issue of debate, namely the amount of progress being made in developing tenant control in management, design and development decisions, within the movement. Roger Barcroft in his article this week, OUT OF THE PUBLIC ‘ EYE (pp 471-487), argues that much of the process of housing associations' work, by force of circumstance and legislation, continues to ignore tenants and as such is a betrayal of one of the key principles for opening up the scope of housing associations' contribution to the housing provision. The Architects’ Journal the national and local press : PAX NVM iy /ithR ROW aaaetaU Cibk yinbheal:tife Yon.5 i J 22910” SEW ’ Dear Friend, The Report of the Alternative Practice Seminar is at last completed. We will keep you informed about the Conference when this has been arranged. The Alternative Practice Organising Group. oo} GoFS GA wet ND ~~! 7 As the seminar decided, this report is intended as a basis for further discussion, and a working group is to be set up to further investigate the issues raised at the seminar. The working group will report back to a Conference to be held at a later date. The first meeting of the working group is at 5.00pm on the 16th March, at the offices of Support, and it is hoped that each group will send a delegate to that meeting. Would you contact Mary Rogers at Support to confirm this. Saturday: 10.00 a.m. : ANN BLISS — BILL HILLIER and JULIENNE HANSON 41.00 p.m.: Lunch break. 2,00 p.m. SHIRLEY ARDNER CLATRE COOPER trained in geography and urban planning,,has worked as a planner and researcher in Britain, Sweden, Puerto Rico and the USA. She is now Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture and Landscape at Berkeley. She will be talking about St. Francis Sq., a case study of an inner city multi-racial housing co-operative in San Francisco, both as researcher and as resident. 4.00 p.m. :Workshops. Women and Buildérs (led by Krystyna Domanska). Women in Housing Co-ops (Seagull\. The St. Francis Sq. Case Study (Claire Cooper). Women and Space (Julienne Hanson, Bill Hillier). ie Women, Space amd Human Evolution (Denise Arnold, Chris Knight). Defining Female (Shirley Ardner). “4 6.00 p.m.: SHOBSRING TREATRE: "HOUSEWORK", WOMEN AND SPACH: Feminist Anthropology, Architecture and Community. Weekend School: March 10-11, 1979. will be looking at present-day housing from the standpoint of her own personal experience as a woman with two young children and as a-social work assistanndtwi,ll talk about whyshehas found:anthropological knowledge concerning women in other cultures relevant. are from the, Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, researching and teaching on the comparative study of architecture and spatial organization in different cultures, BILL HILLIER will look at the social forces behind changes in urban space which have taken place in the twentieth century. He will suggest a framework for discussing the relationship between the built environment and forms of ‘community. JULIENNE HANSON will sketch an overview of how different societies organize, the relationships between men and women in space, suggesting how the organization of space can be used in weakening or strengthening women's solidarity. : is a social anthropologist at Queen Blizabeth House, Oxford. Her topic will be 'Defining Female'—-the title of a book which she has recently edited, and which was sponsored by the Oxford University Women's Studies Committee. ay SUSAN WALKER JULIENNE HANSON KATE YOUNG DENISE’ ARNOLD VAL VENNUSS is an archaeologist at one of the major London museums, participating in the preparation of an exhibition on everyday life in classical antiquity. She will be looking at women and physical space in antiquity, both in ceremonial and domestic life. will talk on developments in housing forms since the nineteenth century. She will be looking at life in traditional urban streets and in their modern counterparts:-—high-density, high-rise estates and low-density, low-rise suburbs—-and will be examining the consequences for women's solidarity of these different kinds of urban locality. is from the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, and is a social anthropologist. She will say a few words on the effects --which the, installation of piped water had on women's social life in ‘a village.in Mexico in which she did her field-work. is a practising architect, and will look at the influence of design “guides in reinforcing the privatisation of the nuclear family and the isolation and oppression of women within the context of mass housing. chairs the Housing Committee of the Islington (Labour) Council, and has been an active campaigner for working-class women's rights for a number of years. She will be discussing the practical problems aifficulties which she has faced both inside and outside the council as planning and architectural policies have changed within the area in recent times. : : PEGGY BEAGLE and as a N.U.P.E. shop-steward and women's representative on Greenwich Trades Council. She will say a few words on What kind of housing 1 | like to see", particularly in the. light of her experience living in a 30 year-old 8-storey block of flats. 4.00 p.m.: Lunch break. 2,00 p.m. Gh iD) 1S) BE Oa . Design Workshop (Anne Thorne). 2.30: Workshops. ; Housing since the nineteenth century (Julienne Hanson). The political struggle for good housing (Val Venness). Cuba: community, buildings, living and working spaces (Dr. Mo Mowlan) . an History and women's spaces (Susan Walker). a House as an image of self-psychological perception (Claire Cooper). Design Guides, CcO-OpS, creches, society co-operative dwellings (Sarah Stron We fine ; S eee AAUSWN [ Se 453 Discussion. . |Z Steff 8 Bruce Dirne Gree , Fie pe faoocteie “ Le uel bic. 8 ae PIS fo (afro + 2/70 fof. |Coo haAe|TO|SLeblig Feta i. <—fA fa G Pydtatoyry+Soe fey Growl oben Seok 445 2P? Kamin typrl SDesin Qe? Sup Wallen uc eo) a ayne »et NWAMAMK meeEROYEOveCO-}, oe NA PRS. NERTING S FEB.’79 Presenk:— Ti EES ,SMtne, D.Grea, J R.Ge BSmith,R0ae E.Smivxk chaire R.Genton Gok hie thinutes. I) Matters arising — No, branchofRIBAmeeting €E0discuss “Does ie Koga | |InsGeeoesfreiews~a1daspimmGousBe icine “whl Gtke m Apc 3rc. R. Gres NAM Femunise and P. groups asill akeend. RG ovAon eo f < paste , f , ( fies lopics 7 discussion — rina dHes Co-cperaGve prac&ce. ® Pre nad he user Shave CARs |ORLEEEAE. 4) Jace wasa discussion omideas about GlacaGon. Sees gees Wh aViewGarepo’ciAy i qhe influcnze the our Party's pokice on Consoickion. Tech oe Oeslumpas AoeKeenas€iCvauemc / anh 4 NexeMocking—BNET ab19MousfietdRd,Nos; D oiscussion of haw Coe Should be ; ured, Mak Freeson «sith allocat&eos Communicy A rchiteckure. Communé: Arhitedoue-a RDS?” report b be sone & ( ® AcsRilhi of pave Mma peomanent basis. Ae he Same Gre, here isan i. cal alla om Direct bubou; hin has -ernen ES “Iau IRED “Building Britains Facure? We cmside- DLO's must he senize Acparemenés, So an | bo exbad accountability. 