Poundbury - The model for rural development?

[delores]

I think the principles of Sheffield's scheme are the same.Poundbury's model although somewhat Contrived does prove that there are some decent and proven idea's in planning which create interesting and more attractive places to live. I think sometimes our love affair with modernism failed because it ignored the old rules and for some unknown reason thought it could do it better. Obviously they failed.

[heatonparkincakes]

That Sheffield plan screams BARCELONA. Looks good to me, for all I can see.

And that Sherford thingy shouts SMALL TOWN FRANCE to me as well. But dont let them hear that as they dont much them Frenchies in some parts of the Kingdom.

I will resist any republican thou here, but most of what emerges from discussions like this is pretty obvious. so i wonder how the @@@@ did they get away with building all those brutalising inner city council estates in the 60s and the cheapo ones in the 80s.

[future.architect]

Originally Posted by Leeds No.1

All its character is fake though.

i agree. why are people so ashamed of modern architecture that they feel the need to ape the past. it is clear that some aspect of poundbury work, however, i just wish that the architectutre said something about the 21st century rather then 'we live in the past'

[Leeds No.1]

People are scared of modern architecture for 2 reasons I think

1) Modern architecture has unfortuantely evolved to mean ugly 70s style CIS style office blocks and 60s high rise apartments, along with cheap thrown up apartments. People think modern is ugly; http://www.1zero4.co.uk/ this house is being built on Leeds Road in Harrogate and all the people Ive shown it to say it looks ugly from the outside. But people don't realise that modern can look impressive and good. And what we think is good on this forum is not good to most people; Bridgewater Place and the Beetham towers are the ugliest things our cities have ever seen to a large proportion of people.

2) Modern isn't British. People seem to be obsessed with being British. Modern means having to side with German cutting edge architecture. People like their white insular British villages and local pubs and local personal shops full of Britishness. The name Poundbury just shows how British the whole olde-world style is. Whoever came up with that name should be shot. I'll be laughing the day we change to the Euro and new generations don't know what the pound was, meaning people think it refers to a dog pound or something.

[paulmat]

I think another big reason modern architecture doesn't go down well here is also down to us doing it so badly.

Planning departments always make so many changes that the original essence of a design becomes watered down and half baked.

[Leeds No.1]

Yes true. But I think a suprising proportion of people would hate good examples of modern architecture, like Lloyds of London or The Gherkin.

[Octoman]

I think its all of these things. Some fair and some not. Whichever way we examine it though its a pretty poor state of affairs when planning and architecture has been so poor at tapping into what the general public want that we are having to resort to copying centuries old planning and architectural styles!

For me the big problem is that our urban form had developed incrementally over many hundreds of years. Instead of continuing this process with gradual improvements and innovations we decided to throw the whole lot out and start from scratch. We forgot all the lessons we had learned already and its only now that we are recognising that the way things were done had some merit after all. The impression I get is that the slate is being wiped clean of the last 50 years of urban planning disasters and we are picking up where we left off again.

[Steel City Suburb]

Urgh, the Waverly project.

Im sorry but I can see my house from the map and live streets away, and it will look awfull. Some of the plans just look so unimaginitive and boring, also unambitious and well, nothing special.

The land of the waverly should be reverted to nice woodlands to seperate Sheffield and Rotherham, so should the airport near it. Its time for that area to grow upwards now not outwards.

I do however think poundsbury is a lovely place and I wouldn't mind living there, despite its awfull name.

[JDRS]

Are there any pubs in Poundbury? I was just wondering because you almost never see a new development that incorporates them and they are in my mind essential to the evolution from new-build to a functioning community.

As for Poundbury itself I have my reservations about some of the architectural styles, but the basic premise is good and I think that copying things from the past that worked well/people tend to like isn't necessarily a bad thing. Why is attempting to replicate a particular style from the past wrong?

[Leeds No.1]

I don't think they are essential; as you say, many new developments lack them but a community manages to exist. I would think with its traditionalist right wing britishness, Poundbury would have a pub though.

[paulmat]

Originally Posted by Steel City Suburb

Urgh, the Waverly project.

Im sorry but I can see my house from the map and live streets away, and it will look awfull. Some of the plans just look so unimaginitive and boring, also unambitious and well, nothing special.

