Searching for grace

The Traditional Buildings Preservation Trust is a registered building preservation trust, which rescues historic buildings from dereliction and demolition. The Trust’s work preserves traditional buildings not only for their enjoyment but also for their contribution to building design. The Trust subscribes to philosopher Alain de Botton’s premise that we need graceful boxes to live in. The question is how do we go about finding this graceful living. Do we make another foray into architectural experiment or do we look back to see if grace has already been found ?

Nearly all buildings constructed before the twentieth century are valued in academic circles as evidenced by the statutory protection of listed buildings and the designation of old town districts as conservation areas. In market terms, the premiums that people pay for period property provides further evidence of the popularity of traditional buildings. Therefore, it would seem logical to examine the successes of the past, to see what works and why. Yet, the greatest icon of all modern architecture, Corbusier has said, “We must forget the dead concepts of the past…” It is Corbusier’s limiting philosophy that has reduced modern architecture to competitions in the outrageous, throwing tradition to the winds and craving the wonderment of a bemused public.

Whilst major buildings are constructed as public spectacles, community architecture has fallen prey to mass production. Aware of a public desire for traditional homes, volume house builders have maintained a minimum cost strategy by reducing building crafts to the rapid assembly of pre-formed parodies of past homes. The extensive use of pvcU, fibreglass and concrete permits rapid assembly and thereby minimises cost. However, the lack of any craftsmanship in the modern house deprives the owner of the enjoyment of the building. The home is reduced to a shelter and a retreat. A building can be cheap but it gives poor value for money if it is not enjoyed either by the owner or the community.

Traditional principles

In the search for the direction referred to by de Botton, it is not necessary to invent a new architectural discipline. For centuries, architects have used age-old principles, which have come to be known as traditional or classical. The application of these principles in the planning of the built environment means a calmness that comes from the domestic application of simple rules. In the past, communities have enjoyed tree-lined avenues, squares, crescents, streets of terraces and the focus of a public green or gardens, there is no reason to abandon these successful practices.

The terrace is one of the best examples of an architectural invention of the past. It is simply a block of flats on its side enjoying all the building economies of a single structure. Being on its side, the terrace is able to provide every owner access to the street from a front door and a private garden from a back door. It is modernist folly to upend a terrace, the vertical building now depriving residents of ground floor access to street, garden and community. The argument that vertical blocks provide greater housing density is often fallacious when one sees blocks of flats standing amidst acres of windswept grassland. The design of terraces, like all traditional buildings, follow laws of proportion, symmetry, hierarchy and rhythm. These attributes address de Botton’s concern to have a re-assuring consistency in our built environment.

Community choice

In building for a community, it is to the community that we should turn. The fact remains that communities have never called for the demolition of terraced homes or other traditional housing. On the contrary, they have fought and are still fighting today for the preservation of traditional housing. Conversely, communities have called for the demolition of every sort of modern architecture from blocks of flats and offices to shopping malls, bus stations and multi-storey car parks. Today, many of us live in tight little closes around winding tarmac or in blocks of flats behind security fences with access to the community via a supermarket bus to a remote superstore. Why has this happened ? The answer is inevitably because we have let architects, developers and house builders set their own agendas.

Despite the planning acts of the twentieth century, which were drafted to protect the environment, our cities, towns and villages have been savaged by theorists in modern architecture. Planners have given developers a charter for destruction and experiment from which many urban areas can never recover. The public did not ask to be housed twenty stories up or on vast estates with no shops or amenities, they were the unwitting victims of badly mistaken theories. Architects are still in denial of the havoc that they have wrought.

Making a step change

Many well-established architectural practices and building contractors are not equipped to respond to the challenge of abandoning fashionable but misguided concepts. For too long, architects have churned out lifeless business parks and housing estates that today foster crime and dereliction. The authorities must act to seek out those architectural practices and builders that can see beyond conventions that originate from the twentieth century’s obsession with mass production. There are still architects that know the difference between a road that is merely an access and a street that bustles with community life. We need architects that appreciate the value of squares and avenues with trees and public gardens that provide a vital contact with nature. The role played by local materials and the vernacular is only understood by those who value and study architectural history. We must seek out architects whose designs make use of traditional materials thus reducing embodied energy without resort to the life-style changes that come with extreme building designs.

Starting with a Village Design Statement

Despite its shortcomings, the planning process still represents a catalyst that can spark a fresh approach to community architecture. Neglected mechanisms are available to communities to protect their built environment. The Village Design Statement is one. Never has the community had a better opportunity to record, protect and plan their own environment than now through the development of a design statement. This statement can set down principles in architecture and standards in building crafts that will prevent today’s housing becoming the community’s sink estate. Legislation permits village design statements to become part of borough planning policy. Accordingly, a village design statement is much more than a local wish list to be ignored by all, except those who compiled it.

A village design statement will inevitably discourage the use of modern approximation of the vernacular in the design of buildings. The statement will stand against the proliferation of artificial man-made materials. Justification for this prohibition is supported not only in design terms but also to respond to government objectives in reducing the embodied energy of new buildings. Accordingly, building designs will incorporate natural materials and will require skills beyond assembly. Effort should be made to incorporate simple hand crafted decoration that enhances the building. Owners and the community should enjoy and be proud of their buildings. Enjoyment of the home environment contributes to the calmness that de Botton sees as “a precious hold”. The old housing estate theories that gave us closes, cul-de-sacs and remote retail parks will be abandoned. Recognition will be given to the successful community plans of the past that include tree lined avenues, squares, high streets and village greens. Buildings will exploit the advantages of the terrace over high-rise structures and make concrete and tarmac a thing of the past. Retail activities will be accommodated in human scale buildings as part of the community and within walking distance of all homes.

It must be stated that design statements should not be so prescriptive that they turn the built environment into a display, unconnected with daily life and maintained with a destructive fanaticism. De Botton rescues us from this obsessive outcome by pointing to the words of the 19th century philosopher Novalis who said, “In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through the veil of order”. The order is in the architecture, the “chaos” is in the paraphernalia of daily life, the evidence of human activity and the presence of nature through trees, greens and gardens. In orderly architecture, the chaos of daily life is humanising and pleasing. However, if the architecture is itself disorderly then the addition of life’s chaos creates that environment described by de Botton as “disorientation and frenzy”.

The United Kingdom’s planning law provides for the voice of the people but convention has seen these powers neglected or ignored. The village design statement is a bridgehead against barren housing estates and destructive infrastructure programmes. The village design statement will always be developed in full consultation with the community through the leadership of the Parish Council. Council planning committees have a special duty to support these important initiatives in democratic architectural planning.

Saving traditional buildings