3 Mmarch_ i VAPayerFockwascmaucted,ithicinclJ.uMditechedlls Liasm Group xprnsco. (Sadaat 4.220 “am lfc in he Kitty. nen A —ceilingof £e-so) c ere | te TM i 1, 2, 3» Notes On Nationalisation Of The Building Industry for P.D.G. Meeting 3/2/79. The State Of The Industry. a, the present crisis, 1, unemployment and it's associated problems, 2, inefficiency of idle plant and -rundowns, 3, effects onll-A.'s (attacks on D.L.0.'s, low tenders etc), many people believe that all that is ‘needed is more work but there is a need for fundamental changes in the industry and now is the time to make them. b, underlying problems, 1, tragnentation a, in discontinuity of contracts, bd, in splits within the industry, 2, the use of the industry 4S an economic regulator, 3, the competitive tendering system, these lead to instability and insecurity affecting, The L.P.'s Reasons For Intervention In The Industry. a, economic influence over the industry, 1, for internal efficiency, challenge the monopolie's and oligopolie's although not for bankruptcy reason's, 2, to tie industry into overall economic planning, b, the desire to control profit's generated from public fund's, c, to improve working and safety condition's. 1, firms and employees, job insecurity etc., 2, client's and user's, lack of control over cost and quality of work and extra work and bureaucracy. The L.P.'s Mean's Of Intervention. they see the need for diversity and flexibility of approach and the need for accountability. their main proposals are; A National Construction Corporation based on one or more major contractors, A Public Procurement Agency to co-ordinate the industry's work load, The registration of employees and employers under the Construction Industry Manning BOard, with restriction's of work to those registered, The reform and expansion of D.L.0.'s, changing them from service to trading department's, The encouragement of Co-Op's under 2 Co-Op developement agency, especially for small and specialist firm's, The acouisition of major material's producer's under a Building Material'’s Corporation, A @ode of Construction Site Practice to be drawn uD, Programme, serial and continuity contracts to be encouraged, they alsm recommend changes in the organisation of the building profession's; The integration of design and construction, Professional education to be under the Construction Industry Training Board, Greater standardisation of design's and component's, Greater cost control with more independance for Q.S.'S, More responsibilities for defective design, all these are seen within the context of competition and the tendering system. oe they state that competitive tendering problem's, to firm's which are =the N.C.C. to be an umbrella almost incidentally nationalised in normal with standard building firm's and D.-L.0.'s, but don't challenge it at all, b, standardisation of plan's, contract size, competition is of insignificant importance compared to a regulated work load and it limit's user -economic consideration's completley ce, architect's and Q.S.'s need to be integrated same design team, all under democratic etc. (in for moving service possible?) department's The political competition limitation's of an d them need extensive tackle large scale work, between design and (for all as regionally football encouraging argument enforcing not? the L.P.'S the 4, The P.D.G.'s Reason's For Intervention. democratisation a,within; 1, break down division's build, = 2, improve working condition's, industrial democracy and safety, by, over; 1, accountability and greater control over quality and cost, | 2, national and local control, planning, theee require more stability and increased efficiency as argued by the Labour Party. 5, The Limitation's Of The L.P."s Proposal's. a, all their proposal’'s are within the competitive tendering system; —D.L.0.'s to be trading department's which duplicates the is wasteful etc. component's etc. the need both designer and overide social, into the controle for 6, Proposal' s. expanded I.Mi/D.G. 1/2/79- as work where ownership. although way's way's to reform ilding industry. Tentative Outline a, DeL.0.'s to be Local Authority devolved public isn't applicable of D.L.-0.'s and investigation, bd, a limited N.C.C. to civil engineering with the exception of the proposal's provide a basis democratisation of the bu or above toward's motorway'S, 3, PDS Commnity architecture Keporc — tty ae ; ; ' i | t | i fhe next meeting is on 3:rd Feb 11-59 118 Mansfield Ra. Nott. more capies of the report are to v2 sent ty relevant T.U's selected journalists, the National Tenants Aszcciation, and political pazties. The paper is selling well. Furtker action is awaiting Freeson's response. 4, Programme of work Develop ment of theory and history,the J.M's Nationalisation, J.Mitchell ana b.Green County Councils difficulties Rafael Wakesburg Education discv ssion paper Bob Gordon Standards discussion paper Brice Smith Feminists link Dave Green also, Contracts Tom Bulley preliminary work on thesg to be done for the relevant meeting im the prcsramme bdelow. Ideas on talks and ways of presentatign fromm everyone the next meeting. : 7 D+ Programme of meetings '79. 2, 3xd Feb, nationalisation and ideas on taiks. dy 24th Fev, education 4, ifth Mazxch, meetinz with feminicts,Tom Bulley on to contr=cts history, alternative agate for feminists tt 6, 28th Apetl general. review and standards i} ‘| alli meetings in nottingham except the feminist oné in Lendon ‘| 5, 7th April theory anda the kitty now stanas at £1.70 ;| ; | ' LJ PDS GROUP MEETING 20th JAN 79 MINUDRS. ( Pave G ter, ) : *1, Liasion Group Report ay the L.G. has agreed to tenay 211 debts to the PDG, £79 has deen received, £60 will follow. b, the L.G. asked if Wwe wanted to speak at the Notts and Derby RIBA meeting on April 3jrd- It was considered a Possibility depending on a, the debates title b, & neutral chair. Z c, JeMurray is to be the PDG press contact. GQ, our Slate contact bersan is Andy Brawn, Slate 114 will be e, £, &» on the inner city etce, submission ¢«ate 24th Feb. NAM events_ feminist group seminar ‘Women and Space’ 10th Mar Alt. Practice seminar in May (we're te be invited). the LG. Suggested that we have local meetings with tenants Groups etc. to be investigated. Suggestions for union contact between NALGO and BDS Tass to David Burney, 2, RIBA Cawg report J.Mitchell has done areport far Slate, criticising the RIBA's motives whilst admitting the need for Some short term measures (that we up to now haven't deeply considered) .The school's were thought ta offer a. good alternative, their present activities should be encouraged and develicped. The incorporation of architects into aw Centree needs considering. The basic ‘reovriremert is that these effort: should not gct ruined by the neecs of profit etc. alk starr involved should be saillaried. ; NEW. ARCHITECTURE David Basnett, General Secretary, Workers Union, General and Municipal Thorne House, Ruxley Ridge, Claygate, Esher, Surrey. Enc. MOVEMENT i 9, POLAND St,LONDON. W1V3DG. Daytime tel: OI-888-1212 Your ref: RES/DG/SMC 5th January, 1979. A copy of your letter of 8th November 1978 has been forwarded to me by the NAM Liaison Group. The creation of links between user and architect, leading to the control of design by the user 4s the most important aspect of the policy of the New Architecture Movement in general and of our Group (Public Design Group) in particular. Consequently we were pleased to receive your letter advocating that your members and other trade unionists, as consumers of the product should be involved in the specification and planning of buildings. We also suggest that those workers who construct and service buildings should similarly be involved. No doubt many of your members Would belong to this category as well. We therefore would give every support to your proposal for the practice of closer liaison between user and architect. Dear David Basnett, I enclose for your information a copy of our report “Community Architecture = A Public Design Service?” which we submitted recently to Reg Freeson. I attach also a brief summary of NAM's and our Group's activities. For our part we would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you in greater detail, both your ideas for user/ architect collaboration and your reaction to the proposals contained 4n our Report. Yours sincerely, \(e ,Maman John Murray for Public Design Group. NAM cc. NAM Liaison Group. emer rer romer tO Warburt ear Sirs, National Industrial Officers ena RES /DG/SML Yours faithfully, {) .is Vivg2S (VV DAVID BASNETT General Secretary = Incorporating MATSA General and Municipal Vorkers’ Union 8th November, 1978 I am writing to enquire whether you give any support to » idea that the people who consume the products of your profession S..uld be involved in their specification and planning. We have had a great deal of evidence from our members in the past to show that health, safety and welfare have not been effectively included in the design specifications for new buildings, and that the views ; of eventual users are frequently