Newsnight programme about housebuilding

[hifive605]

oh and these apartment blocks should have large window and livable balconies - but we all now how much UK developers hate those..

[Langur]

Originally Posted by hifive605

first off if we stopped calling them flats but apartments instead I think then much of the sigma would go away.

In Manhattan agents are calling them "flats" to sound grand and British.

[mouldss@hotmail.co.u]

An englishman's home is his leasehold designer slum flat.

[cnapan]

Originally Posted by cosmictanya

i think the top photo is rather unfair. it is one bombed block in the middle of kensington, surrounded on all sides by beautiful, high density historic buildings.

I don't think it's unfair, because I was making a point about the built environment from the last few decades and how the flats featured in the programme, though rather dull and characterless, are 'less bad' than much of the modern housing that lots of us grew up with and are surrounded by.

Incidentally, a flat in that block you pointed out sold for 900 grand! Imagine... almost a million quid for a flat in a building without any merit whatsoever other than its location in Kensington and its ability to keep the rain out... Utter madness.

[cosmictanya]

Originally Posted by cnapan

I don't think it's unfair, because I was making a point about the built environment from the last few decades and how the flats featured in the programme, though rather dull and characterless, are 'less bad' than much of the modern housing that lots of us grew up with and are surrounded by.

Incidentally, a flat in that block you pointed out sold for 900 grand! Imagine... almost a million quid for a flat in a building without any merit whatsoever other than its location in Kensington and its ability to keep the rain out... Utter madness.

doesn't surprise me - would be double if it wasn't ex council. somebody got a great bargain on council discount. tor court isn't it? i've always quite liked it

you can see by the garden & planting that it isn't as unloved and ill kempt as the other three examples. that was why i said it was unfair.

it isn't ugly - just utilitarian. germany for one has ample examples of utilitarian post war buildings. the suburbs of madrid out by alcobendas are repulsive - and still being built.

i get what you mean - i basically agree. french & italians do care more about design. but i don't find the uk to be uniquely hideous in europe - i've seen just as bad, en masse, in germany, spain, and scandinavia.

[cnapan]

Originally Posted by cosmictanya

i don't find the uk to be uniquely hideous in europe - i've seen just as bad, en masse, in germany, spain, and scandinavia.

Agree entirely.