Poundbury - The model for rural development?

[potto]

Having walked around Poundbury numerous times here are my thoughts....

Poundbury follows Urban Design principles laid down in the new urbanism movement started in America.

The spaces of Poundbury are one of its strong points. You can happily walk around the place in the middle of the streets like a drunkard.

Unlike the layout of a modernist estate that exists in isolation oblique to the rest of the urban grain, Poundbury encourages you to explore from the edge to the centre with a combination of organic layout and building identity.

The organic spaces are created not by adhereing to transport department guidelines on street grades but by an analgue limitless scaling, from large squares to small alleyways generating curiosity and a comfort that comes from a feeling that various humans were involved in the layout over a long period of time.

More invisibly the local community consists of a true mix of incomes where you can not easily identify between the affordable and market price housing as the buildings have been created firstly to generate the space and offer visual emotions.

The identity comes from local stone. The environmental credentials come from the open space that lays down from the outset the potential for a myriad of uses, I can walk, I can cycle, I can play, I can drive all on the same space. There are work units among the residential housing.

One of the main flaws (and we can extrapolate this to the new 'eco towns' recently proposed by the governement) in that it exists in Dorset which has a hopeless public transport and cycle network so although there are work units available in the 'town' most people will have a car by default and so many of the spaces are now filled with cars where you should have found children playing or other human activity like socialising and work.

Also its location is not quite far enough from Dorchester to appear a separate entity worthy of visiting and not near enough to be seemlessly a part of Dorchester where you can suddenly find yourself in. It is a bit of no-mans land, a suburb.

I think that ultimately Poundbury is a physical manifestation of Prince Charles's tragically confused grasp on the urban. He has a strong positive understanding of how a place should feel and has concerns over identity, social cohesion and the environment so you would imagine quite a force for good. However sadly as we all know these fundamental concepts somehow fall back into an inability to accomodate modern architecture. Modern architecture of flexible space, or natural light, of high density.

I would not be so stubborn to deny a number of traditional appearing buildings in such a vast new development as this locks in with our emotion to have a past showing a that there was a process of human activity before us. But Poundbury is flawed by its inability to welcome modern high density architecture. This is no fundamental issue with the principles of New Urbanism or the successful Urban Design take in Poundbury but it comes from the misguided benfactor.

The other thing that I dont understand is why these new-urbanist principles and eco-towns appear as these isolated developments? By definition they should be our normal layout, our default not resorts to gawp at. Unlike in America we already have the basis of the New-Urbanist principles already set in nearly all our towns! The problem is that these organic streets have been heavily compromised by the advent and ultimate dominance of the private motor vehicle. This has completely skewed our appreciation of the space that was once available and in turn this skewed vision (ie from the pavement looking down) has generated some lacklustre architecture because the architecture no longer has to play with the space.

The traditionalists and conservative mindset that has lapped up New Urbanism for their own agenda has merely sought to fragment our urban and architectural debate rather than provide a decent framework for concensus.

[pmun]

Probably one of the most balanced, clear and thoughtful pieces anyone has ever written on Poundbury - thanks.

I'm not surprised about our over dependence on the car spoiling those spaces. I can see the point of suburbs as they were conceived and originally built ie as part of a rail network to provide a safe and tranquil place to live within easy reach of the city. But now we've filled them with cars and shopping sheds it seems to have defeated the object.

Did you find the uniformity of period style stifling?

[mwinyi]

more pictures of poundbury?

[ill tonkso]

Great post Potto, I don't know how far it is from the nearest rail line but it is large enough now to warrant it's own station. The two lines through Dorchester have great links to both Waterloo and Paddington too.

Edit: Just realised Potto posted that 4 years gone. Also, Poundbury is literally 5min cycle from the Dorchester Stations. A decent segregated cycle land could do wonders.

[Sweet Zombie Jesus]

'Traditional' vs. 'modern' architecture is something I've been thinking about recently. Is architecture like this just a stuck on facade? Or something much deeper?

It's easy to mock the mock-historical buildings 'New Urbanists' like to put up in particular. Why can't we just build something modern? Well for a start what is modern? These houses in Poundbury are only a few years old, and presumably have new electrics, broadband, insulation, etc. that you'd expect from a 'modern' building. But what's with the brick walls? The tall pitched roofs? All those cute little details don't represent what we are today surely?

But like it or not they do represent something. Housing built in this way represents a system of design that has been trundling on for thousands of years, deciding on architectural solutions through a constant process of trial and error... like natural selection the best performing solution was adopted and continued, and all these solutions came together over time to form the 'traditional' building as we know it.

This way of building is more than just a 'style', it is intrinsically linked to human development itself over millenia, up until it was loosened in the Industrial Revolution and then blown apart entirely in the 20th century. Looking at a pitched roof, for example, for most people this inspires a completely different feeling from a flat roof, or curved roof, or any zany contemporary roof. It's primarily a cultural and psychological thing. Ask most people on the street today to quickly draw a house, it'll usually (despite the multitude of 'superior' architectural theories unleashed over the last century) be a brick or stone, rendered or painted rectangle with a pitched roof.