excluded from the consultative stages. As part of our effort to eliminate hazards at source we are advising our members that they should be involved at the earliest stages of planning alterations to existing premises or of construct- ing new ones, You may know that the new Safety Representative and Safety Committee Regulations 1978 oblige employers to provide safety representatives with information about "the plans" and their "proposed changes" insofar as they affect health and safety. New Architecture Movement, 9 Poland Street, London W1V 3DG I am sure that many architects would welcome closer liaison between themselves and users of their designs, and the article regarding an order office at BOC Crawley in yesterdays Guardian (7th November - Women's Page, Peter Gorb) illustrates the general point we are making, We would like your comments on this, and in particular any Support that you can give to the practice of closer liaison between user and architect. We realise that the extent and nature of liaison will have to be agreed between the architect's client and eventual users, but if we knew that architects would welcome this idea it would assist in it's general adoption. I enclose a copy of the Guardian article for your information. FA Baker CBE W.J.C Biggin F Cooper FW Cottam C.Donnet FEarl J.Edmonds E.P Newall MW. Reed JP RSmith Patricia Turner D Warburtor but to creative al authorities whose i Wriefs demand rence to Standards, rihy in themselves ually inhibiting fike multiple retailers 3oa ceees 6 i aa a or orewers. But unless build- ing itself is their business, even the most dynamic Organisations are unlikely-to need new factories or offices very often. Their skills in briefing architects are bound to grow rusty. Indeed, they national theatre. The build- ing does look good from the top of an Embankment bus; al right if you prefar looking often commit millions toe architecture with an insow! ciance which is totally incon- Sistent with their usual hard- nosed control of their money, and which scares their arohi- tect rigid. deliberately unconstrained by uP ratlony: recently In this state of mind the architect needs a_ well- developed ego to draw a bow at a venture — choosing from and copying existing models is easier, and proba- bly cheaper. But when the dDuilding has no models he is forced to thrash around for a brief, and too often designs to a set of generalised social and aesthetic considerations; h means designing: to please other architects. Unfortunately he js encouraged this way, because the accolades (like those given to many professionals). @re awarded by his own kind — other architects. . The National Theatre is a case in point. A large, expen- Sive, oneoff building, it has heen awarded a major archi- going, « . ee Brian Boylan, an architect esigned an’ order office in CraWley, Surrey, for BOC, the company that’ supplies gas cylinders for.welding. He too by Ww it is the policy of the National to attract a higher than usual proportion of first-time theatre goers. For newcomers to the National, in Studying the wild life in the wood which bordered the site. There was no reason why the new building should not be set on the wood edge with windows, and _ bird tables designed’ to accom- modate this interest. = = Don McPhee... . _ deplore Ahad a generalised brief but luckily he discovered that the bullding was to be used for onl 2 ‘people. So he and his ‘team talked to all of them, and at some length: not,their:representatives, or thejr. managers, hut each and €very person. The’ brief, in consequence, was uniquely enriched and -particularised. Kor ‘example, .they dis- covered that for some years the; loaders, in -the rest, ériods between humping eavy gas cylinders, had ef tecture. Most of the time easier to copy something which can be good or al, depending on the mudel. Nur is the poor architect ich) betler off with his cor- * clients. The best usually cume from who build little and ee architect is only Peter Gorb the building inside and out is a bewildering obstacle course of apparently unrelated levels reached dy Alice in Wonderland stair- cases pointing away from. where they are supposed to’ QO Sivan Team vaeans The discreetly - obscure signs, the carefully hidden ticket collection and informa- tion points under claustro- phobically low ceilings com-’ ‘pound the visual confusion. To this is added the inescapa- ble cacophony of the foyer performers and the airline terminal announcements. The oor first-time ‘visitor must ong for the certitude of Pad- dington Station. or Milan’ Cathedral, large buildings designed with the needs of strained and much more useable space. There are many other details which a sympathetic company, its interested employees, and a -conse- fall out with your architect. Oi Law 1K: ;Ons Whatyoucandoifyoutr—ytheBOCoffatiCrcaweley ashis brief An piper as es | quently, well-briefed architect have managed to incorporate into this satisfying building. It may not win any architec- tural prizes, but it is an tectural prize. Had the users been the judges “this elegant concrete addition to London's riverside skyline’ would cer- tainly have got the wooden Spoon. ° Actors and their audiences are its.main users. The actors the time lag of response’ in:the Olivier audi- torium where the design con- centrated on sight lines at the expense of the essential rapport between audience and actors. They describe the “Wimbledon” effect in the Lyttelton, -with a stage so wide in relation to ‘aud torium depth, that the audiences are vigorously exercising their neck muscles to follow the action. Averting their eyes from the inert back stage technology, they the newcomer in mind. will take you to the tiny con- crete cells that serve as dressing rooms, set round a courtyard so large that a visit to a colleague turns into a route march, It is disappointing too, (2 queue for a drink, and dis cover that the nearest sand- wich is two foyer levels and another queue away, ‘Or to try and reach the terrace tables with a trayful of food ‘developed a serious. interest The actors’ complaints are interminable; the audiences through an inward opening are less articulate. After all door. Not that you can sée much more than concrete from the terraces anyway. Of course the priority in the design brief was for a national monument mot 4: opject lesson on how not to © ALL dail out with our hitects. It isnt their fault. se ollier designers (hey are »better than their brief; Having created a glass-clad building the architect had to protect it from the gas uch ts usually abysmal. le trouble is that so few lis are competent ¢o brief anclutect ‘ lake houses, Most of’ us suld claim familiarity with fiouse or two. But how of us have actually But perhaps the greatest breakthrough came at the organisational level. The expectation of local manage- ment was for a traditional e, and have tried to y experience a ign brief ? Remember “Mr Dream and how poor Mrs dings added a flower building which reflected functional separation; offices from canteens, blue collar from white collar workers, and so forth: The inquiry revealed that the magnificent twenty seven didn't want it that way. As a result every- thing (except the lavatories) happens in one open uncon- uk io her porch and got bill for extras for $10,000? yway, most house Ouildin by speculative builders a -at,townscapes to -theatre- cylinders which. have a habit of toppling over; prison like guard rails were discarded in favour of a sloping bank of @tass which in any case enhanced the rural nature of the building. 