Soft Cities

housing

Grenfell Inquiry: moving from finger-pointing to collective reflection

First published in Architects Journal, 16/09/24. Grenfell Inquiry: moving from finger-pointing to collective reflection (architectsjournal.co.uk) The Grenfell Inquiry reports will take a long time to fully digest. They are sad, important, infuriating documents, reflecting a variety of industry opinions and positions both genuinely and strategically held. Despite the lengthy gestation period, the reports represent only the end …

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Howells behind plans to convert Seifert’s Croydon tower into flats

By Richard Waite. First published in Architects Journal 20/08/24: Howells behind plans to convert Seifert’s Croydon tower into flats (architectsjournal.co.uk) The 24-storey office block at 12-16 Addiscombe Road, next to East Croydon station, opened in 1970 as the headquarters of Noble Lowndes Anninuities (NLA). It is also known as No 1 Croydon as well as …

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Mary Duggan and RUFF complete ‘pavilions in park’ housing in Croydon

By Rob Wilson.  First published in Architects Journal, 20/03/23 – https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/mary-duggan-and-ruff-complete-pavilions-in-park-housing-in-croydon. Red Clover Gardens consists of 157 homes for private sale, affordable and social rent, arranged across five facetted blocks within a landscaped park-like setting. The scheme, at Couldson in the south-east of the London Borough of Croydon, was commissioned by Croydon’s in-house developer Brick …

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Council housing is not a dirty word, says Labour as it pledges social housing drive

First published the The Architects Journal, 27/09/22. The Labour Party has vowed to roll out a massive council house-building programme if it is voted in at the next election. Speaking in Liverpool at the party’s annual conference, shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy set out policies to boost housebuilding by local authorities. In Labour’s 2019 election manifesto, …

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Housing desperately needs long term strategy

First published in Housing Today, 14/07/22 – Housing desperately needs long term strategy | Comment | Housing Today. As the housing development sector backs Housing Today’s ‘A Fair Deal for Housing’ project, Colm Lacey argues for a new strategy to make the delivery of affordable housing more certain and commercially attractive. There is not much …

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Podcast: Tracks of my tyres

Colm Lacey (Soft Cities) talks to David Taylor and Toby Fox of Velocity Magazine (https://velocitymagazine.co.uk) about housing, bikes, and taking things apart and trying to put them back together again. Oh and he eventually chooses some of his favourite songs to play too. Colm Lacey – Tracks Of My Tyres | Podcast on Spotify

We’ll look back and spot the monuments to this terrible time

First published in BD Online, 05/10/20 – https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/well-look-back-and-spot-the-monuments-to-this-terrible-time/5108135.article. Six more months of working from home will leave an ugly mark on our towns, warns development chief. The pandemic will leave a lasting legacy on the design of our towns and cities in the form of joyless “lockdown schemes”, a leading developer has warned. In a …

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Adapting to life under lockdown

First published in Housing Today, 29/04/20 – https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/comment/how-brick-by-brick-is-adapting-to-life-under-lockdown/5105765.article. Well to put it mildly, these are challenging times for housing. No sooner had had the Gordian knot of Brexit started to unravel a little than a new international conundrum of epic proportions arrived. While everyone in the housing sector has had to rapidly adapt to this …

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Cross-subsidy may be dead, but simply calling for more grant is not the answer – here’s what we should do

First published in Housing Today, 15/11/19 – https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/comment/cross-subsidy-may-be-dead-but-simply-calling-for-more-grant-is-not-the-answer-heres-what-we-should-do/5102745.article So. Farewell then, the cross-subsidy model. A perfect storm of rising costs, increased regulation and slower sales has apparently killed the goose that laid the golden egg of genuinely affordable housing for all. But did it ever exist, really? It is certainly true that social housing delivery …

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