The land of the waverly should be reverted to nice woodlands to seperate Sheffield and Rotherham, so should the airport near it. Its time for that area to grow upwards now not outwards.

I do however think poundsbury is a lovely place and I wouldn't mind living there, despite its awfull name.

Have you actually seen proper designs for it yet? We sure haven't on here...

From the 'preliminary' images i've seen, the housing part looks like it could turn out well and is how we should be developing more these days (higher density, less 'cut off' from the street etc.). The office bit does just look like a business part though...

The River Don District (the top one of the two I posted on the previous page) looks better all round though.

And why should these areas be made back into woodland 'to separate Sheffield and Rotherham'? Surely it's better to develop brownfield sites like these with good connections to both centres rather than yet more sprawling housing estates on the outskirts, relying on commuting...

Originally Posted by Octoman

For me the big problem is that our urban form had developed incrementally over many hundreds of years. Instead of continuing this process with gradual improvements and innovations we decided to throw the whole lot out and start from scratch. We forgot all the lessons we had learned already and its only now that we are recognising that the way things were done had some merit after all. The impression I get is that the slate is being wiped clean of the last 50 years of urban planning disasters and we are picking up where we left off again.

Yeah, a lot of new developments seem to be trying to use design principals that were lost in the 50's thru 90's.

[Delirium]

Originally Posted by heatonparkincakes

I will resist any republican thou here, but most of what emerges from discussions like this is pretty obvious. so i wonder how the @@@@ did they get away with building all those brutalising inner city council estates in the 60s and the cheapo ones in the 80s.

The same way they're building all cheapo crap they're building now

As for the Poundbury question, well as much as the idea was good (although it wasn't particularily visionary), the execuction leaves something to be desired, it's only slighty better than your average newly built redrow housing estate and if you had never heard of it before and drove by there's nothing to indicate it's much better than somewhere in Milton Keynes.

[Langur]

"Poundbury" sounds so British somehow. I imagine it would be a favourite haunt of the Little England Europhobe types. They would present the horrifying prospect of the place being renamed "Kilobury", "Eurobury", or worst, "Euroburg", should we ever sell out further to the evil EU monster.

I think the development itself is ok. There is room in the market for this kind of development. It clearly appeals to some people. My instinct is to favour modern solutions but, to be honest, I've never seen an inspired plan for a modern town or village. Modern architecture can certainly design fantastic individual houses (and I'll like to see more of them in the UK) and obviously excels at large spectacular urban projects such as airports, stadia, skyscrapers etc, but small-scale commerical architecture is too often textureless and inhuman. It's up to modern architects to design something appealing that is affordable to build. If they don't then people will inevitably seek solace in this kind of backwards-looking and reactionary conservatism.

[Leeds No.1]

As mentioned, it's quite clearly aimed at the English Conservative middle class... not really liking that.

[johnnypd]

i think that is an unfair characterisation.

most developments these days market their properties at the highest possible prices for the area, a housing estate in a deprived mining town in country durham will be fairly cheap, and a housing development on the periphery of dorchester will be more expensive. pan peninsula or other such luxurious urban developments that employ modern architecture do exactly the same. indeed modern apts in urban areas often attract far higher prices than are common in their immediate area, and are fortified with a great deal of security. surely that is exclusionary? or is it ok if it is clad in mass produced/modern materials?

traditional housing is built to house both the rich and poor up and down the country, and the same can be said for modern architecture. trying to read an essential political agenda into architecture is, other than a few stand out examples, usually erroneus. that's not to say architecture is built without ideology in mind, or that it cannot have ideological implications as most buildings have both of these, only that there is no essential or concrete link between these (example: exactly identical buildings could go up in Stockholm and Pyongyang, yet the architects could be trying to symbolise the exact opposite ideas).

but to get on to the main point.

the actuality of the situation (ie, not just an assumption derived from a glance at the aesthetics) is that social housing, which makes up 20% of all units in Poundbury, is mixed into the development seamlessly, with no variation in design quality or style, and not geographically separated (or worse, a 'contribution' given to a district fund) so as to create ghettos. it is also quite forward looking in that the areas are not zoned into strict uses but freely mix both private and social housing with commercial and industrial. and whereas plenty of other developments offer dormitory cul-de-sacs, poundbury is also an employment centre, providing 750 jobs to a residential total of 1200 which is a pretty high ratio, and also makes plenty of provision for public space, again going against the trend for inward looking privitised spaces.