374 The Architects’ Journal 30 August 1978 In the Netherlands many architects working on low income housing projects for the inner city are effectively appointed and controlled by the communities for which they are designing. At a time when the RIBA’s Community Architecture Working Group (CAWG) is attempting to formulate a new system for funding community projects in Britain (AJ 23.8.78 p356), the recent experience in the Netherlands has particular significance. Itcould well provide a pointer for the ,uture here. NICK WATES reports. ‘Neighbourhood groups choose their own architects’ asserted one young Netherlands architect, and although oversimplified, this statement is not far from the truth. The Dutch have de- viJ}+d aform ofarchitectural practice which gives ordinary citizens in inner cities a great deal more direct control over their architects, and it is already producing very interesting results. The most sophisticated system has de- veloped in Rotterdam. Eleven areas have special project teams in which half the members are officials and half are citizens appointed by neighbourhood groups. The officials come from the Departments of Town Development, Housing, Building and Housing Inspec- tion, Traffic and Transport and Social Affairs. Project groups have their own budget, and buildings located in the area concerned. They are responsible for drawing up plans for neighbourhoods and then implementing them. Proposais and finance have of course to be ranted bees he municipal council and central £ —ament,butwithincertainfinancial toshowphaseddevelopmentinthearea. Right: Window poster ‘This flat to be renovated’, limits the project groups effectively determine development. Architects are appointed by pro Oups, usuall ie intensive interview essions at which previous work 1s shown and working methods described. Project groups then write briefs and act as clients throughout the building pro- cess. Usually a number of architects are employed on different schemes in any area, and altogether some 20 practices of varying sizes are doing this kind of work in Rotterdam. Most architects are from private practices (the private sector con- tains a higher proportion of the pro- fession than in England), although it is possible for architects from the public sector to be seconded, returning to their former posts on completion of a project. Official members of the project team are paid civil servants, though each team also has an ‘external expert’, appointed and controlled by the neigh- bourhood group, but whose salary is paid by the municipality. fo audition there_is__a__local ombudsman service team (LOS), which consists of seven professionals sub- Sidised by the government but independentadvicetoactio upsand oe aeigourhood Broups which want it. This kind of neighbourhood controlled client body has had a marked effect on the architects. ‘We try to work with the people’ said architect Piet Bennehey who has designed buildings for several projects. “You have to explain how you do things.’ The first thing he does wnen appointed for a scheme is to hire a bus and take neighbourhood inhabitants aeoe tld WN ec BeLoshed r ny 1Trenty-eightnewdivellingsinCool project area, central Rotterdam. 4 ps pt ats "2 oo peas errr Pree2 2 Series of drawings published in the Oude Westen project team’s broadsheet wave : 3Lowincomehousing onsiteofaformership-butldingyard,Simmonsterrein,Rotterdam. Neighbourhood orgamsation, BOF; architect, Henk van Schagen. Netherlandsneighbourhood architects “LISSW a0 ’4 € p) W278C34d DHL n ~VALNZD ,SIVLS_W227 BRLealsahore to see other schemes both in Rotterdam and in other cities. ‘They get an idea of what ispossible and what isnot possible’ he explained. ‘Otherwise people don’t know what you are talking about. We also learn what they like and whar they don’t like.” The end product of such a process of direct democracy secms to be far more sensitive developments. For instance the Oude Westen district close to the centre of Rotterdam, which contains about 5000 low income residents of mixed nationality, was first destined for office and commercial development. Active neighbourhood groups stopped those plans and a combined programme of rehabilitation and rebuild is now well under way. New schemes maintain old street patterns, and shops and work- shops and community buildings are . incorporated into new buildings. Build- ing work is carefully programmed so that there is always somewhere for people to move to when houses are demolished or renovated, 2. Bush emt is stdoy 5 Erected ona half-completed dual carriageway, this new low income housing signifies the victory of a neighbourhood group's vision of the future over that of the city planners. Van Eyck & Bosch. portance in other cities, where the system ismuch more adhoc. In Amsterdam for instance some neigh- bourhood groups are able to choose their architects—not because there is any recognised procedure but because the city authority has discovered that it is the only way to avoid conflicts which have in the past resulted in large scale physical confrontations between citizens and armed police with many injuries, arrests and much political em- barrassment. As architect Hans Borkent pointed out ‘It is not by accident that the most active neighbourhoods have the best architects’. He himself was selected by a neighbour- hood group in Dapperbuurt, a nine- teenth century area of Amsterdam, originally to be torn down under a grandiose redevelopment plan. He holds mectings in the neighbourhood every three weeks to which everyone in the area is invited although inevitably only a small proportion actually attend._Un- like England, the housing authorities, whether municipalities or housing: associations, appear to be capable of designating tenants (both from the neighbourhood and from outside) for new schemes before design work starts. (Borkent admits that it was quite a battle to get them to doso,)_ A full scale mock up of one flat was constructed in an old synagogue and everyone visited it and discussed it. Separate meetings were held with tradesmen, to discuss how to incorporate them in the new scheme, and temporary buildings were provided ifthere was any lume gap between the old buildings ‘being demolished and new ones con- Structed. Once again the result has been a phased sensitive new development which above al is well liked and cared for by the new inhabitants, 4, 6. Amsterdam is illustrative of the process 4 Communal roof terrace, Dapperbuurt, Amsterdam. Architect, Hans Borkent. All flats also have private bcicomes. Inevitably the population in these high density areas is reduced but this has not proved to be a probiem for there are al- ways some people who want to move out of the area altogether. In any case neighbourhood groups invariably want higher densities than planners. Of course the community cannot totally control the development. Investment and subsidies are restricted and con- trolled in much the same way as in England. But within these parameters, project groups can adjust levels of quality thereby influencing rent levels. Indeed rent levels are a major concern for neighbourhood groups, and on one occasion, an architect was sacked by a group for refusing to lower the quality of his design and hence future rents. Architects have an interest in working for active neighbourhood groups be- cause the strength of the group is crucial in forcing extra subsidy money out of the government, through political campaigning. Amsterdam more improvised The political strength of the neighbour- hoodgroupsisofevenmorecrucialim- fullscalemock-upofanewflatfortheDapperbuurtscheme. The Architects’ Journal 30 August 1978 375 7 Architect Hans Borkent (taking notes in the centre) showing future inhabitants round a rd | f id , \) A powerful they are”. A lot of this money is invested on the Stock Exchange and in Governmont stocks. An increasing proportion is invested in property. So much so that property development is starting again. Take a look around your city. YOUR MONEY is behind those empty office blocks, a) 4 airconditionedshoppingcentres, : luxury hotels, yachting marinas and warehouse estates. ARE THESE PRIORITIES YOURS TOO? : A NATIONAL CONFERENCE PENSION FUNDS: YOUR MONEY AND YOUR LIFE see back for details Do you ever wonder what happens to that money, after its deducted from your pay? Obviously, its your deferred wages, and it will be paid back to you as a pension when you retire. In between, however, your money is put into @ pension fund or insurance