Reclaim the heavens! Cities in the sky! Concrete solutions!

Two architects believe they can design life and move into the tower block they have built; engineered to encourage kinship and social harmony. But can their marriage survive the strain of cuddling up to cockroaches, as the building degenerates and the blame falls on them?

Combining black humour with a tragic scope, Let Slip explores the legacy of Britain’s tower blocks in an irreverent, dynamic and visually arresting production.

Let Slip was founded at the Jacques Lecoq Theatre School in Paris. Machines for Living is the company’s second show, after its debut Hamster Town was staged at Camden People’s Theatre in August 2011.

http://www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk/machines-living

Dates

Tuesday 22 May – Saturday 16 June

Time

8:00 pm

Days of the week

Tuesday – Saturday

Ticket price

£12.00
£10.00 (concessions)
£8.00 (southwark residents)
£8.00 (Previews Tuesday 22 and Wednesday 23 May)

Tickets

Available online from

Post-show discussions: Tuesdays 29 May, 5 & 12 June

Those of you who count yourselves among my regulars, and there are a few, will be aware of the subtitle that has graced this page for nearly three years.  It said “because I care about housing and hate single aspect flats”.

Last Saturday I was invited to join a DoCoMoMo walk around South London during the course of which we visited  Lambeth Towers and some maisonettes at Cotton Gardens just along from the Imperial War Museum, among many other buildings..

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This is a sad day for London.  The election of Boris Johnson as Mayor for the second time, made worse by it being only a narrow victory, when seen in the light of his support for the Conservative administration of H&F and his planning decisions in support of the social cleansing policies of that borough, is not to be welcomed by anyone who cares about the plight of council tenants across London.

This blog was created as a direct result of an article in the Evening Standard on Thursday 9th July 2009 highlighting the intention of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to rid the borough of council estates and their residents.  In the nearly three years since they have gone some way towards this and certainly done little to reassure the worried that their intentions are otherwise.

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Browsing the stats the other day I noticed a visit from Squire and Partners who converted the former Kensington Odeon into flats and a basement cinema.  While looking at the drawings for the site, which normally contain outline images of kitchen units, sofas and a dining table, I was intrigued to notice that each of five apartments in a row, had a piano outlined.  More in keeping with a music school than a residential street I would have thought or is this how the rich pass their time?

http://www.squireandpartners.com/index.php#/projects/1009/ – Drawing

Here in Cambridge I regularly cycle along a street of three storey houses through whose bay windows may be seen a baby grand in a least half of them but all?  Perhaps it was simply wishful thinking on the part of the architects in order to generate sales.

I have written to Squires to ask but have not so far received a reply.  I’ll let you know when I do.

One of my readers has asked the question in the title by way of Google.  Here is the answer.

YES!

[I know about Castleford but either they've got forced air ventilation - yuk - or the local planning authority got it badly wrong.]

They were banned in 1909 by act of parliament for being unhealthy to live in, in fact they were first banned by several Northern cities in the 19th century . . .

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I have rarely heard so much truth about the present housing situation spoken in so few words, in one place.  I wasn’t there but transcribed this from the Guardian video.

The housing crisis is personal to me because the first job I had after University was to work in a day centre for homeless and vulnerable young people sort of 16 to 21, and I’m still the chairman of the project now, 40 years on.

There’s far more sleeping in doorways in London and in Manchester and in Birmingham than I can remember, we’re back somewhere in the late 1960s.

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How can you market a monopoly product like water, electricity, gas and the railways? A few short years before his death Harold MacMillan called Thatcher’s behaviour “selling off the family silver.”  Had it achieved anything useful there might be something to celebrate.  All we have now is a campaign to bring the “big six” to heel for overcharging and less reliable supplies than we had in the 1970s, three day week excepted.

Here’s an account of supply problems from somebody in the business who clearly has a good grasp of what’s gone wrong since the 1970s and how close we have come to power cuts.

First one (in recent years) was 10th December 2002. We were some 2-3 minutes from initiating load shedding (rolling blackouts). I don’t know the cause — most likely a cold spell causing a shortage of gas so that commercial consumers on cheap gas tarrifs have their gas cut off, some of whom were gas fired power stations, so we lose electricity generation capacity at peak heating demand.

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Below is a press release from Jonathan Rosenberg, courtesy of this blog, regarding the ongoing fight to save the West Kensington and Gibbs Green council estates

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Government says yes to empowerment! Community says no to demolition!

West Kensington & Gibbs Green residents have welcomed the Government’s publication of draft regulations for a new Right to Transfer, which empowers them to take over their homes.

Through regulations, published for consultation today, S34A of the 1985 Housing Act will give the Secretary of State power to force councils to co-operate with requests from tenants to transfer the ownership of their homes to the community.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/housing/2107157

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There seems no end to the lengths this bunch of millionaire muppets will go to sell the family silver, well what’s left, but this really must be a bridge too far.  The Guardian article that appeared yesterday has so far attracted over 2000 comments, a rare event even for the frantic bloggers from both sides of the Atlantic who keep an eye on such things.  I’ve read most of them, of which the vast majority are bitterly against, and angry.  This [edited] one below pretty much sums up how I feel about it all and if you want to look up my two short contributions they’re under Piecesofeight

november19

3 March 2012 7:15PM

I’m outraged and shocked by it all naturally. In fact, I’m starting to suspect that Cameron is on a mission to make sure the Conservatives are never a palatable voting option for an entire generation and he’s doing a brilliant job at it.