Category: Counter Propaganda

I’ll keep it brief, because I’m nearing the end of my tolerance for this stuff. We started with a minute’s silence and the local minister, Steve Chalke, calling on us to show respect for democracy – which he said meant listening to each other. As chance would have it this hustings were being held in … Continue reading Vauxhall Hustings 2017

Last month, to accompany its exhibition at the RIBA, Karakusevic Carson Architects published a book titled Social Housing: Definitions & Design Exemplars, which contains 24 case studies of new developments across Europe and the UK, many of them estate regenerations in London. These include the Colville, King’s Crescent and Nightingale estates in Hackney and the Bacton … Continue reading Social Housing: Demolitions, Privatisations & Social Cleansing

These extracts are from John Wright’s recently published book, A Natural History of the Hedgerow (2016). I began reading it partly out of my love and hatred of hedgerows, about which I have written before on this blog in an article on Land Values, but also as an escape from the violence, injustice, political corruption … Continue reading In Defence of Our Land: Historical Similarities Between the Enclosure of Common Land from the Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries and the Privatisation of Public Land in the Twenty-First; or, Why the Class War Never Changes, Only its Historical Form

Ivy House, a private hostel for homeless families by Manor House tube station, stands directly opposite the former Woodberry Down Estate, where 1,980 council homes were demolished when the current Hackney Mayor, Philip Glanville, was Cabinet Member for Housing. According to the Woodberry Down masterplan, which was granted planning permission by Hackney Labour Council in February … Continue reading Estate Demolition and the Business of Homelessness

ASH was recently asked a number of questions about our principles and practices by a member of Momentum, a faction of the Labour Party supporting Jeremy Corbyn that we have been highly critical of in the past because of its support for Labour councils demolishing council estates. Many of the questions we were asked are … Continue reading FAQs

‘The rarity with which the case for beauty is articulated is explained partly by timidity, and partly by unwillingness to challenge modernist determinism. The aesthetics of our built environment has suffered from the Cult of Ugliness. The overwhelming majority of public architecture built during my lifetime is aesthetically worthless, simply because it is ugly. Be warned! … Continue reading A New David: The Journey to Beauty in Architecture

The so-called housing shortage, which plays such a main role in the media nowadays, does not consist of the fact that the working class generally lives in bad, overcrowded and unhealthy dwellings. This general shortage in housing is not something particular to the present moment; it is not even one of the sufferings particular to the … Continue reading The Housing Question, 1872-2016

This week Architects for Social Housing met with Adrian Dobson, Executive Director for Members, and Maxine Mckenzie, Executive Director of Communications, to discuss ASH’s protest against the RIBA’s nomination of Trafalgar Place for this year’s Stirling Prize. First of all we got security out of the way. We asked them to speak to the police and … Continue reading ASH meeting with the RIBA