company. These institutions are controlled by a small group of fund managers and are responsible to noone, least of all their members. They have become financial giants, and even Harold Wilson admits “they are so power- ful, they do not know how When you retire you can expect a little more on top of your basic pension os @ result of these speculative develop- ments. But ask yourself, what use will this extra money be to you then. Our health service is collapsing, and housing, public transport, education and social services are in crisis through lack of investment NOW. The tragedy is that many workers may dio before they draw their pensions because of the present poor provision of these services, many more are likely to be mado redundant and be unemployed. They will not get much of an extra pension. SST Puetsxe AOA AAR JSOO eae: +ee aes:‘L IS IT YOUR PENSION FUND TOO? There are three types of Pension Fund: PUBLIC SECTOR: this includes the large nationalised industry funds, including the Post Office which, with assets of over £1200 million, is the biggest in Western Europe. PRIVATE SECTOR FUNDS: there are well over 50,000 of these with some very large funds like those of Unilever £400m, of IC] £593m, but many are quite small and are invested with insurance companies LOCAL AUTHORITY PENSION FUNDS These funds are based on Local Authority boundaries. The biggest is the GLC at £235m. TRADE UNION CONTROL The Pension funds have grown because of the struggle for a decent pension and the strength of white collar trade unions but also because in the 70's pensions have not been part of the wage freeze and so have been o subject of negotiation The funds face very few disclosure of information requirements. They are responsible only to their trustees who in most funds are the employers. Only the nationalised industries and a few ‘enlightened’ private companies have trade union representation. In June 1976 the Labour Government produced a white paper “The role of Members in the running of Schemes”, which proposed better disclosure of information requirements and the right of appointment to 50% of the membership of the controlling body of the fund to recognised independant trade unions, the backlash of this proposal from the employers, the CBI and Pension fund managers, not to mention right wing bodies such as Aims for Freedom and Enterprise, was such that the proposals have been quietly dropped. Yet even where trade unions do have representation there is no evidence that this has made any difference to investment strategies apart from disinvestment in South Africa. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit “present evidence from the nationalised industries shows that whenever trade union representatives become trustees, they are just as keen if not more $0 to act in acapitalist fashion” THE INNER CITY ALLIANCE FIGHTS BACK The overall picture of but still intends to press on the Pension Funds is one of with its office venture. Almost “PENSION REPRESENT IMPORTANT PART OF OUR AS WORKS OF ART OR SURPLUS WEALTH AND WE THE BRIGHTON MARINA” ARE CONCERNED THAT IT David CSasnett GMWU, June SHOULD NOT GO ON 1977. surplus funds being used to generate a new property boom. This threatens the homes of people in inner city areas and our heritage of historic buildings in the cities. It does not provide working people with better understand and publicise the living conditions. problems referred to, In FUNDS AN ECONOMIC VALUE SUCH Ptah=|=[= tLe TO. LET One day conference for trade unions and community groups: 20th JANUARY 1979. PENSION FUNDS: YOUR MONEY AND YOUR LIFE at TREFOIL HOUSE PURPOSES OF NO Nr. Holloway Circus La Birmingham re|hd PVsltl) rela 643 0751 IF OUR CITIES ARE TO BE DECENT PLACES IN WHICH TO LIVE, WITH GOOD STANDARDS OF: HEALTH, EDUCATION AND HOUSING, THEN THE TRADE UNIONS MUST TAKE SOME CONTROL OVER WHAT IS BEING DONE WITH THEIR MEMBERS’ MONEY AND DIRECT IT INTO SOCIALLY USEFUL INVESTMENTS. Name . PAGCLOSS c ccsvessecsesoteseccosessnseccrcscners Trade Union/Organisation Fee: £1 per person. Return this form to: Green Ban Action Committee, 35 Chantry Road, Moseley, Birmingham 13 The Green Ban Action this broadsheet, the Inner City Committee's campaign to save Alliance (a national affiliation Birmingham's Victorian Head of Community Action Groups Post Office from demolition fighting for more socially and replacement by a useful urban development) speculative office block, has reached 2 crucial phase. Planning permission, for an alternative leisure centre scheme has been granted. The Postal Board is now prepared to save the original frontage, have asked the Green Ban Action Committee certainly it will turn to one of the Pension Funds or Insurance Companies for the necessary finance. We are campaigning to stop this. In order to fully explore, to arrange @& conference. This is also backed by the South Wales Housing Action Group and UCATT Midlands Region. Dear Iriends, way for such developments. How cal working people have more control over the dizection of money? How can the mosy be used for socially useful production really ncoei? of these vast suns and things we + How can ordinary people develop control over the planning of the cities in which they live? We look forward to hearing from you, Yours sincerely, Va Sc VAL STEVENS. ns ‘gAiS Vow ater 2 45, Chantry Rd., Moseley, Blrminghem, 13 2{th. November 1976 4 BN 2£2 AC Dita Ww r mY WY TW Q x " class communities, whether inuer city sreas or mining communities in the Soug$h ...-z vales valleys. Often too, a citiy's heritage kas to be destroyed to make ! ~ your orgeanis>tion or trade union bulletin, local Councillors or M-P.'s with whom you have contacts, ani your locel trades council. We hope that a wide Vollowing two meetings cf the Innen (ity Allionce, ani oun own goncern over Gily redeveloppent plans in Birminghem, we agave been esked to organise 2 ngtional confercnce on the theme of PENSION FUNDS and their major role in financing property davelopment in our cities. As a vesult of financila institasions investments since 1974 the property narket id picking up Speculative office blocks, luxusy hotels, warehouses estates, shopping centres, are a safe source of orofits but they come into direct conflict with the needs of Ordinary people living in working spectrum of delegates will astend from the Labour movement, and from community associaltions ani environmental sroups. These are the kind of issues which will be debated at the conference. At present there is a lot of talk about the possibilities of directing a proportion 9f the funds'money into industry, but will this really make any ditference to to the way in which they operate? Some Trade Unions are struggling to get some control over investment panels. but will they just end up administering the present system? In the nationalised industries there is no evidence that traie union representation has made much difference to investment policies. THS CONFERENCE aims to reise these issues and to explore ways in which we can begin to change the present situation. Please help us to publicise it in Hore copies of thie letter and the leaflet are available from us (postage cost appreciated) at the above address. Gremln eC: Vo b b a—— CALL FOR EXTRA PROPOSAL TO BE SENT TO REG FREESON. It seems to me that we may well have lost out on our position in the "Community Architecture" problem,in the short term, because we have failed to come to grips with the question of why there is now a call for government subsidies to designers werking in this field. Nick Wates has summarised the problem for us in his review of this year's N.A.M. Congress A.J.15/11/78. In the following extract from the review Nick is trying to give an impression of what the "alternative practice" people felt about our P.D.S. proposals: "It was likely to take years to achieve reforms in the public | sector and until tinat time the private sector experiments } could provide valuable experience, a vehicle for propaganda, and a means of providing working class people with services | they would otherwise be denied," The key phrase in this quotation is the one I have underlined. If we look at the provision of services to the public sector in this country we will find that they are provided in four different ways: by private.enterprise for a profit; by central & local stateas statutary | & discretionary services; and by voluntary effort by individuals or groups on a charitable basis, It is in this last provision that the "alt-— « ernative practice” people are primarily interested, although there is interest in central state sponsored services such as Housing Associations, The main elements of their argument for providing design services to this voluntary sector run as follows, r 4 i | | Most of the voluntary services are formed to fill a gap in the central & local state provision,or to provide a superior service, The lack of a central or local state provision may, for example, be for several reasons.