focusing on the style of the architecture is missing the point a bit as this development is about more than building in a traditional style. and believe it or not most people in this country prefer vernacular styles, whether middle class or working class or upper class so to say it is only geared towards one type of person is basically wrong. funnily enough poundbury seems to be a bit of a lib dem stronghold!

that is not to say i'd endorse poundbury. i think it looks a bit bland personally and wouldn't want to live there.

[Octoman]

Originally Posted by johnnypd

the actuality of the situation (ie, not just an assumption derived from a glance at the aesthetics) is that social housing, which makes up 20% of all units in Poundbury, is mixed into the development seamlessly, with no variation in design quality or style, and not geographically separated (or worse, a 'contribution' given to a district fund) so as to create ghettos. it is also quite forward looking in that the areas are not zoned into strict uses but freely mix both private and social housing with commercial and industrial. and whereas plenty of other developments offer dormitory cul-de-sacs, poundbury is also an employment centre, providing 750 jobs to a residential total of 1200 which is a pretty high ratio, and also makes plenty of provision for public space, again going against the trend for inward looking privitised spaces.

Some really good points there. We cry out when modern developments segregate the affordable housing and yet struggle to endorse a project that does exacltly the opposite. Mixed use, mixed class has been the target of modern planners and architects for years and yet they rarely seem to pull it off. Once again Poundbury incorporates these things very successfully.

I think a lot of it is ego. An entire profession that has struggled for decades to meet the publics expectations to the point that we are generally distrustful of new developments. The profession can do little other than continue to hold their line and point out that they know better and are seeing things the general populace are unable to. It would be an utter kick in the teeth to admit a bumbling prince had come up with a superior urban planning solution to anything their collective wisdom had delivered in years.

Langur's post was also spot on. I hadnt thought about it that way but its true that we seem to be very good at nailing the big projects now but have made no progress on the small scale mass housing provision.

[slipdigby]

Originally Posted by Leeds No.1

You're right. These designs for Poundbury and Sherford are pretty European, but they've gone and made it cringey by putting in ridiculously British architecture and names. Like Poundbury. Who thought of that...

Someone a fair few millennia ago who named the hillfort and farmstead outside Dorchester "Poundbury" one might suspect.

Slip

[delores]

I personally think whatever name the town was called it would be ridiculed on here. Poundbury is far superior to other new housing developments that have popped up in the south west.

[pmun]

Originally Posted by Leeds No.1

People will look back on our generation and see buildings like those in Poundbury and it won't say anything about us.

It will actually say how backward looking and timid of architecture many of us are. And I'm afraid that's true.

[logosen]

Originally Posted by pmun

It will actually say how backward looking and timid of architecture many of us are. And I'm afraid that's true.

This is quite fair to say. The architecture of Poundbury is nostalgic, but is also pragmatic in that such designs have aged well and are still favourably regarded by people in general. They were once innovative designs. It is to be regretted that innovative design is not common in all but the most urban of locations, and even there is somewhat rare. To its credit, as sprawl of a small town, Poundbury is amongst the best examples in Britain. Then again, it is sprawl of a small town.

I was harping on about Sherford earlier, which rather than being sprawl fo a small town aims to be a small town in its own right, albeit a satellite of Plymouth. Its architecture is not ambitious or even interesting, but the urban planning side of things is a break from current norms of suburban development. It will be backward looking and timid, but it must be stressed how great an improvement this will be on houses like this. This is what the periphery of Plymouth has been butchered into. I would be surprised and sickened if this was still here in 100 years, but I am quite sure Sherford will be.

This nostalgic model of architecture is also pragmatic. It worked and will continue to work. This is not a state of affairs anyone but the grand old Duke of Cornwall is a fan of, but it is an improvement. Some suit somewhere must feel they are taking some kind of risk by building like this. They are comatose and showed signs of increased nervous activity. Welcome news, surely, but all of us would prefer consciousness.