Basically I think there's more to this than nostalgia or pastiche. When people see 'traditional' buildings of hundreds of years old being rennovated, and 'modern' buildings from the 70's being demolished in a hurry, it reinforces this cultural viewpoint of tradition being a success story, of being 'worthy of respect', perhaps.

If we are to design architecture primarily to display who we are today what will this acheive in terms of town/cityscape? Freedom of design surely, but there are so many different ideas, conflicting egos, and rising individualities make it hopelessly difficult to achieve any sense of harmony or continuity in our urban areas; just think about the contemporary city, with cute Georgian rows giving way to Victorian follies all towered over by prefab concrete behemoths and flashy metal, glass and plastic towers. Unless we want more conflict? I don't, but then I'm only one person.

All I'll say is, when architecture evolved to what we now refer to as 'traditional', it didn't just evolve to stand up that way, to build with a certain material or decorate a window in a particular way, it evolved to serve people in a specific way, since for most of the time this form of building wasn't designed by architects or planners at all, but by people themselves, who over time developed and perfected an entire way of living which we as human beings have slotted into quite well. replace a window with floor to ceiling plate glass, break down rooms for 'open plan living', decorate the walls with overly artificial materials and cold colours and you're not just changing 'style', you're breaking down the very perception we have of what a building is, and how we act in our environments.

[poshbakerloo]

I'm not too bothered about Poundbury. It looks nice enough, but at the same time all them tiny wannba cottages crammed into a small space. The streets look pretty claustrophobic!

[Leeds No.1]

The original phases were alright, but have you seen the more recent builds/streetscape? They've totally lost it.

[future.architect]

delete

[future.architect]

Originally Posted by Leeds No.1

That building is much derided on here and for good reason. It's an abomination.

Following on from SZJ's post I see his point that some people have difficulty accepting non-traditional houses.

The problem I have with these traditional developments is the lack of innovation. Designing something which would not look out of place 300 years ago is not advancing the art of architecture. It is retarding it and shows a lack of confidence.
'But people like it', that may be true but it's just so boring. Some of the postwar buildings we are forever demolishing did not work on many levels. That is to be expected, many of the design concepts behind them where new and untested. But at least they made an attempt at innovating.
Lots of things about Poundbury are very innovative. But the buildings wouldn't look out of place at Disneyland.

I'm not advocating that everyone live in something like this:


I would love it if someone tried to develop an original traditional style for the 21'st centuary. Like our version of art deco or art nouveau. It might not even be possible, it might look crap. But someone should try.

[tripleseis]

^I'd love to live in something like that, but that's just me.

[Leeds No.1]

I agree that it is not innovative, and I agree that I really would like to see progressive developments fit for the 21st century.

All I'm saying in relation to Poundbury though is that if you're going to build traditional, at least do it well. The very centre of Poundbury is alright, but extensions have been terrible.

Originally Posted by tripleseis

^I'd love to live in something like that, but that's just me.

You realise it's a fire station though?

[future.architect]

Originally Posted by Leeds No.1

You realise it's a fire station though?

The is talking about the modernist house I posted.

[Leeds No.1]

Oh right. Yes I'd love something like that too, but then since when have SSC forumers represented the general population. Most seem content with Barratt housing,

[Tyr]

Its ideas on town development I have no idea about, maybe there is something to them.

Building new houses to try and look old though...never works and is a bad idea. Why cant we design nice villages with modern houses?

[StiffUpper]

I've only briefly been to Poundbury but I grew up mostly on a similar estate in Basildon, one that was built mostly in the 80s. That estate (Noak Bridge) was considered noteworthy and I'm sure influenced Poundbury.

I think these are good models for much of the new housing the country needs as long as urban design isn't diluted by the volume of builds with slapdash thoughtless planners getting their hands on it.

Building a whole new district is a real challenge as comparable old areas grew organically, another is integrating cars. One failure of my estate was that it integrates very poorly with the surrounding town and countryside - it does handle cars fairly well though.

Planners need to keep looking and learning at what works well and what doesn't.
IMO the next challenge is to find ways if integrating Pondbury type design with areas that allow very young children to play-out without risk of cars.

The best place I've seen for that was a pig ugly sixties estate I lived on. The houses were made of bubble concrete (that floated) and had tin rooves. But children and adults could criss-cross it with ease with no concerns about cars whatsoever.

[Leeds No.1]

To be honest, if they were serious about making this concept work, they wouldn't say it has to be car friendly.

They shouldn't be- part of the charm of old villages is the narrow streets that cars can't easily get through. If people want to live in villages like this then they can't expect to have easy car access.

I'm surprised more focus on cycling and public transport hasn't been given to places like Poundbury. You'd think a new development would have some sort of public transport provision latched on.

[NCT]

Poundbury is still too small within a not-so-large town of Dorchester, so comprehensive public transport provision would be very challenging in the first place. Given the deregulated and privatised nature of public transport is most of this country you can sort of see why there's been no public transport provision latched on.

[ill tonkso]

Plus, Poundbury is designed with a bus circuit in mind (It has a sort of 'Ring Road' for them). And it is one straight road to get to Dochester West Station on your bike in about 5 minutes. Dorchester East in about 6 or 7. The ONLY thing I dislike about Poundbury is the GOD AWFUL NAME!!