| They both may not have the resources to provide the service and politic- | ians are opposed to providing it. A good example of this opposition might | be sexist poiiticians refusing to provide cash Tor the rehabilitation of houses for local Women's Aid groups. | I think that it is fairly true to say that the usual historic process is that central&local stte politicians eventually take over the idea of the necessity for providing a service, such as Women's Aid, or in the distant past the provision of adequate housing from the charity bodies or philanthropic trusts, The main point, however, of my argument is that there often seems to be a time lag between the voluntary provision of services and the state be- coming involved in that provision. It is this time lag that the "“altern- ative practice" people feel they must organise to operate in, although we should also recognise that they may well believe that the state is never going to be able to operate an adequate service because of bureaucracy, Because the P.D.S. group is unhappy about the profit motive and lack of accountability lying behind "private" and "alternative practice" operat— | ions in the "community architecture" field, I therefore propose the follow: ing: the setting up by central & local state of a subsidised Community Design Service operating from. but senperctely, within local authority architect& departments, The service should be available to all voluntary service groups, except perhaps political parties, and should not be con— trolled by local state politicians, but be accountable directly to Parl- lament through the D.O.E. It is obviously important that design fees should be below the R.I.B.A. mandatory fees but to ensure that the State |does offer adequate subsidy to local authorities to employ sufficient |design staff to cope with the workload, there should be some right of appeal by voluntary service groups if they are kept waiting for the design work to be done, I appreciate that central state control is against P.D.S. theory, but what I am looking for isaTMneutrality" of service which I think will oper- ate better with politicians being in a distant arena rather thata local one. It could be said that generally local politicians are exceptionally touchy about the adequacy of the services they operate in their area, Bruce Smith, Nov.1978 Reg Freeson, MP, House of Commons, Westminster, London SWi. Dear Mr. Freeson, ‘Comunity Architecture’ I work as a member of the ‘Support’ group which provides architectural advice and profeséional range of low income and working class organisations. While my work is within the 'private' independent and rely on fees earned, the proposals of the PDS group, and would strongly oppose ang encouragement to the RIBA proposals which you might give. There is such an enormous immediate demand for the kind of service we offer that we have chosen to work in the private sector, and plan to establish ourselves as a co-operative in the near future. To this end, we have organised a seminar with the Industrial Common Ownership Movement to discuss the problems of professional operative lines. and tenants complaining about defects, we would conclude that Because of our co-operative nature, we have inevitably been asked for advice by a number of co-operative groups, and are currently negotiating with a housing co-op in Brent to provide them with architectural services. From our experience in working with groups opposing local authorities at public enquiries 46 Church Road, Harlesden, London NW10 SPX. 10th. October, 1978. services for a wide sector in the sense that I am I lean towards supporting (ICOM) on 20th. October, incorporating on co; tT understand that you are currently considering proposals from the Royal Institute of British Architects concerning the establishment of a community aid fund. You should also have received a report from the Public Design Service Group of the New Architecture Movement. As an architect in private practice in the field of "community architecture" , I am concerned to ensure that you are aware that a substantial number of young architects like myself do not support the RIBA's proposals. You will see from the enclosed leaflet about ‘Support’ that our work is primarily with tenants, trade union organisations and user groups concerned with community buildings. In a number of cases, we work closely with the local authority involved, and see our role as an "advance guard", an experiment in working closely with local people and users in a way that could easily be followed by the area design teams advocated by the PDS group. there would need to be independent architectural advice services for groups in dispute with local authorities; however, because these would need to adopt a radichl position on professionalism - tather like law centres - there is no way that the RIBA wobld encourage this. The financing of our operation is, of course, problematice We are currently completing an analysis of our time and income and this pointe to the need to obtain grants in addition to our fee income in order to sustain research and advice work. However, we cannot see how a community aid fund as proposed by the RIBA would channel money in the direction of work organised along these lines. There is a strong suspicion that it would be used as bait for more established commercially minded practices who currently find the work we do unprofitable. In considering the CAWG proposals, I think you should look to the appalling record of the RIBA in its failure to encourage social responsibility. The profession has done nothing to raise money itself to support ‘community architecture’, has failed to invest money in research, and now looks to you to help improve its public image, I would hope you can recognise the distinction between the RIBA approach to community architecture - which is to mould community problems to fit into existing pattewns of professional services (therefore égnoring many difficulties) - and the approach of Support and PDS, which is to reform architectural practice to make it more relevant and accountable to ordinary people. I know most of the people involved in the RIBA CAWG personally. I I have talked with Rod Hackney at various stages during his process of building up his successful practice, I was involved in the early and subsequent discussions about ASSIST, and we have worked closely with Chris Whittaker. While I respect their motives, I feel they are placing too much trust in a professional bedy which has no understanding of ‘community problems’ and therefore takes a paternalistic and narrow view of things. I believe that it is necessary to be much more closely in touch with local needs than is the RIBA. I am, for instance, a member of Brent Community Law Centre Committee, and the Brent Federation of Tenants and Residents, and other members of Support have close links with grass roots and trade union organéfations. In this way, we can shape our professional role to meet their needs. From such involvement, I am in no doubt that public opinion of architects and architecture is very low, and the responsibility of the RIBA for this is one of the reasons why 25% of registered architects léke myself refuse to join the RIBA. I would suggest that your response to the RIBA CAWG proposals is to consider a general review of the architectural profession including the need to strengthen the rale of the Architects’ Registration Council of the UK at the expense of the RIBA, the need to improve the availability of professional services to groups like housing co-operatives, and the need to implement proposals along the lines suggested by the PDS group. Renort of Public Design Service Group Backeround: 1977-1978: At its Hull Congress in November 1977, NAM decided to develop further its policies relatinr to the nublic sector. NAM's interest in this field had already teen established at our first Congress in Harrogate, in 1975, when the idea of a National Design Service was nut forward. The National Pesign Service (NDS) proposals, based on 4 a critique of architectural patronage, argued for locally based desicn service directly accountable to local representatives of tenants, residents, councillors, suggested that local authority departments of architecture could provide the basis for such a service. sector. By late 1977 it was considered that a more concentrated programme of research and action was required, and following the Hull Congress an enlarged NDS group were mandated to carry out the work and to arranrce a conference in 1978 to establish the potential support for these ideas. The NDS Groun evolved into the Public Design Service (PDS) group @r: in addition to refinins, its critique of patronage and local authority working arrangements the group has been studying the origins and present role of departments of architecture and their relationship to the profession and private practice. Work has also been done on the narty political context and on an analysis of housing associations. From theories discussed in the group, a series of interim proposals were suggested, which would lead to the denocratisation of departments of architecture and to closer links between users and architects. and trade unionists. It was ~)iscussions on the NDS were continued initially under the auspices of the former North London Group of NAM, and a small issue ; sroup evolved. Further NDS papers stressed the view that since nublic control of finance and land were a prerequisite of any design service which would be available to the majority of people, any long term advance in architectural service to the public could only come through the public The Mav 1978 PDS Conference on Democratic Design endorsed these proposals and also our future programme of research and action. An important feature of this conference was a description by a local authority worker of how joint action by architects and building workers was able to influence and change council building policy. The conference was thus given proof that change from within can be achieved by trade unionists working together. Since May, the reorganisation of departments in two London Borourchs has given the opvortunity for our ideas to be tested in practice. Sunport by staff for some, if not all of our interim proposals was gained at departmental meetings. The final outcome of these taiks is not yet resolved. At the same time the Sheffield PDS group have been discussing the p question of standards in relation to central government financing and local control over resources. While this study is still at an early stare, an introduction to this group's work will be given at the conference. We trust that the participants of the 1978 NAM Congress will find Within the last two months the group has submitted to Reg Freeson, the Minister of Housing and Construction, a report on community architecture, to assist in the investization which he is currently undertaking into this subject. our material of interest and that the Congress will sunport our proposals and future programme. PDS Groun. November 1978, PNS Group Publications: *A National Desinn Service (Papers 2&3; 1976) * Proceedings of Public Desisn Service Conference, May 1978 (includes: "The origins, evolution and structure of local authority denartments of architecture" & "lousing Associations - A Democratic Alternative?") 75p. EAb GS) *Communityv Architecture - A Public Design Service? £1.00 (Institutions -£1,25) j The New Architecture Movement was founded in November 1975 at the llarrogate National Congress, to effectively channel the collective action of architectural and allied workers, in order to bring about radical changes in the practice of architecture. NAM seeks to restore control over their environment to ordinary neople, and social responsibility and accountability to the work of architects. NAM seeks not only to challenge the existing relation- ship of architect to client and user, but also the existing industrial relations between employer and worker, to restore a voice both to those who provide the labour for architecture and to those who use its products. To this end NAM exists as a network of sroups which have over the past three years campaigned on specific issues in pursuit of these agreed aims, programmes for action being formulated from detailed critisues of current practice. In terms of democratic control over architectural practice NAM seeks a lay controlled governing body, ARCUK, which though established as a 'public interest! body, has for its entire existence been controlled by the RIBA, thus effectively regulating oractice in favour of the architectural establishment. NAM's elected oresence on ARCUK Council is growing in line with disenchantment with the RIBA amongst architectural workers. NAM's proposals for a reform of ARCUK are a component of its submission to a covernment sponsored Monopolies Commission into architectural practice which concluded in favour of the NAM case that existing practice constitutes a monopoly operating to the prejudice of the public interest. NAM continues to campaign for the abolition of the RIBA instituted mandatory minimum fee scale which restricts the availability of architectural services to the wealthy, cornorate or bureaucratic. In the belief that the State represents for many the only means of access to resources, NAM proposes a Public Design Service, a reform of public sector practice, deriving from analysis of existing Local Authority devartments. It seeks to establish locally based design and build teams, directly accountable to tenants and users —- the abolition of existing hierarchical arrangements in favour of ynarticinatory democracy at a decentralised local level. In May 1977 NAM's work on the unionisation of architectural workers, an essential component of the democratisation of architectural practice, culminated in the setting un of the Building Design Staff branch within AUEW-TASS. The responsibility and initiative for this work has now passed to the Union. NAM has, since its inception, sought out specific issues around which to campairn in furtherance of its aims. The recent successful formation of a NAM Feminist Groun demonstrates NAM’4s ability to seek out real issues as a focus for concerted action, whilst developing its critique across the whole spectrum of architectural voractice. For further details of NAM, meetings, publications and newsletter, 'Slate', write to: New Architecture Movement, 9 Poland St. London ‘V1. / NEW ARCHITECTURE MOVEMENT LONDON / SOUTH dohn Allan A.S. Bagley John Bewimer Andrew Brown a Romilly Rd, N4. 01 359 0491 2 Prince of Wales Rd. NW5 82 Balaclave Rd. Surbiton, Surrey 12 Hill House, Harrington Hill, ES 01 806 1273 NEW ARCHITECTURE MOVEMENT 4th. ANNUAL CONGRESS CONTACT LIST Francis Bradshaw 14 Duncan Terrace. Nl Anne Brandon Jones 2 Reddington Rd. N.W.3 7 C. Brandon-Jones 2 Reddington Rd. N.W.3 01 435 429 Tony Brohn 53 Millbrook Rd. S.W.9 01 274 767 8 David Burney 23 Arthur Rd. Kingston-upon-Thames Suurrey ‘ 01 546 5634 Collective Actions Rep. - 175 Hemingford Rd. Nl J.M.G. Cooper REGS GRU BER aRKa Susan Erancis Mark Gimson Noel Glynn Hugo Hinsly Susan Jackson David Jennings Christine Leylandb Caroline Lwin Bob Maltz Neville Morgan John Muuray Robin Nicholson Ken Pearce Giles Pebody Marian Roberts David Roebuck Mary Rogers Barry Shaw ' Douglas Smith Cathy Taggart Ken Thorpe Nick Wates Julia Wilson-Jones Tom Woolley 202a Squires Lane, Finchly. N3 01 346 4100 37/Couleton Rd, N7 Becondale Rd. SE19. 01 761 0332 9:St. Georges Ave. Tufnell Park N7 01 609 2976 8 Cambridge Terrace Mews. Nwl 01 486 7597 13c Crealock St. SW18 01 870 8280 4 Carlisle Rd. Finsbury Rark N4 01 272 3747 4 Hidhshore Rd Peckham SE15 5AA 01 639 8264 32 Balaclave Rd Surbiton Sumrey 38 George St. Wl 01 935 2115 10 Tolmers Sq. Nwl 01 368 1650 14 Holmdale Rd. NW6 O01 794 6437 2nd Fl. Flat, 18 Charlotte St Wl 01 633 8389 (wk) 5 Milton Ave. N6 01 348 8713 5 Richmond Crescent. Nl 01 609 06 08 127 Fairbridge Rd, Holloway N19 0 1 272 0580 48 Sutherlend Sq. SE17 01 703 777 5 4) Roden St. N7 01 609 2065 25 St. Georges Ave. N7 6HB. 01 60 7. 4183 23 Grove Hill Rd SE5 01 733 4896 6 Tolmers Sq. NW1l 17 Delancy St. NW1l 68 Victoria Rd NW6 10 Tolmers Sq. NW1 01 388 1650 MIDLANDS etc. Richard Anderson 9 Stoneygate Ave. Leicester Helen Teague Chris Dent Dave Green Anthony Mercer John Mitchell Adam Purser Rafael Waksberg Richard Wea&herill 21, Beis . “eyworth, Nottingham "" 63 Barnstock, Bretton, Peterborough 0733 6893] x244 14 Derby Greve tTenton, Nottingham 32 )la Marston Rd. Oxford R 82 Kimberly Rd Leicester. 10 Spencer Rd, Belper. 37 Penarth Rise Nottingham. 0602 622034 251 0274 27 Clerberss11 Close ECIR OAt 01 Contact list cont'd NORTH etc Norman Arnold, Dave Breakell Mick Broad George Cameron Chris Cripps A.J. Earl W Halsall Maurice Lyons Jim Scott Bruce Smith 5 Bob Gordon Ian Tod Edward Walker WALES and WEST 9 Midland Rd Leeds 6 Liverpool School of Architecture. 5 Brewlands Ave, Kinneil Bo'ness, Scotland ‘ Ian. Cooper Anne Delaney Tom Foster Janis Goodman P.J. Hayea John Hurley Paul Knowles Gerry Metcalfe Chris Saxon Chris, Shaw John Shepherd Angela Sutton Dave Sucton David TypaRady 123 Malefant St Cathays Cardiff 196 Albany Rd Roath Cardiff 492047 18 Upper Camden Place. Bath BAl 5SHX Laurel's Farm Upper Wraxall Chippenden Wilts. 87 Prestbury Rd Cheltenheam 4 Priory Terrace, Cheltenham 25. Sandhurst Rd. Gloucester 23 Exmouth St. Cheltenham G.C.A.D. - Sth year student. 5 Suffolk Sq. Cheltenham Fieldhead, Amberly, Stroud Gloc. 3 Elsewick,,Tanhouse, 0695 32545 Bo'ness 4811 Skelmersdale WN8 6Bx 42 Ullet Rd, Liverpool 17 051 734 0454 13 Severus Rd, Fenham Newcastle upon Tyne Elat C 15 Croxteth Rd. Mersey side. 051 708 8944 (wk) Liverpool School of Arch. 138 Upper Parliament St. L 8. 42056 (wk) 56 Sunnyvale Rd TOtly Sheffield 363095 25 Market St, Huddersfield. ditto 9 Midland Rd. Leeds 6 783907 15 Briarsdale Croft, Gipton Leeds -&& 655793 205 Arabella St. Poath Cardiff. 23 St. Lukes Rd. Cheltenham Dunedin 1.Western Rd Cheltenham 196 Albany Rd Roath Cardiff. 492047 Susan Barlow Lizzy Brandon-Jones Pete Buchwald Tain Campbell Rosemary Clements 52 Oakfield St Cardiff. 398005 34721 3 Brecknock Rd. Knowle Bristol ditto 18 Uppex Camden Place Bath. 89 Prestbury Rd. 20761 32731 Birmingham May 6 1978 ATTENDANCE LIST NAME Norman Arnold Dave Breakell Tony Brohn Andy Brown Tom Bulley Hugh Byrd Iain Campbell Peter Carter Ian Colquoun Chris Dent Benedicte Foo Bob Gordon Jean Geldhart ADDRESS 9 Midlands Rd, Leeds 6 c/o BUDA 173 Lozells Rd. Bham I9 53 Millbrook Rd. London SW9 I2 Hill House Harrington Hill London E5 146 Rushmore Rd. London E5 45 BeechburnWay Handsworth Wood Bham 20 I96 Albany Rd. Cardiff 6 Passey Rd. Moseley Bham 73 I8 Brookhill Dr. Woollston Nottingham * Ra— 29wal lh Sheffield Shaffuld Ll 235 Kennington Lane London SEII oI- 806 1273 oI- 985 2559 02I- 533474 0222- 492047 02I- 7771019 0602- 282370 OI- 267 1774 274 7722 Ext. 396 if UCATT Convener City Arch, Dept. Sheffield Student Notts. Univ. GLC Student Sheffield Univ. L.B, Tower Hamlets 633 8301 NEW ARCHITECTURE MOVEMENT PUBLIC DESIGN SERVICE CONFERENCE T4 Leyfield Ra. Sheffield 44 Grafton Terr, London NW5 ® OI- 703 7775 077- 3824484 oI- 609 2065 ATTENDANCE LIST CONT‘T. NAME Dave Green John Hurley ADDRESS 4 Priory Terr. Cheltenham TEL OCC), J 495072 WORK Site rane Lecturer Chelthm TEL 108 Gaff Wel 45 34S Sproat JohnMitchell seberoy~cuereBE Read|—__| et pero: ¢ Trevor Muir John Murray Richard Myall John Napier Hugh Pearman Giles Pebody Adam Purser Marion Roberts Jim Scott Bruce Smith Douglas Smith OI- 348 8713 Student L.B. Haringey 474 5637 888 I2I2 Uobibogham Nottingham Univ. 5 Milton Ave. London N6 I2 Paton Grove Moseley Bham BI39TG 68 Wragby Rd. Lincoln 5 Gordon Pl. London W8 48 Sutherland Sq. London SEI7 I0 Spencer Rd. Belper Derb yshire 4I Roden St. London N7 Whinney Bank House Wooldale Student Ele Yorks P 7110Rerewrinflea ; o7¢e —j— 56-Sunnyvale-RA. Totley Sheffield I7 Delancey St. London NWI Hy 66 (04| 6742 City Arch. Dept Sheffield | 734261 L.B. Camden - 0242—{ 27801 363095- OI- 388 3369 S+ SofArch. 3Woot Bham City | 02I- Arch. Dept | 2353196 Arch. Cathedral Area Reporter Building Design Private Practice Housing Dept. Derby Private Practice Private Practice oI- 937 7372 ATTENDANCE LIST CONT'D. Mick Broad 5 Brewlands Ave, Kinneil, Bo'ness Scotland 3. NAME Howard Smith ADDRESS TEL WORK TEL Martin Springs ’ 4 Catherine St. London WC2 OI- 836 6251 Reporter *Building’ Val Stevens 77 School Rd. Hall Green Bham 28 Green Ban Action Cttee. Chris Thomas 134 Westfield Rd. M. Topham 43 Milverton Rd. Knowle Solihull Knowle 4oho Regional Richard Thompson IO Longmeadow Rd. Walsall I0 Walsall DCs Arch. Dept|xt. 2160 Nick Wates IO Tolmers Sq. London NwI OI- 388 1650 Reporter AJ I9 Langtree Ashunt Skelmersdale West Lancs District 0695- Kings Heath, Bham 02I- 4432010 Private Practice PEOPLE EXPRESSING INTEREST BUT UNABLE TO ATTEND John Allan Shirley Ashton 67 Romilly Rd. London N4 oI- 359 O491 Private Practice 734 8577 David Bartlett L.B. Islington Arch. Dept Gloucester House Margery St. London WCI Liverpool City Arch. Dept NALGO Staff Committee Blackburn Chambers Dale St. City Arch. Dept L"Pool L*Pool 169 2JG 02I=- 7775726 Council 77177 Health Board AOA Rep. L.B. Islington | 837 4242 27244 930 O6II oI- Ext. I5I PEOPLE EXPRESSING INTEREST BUT UNABLE TO ATTEND CONT 'D NAME Joanna Clelland ADDRESS TEL WORK TEL Mike Goulden Tom Jones 47 Tetherdown Rd. London NIO OI- 883 7222 Peter Luck Steven Mitchell II Nettleton Rd. London SEI4 OI- 639 5569 Student 9352207 Neville Morgan 2nd Floor Flat I8 Charlotte St. London WI ,7 Chainnye | 42UlletRd,LPal : Wicle Tadele 7 Beeclureoel Ave. Macleli. S! Marke Myson 23 Fuller Med order SWB *Foelas* Tanrhin kd. Tregarth Bethesda, Bangor Wales Local Authority 7 Allemund Ct. Bdward St. Derby DEI 3BR OI- 221 5847 Researcher GLC oI- 580 5270 GLC PDS Group May, 1978. Interim Proposals and which create the potential for further change : status to chief architect. i.e. towards a two-tier system. ESTABLISH JOINT WORKING GROUPS WITH DLOS. To consider how to achieve better designed, constructed and To achieve an effective Public Design Service the NAM Public Design Service Group proposes local authority design and build teams which are area based and which will be accountable to users and tenants. We suggest the following interim Proposals which are feasible now DESIGN TEAMS SHOULD BE AREA BASED INSTEAD OF FUNCTION BASED. To increase the potential accountability to local people, and while giving each team a varied work load. AREA DESIGN TEAMS SHOULD BE MULTIDISCIPLINARY AND SHOULD HAVE AROUND 12 MEMBERS AS A SUGGESTED OPTIMUM. JOB ARCHITECTS SHOULD REPORT DIRECTLY TO COMMITTEE. TENANTS AND USERS SHOULD BE PART OF BRIEFING TEAM, AND SHOULD HAVE POWER OF APPROVAL OVER DESIGNS AND STANDARDS. ABOLISH POSTS BETWEEN GROUP LEADER AND CHIEF ARCHITECT. As a preliminary step towards group leaders having equivalent maintained buildings. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Various Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived John Murray Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Nov 1978-Nov 1979