The tower blocks that were built in the sixties and seventies failed because they were for the most part poorly constructed and detailed (“That past is gone”, 29 May, page 19)
This was a direct response to government policy and financial incentives given to build high-rise homes as quickly as possible to respond to a housing crisis.
Generally, they were poorly managed and maintained but nevertheless, for all their faults, they were more popular with tenants than medium-rise blocks with deck access. Space standards were high but allocation policies were flawed, driven by the scarcity of available homes. The public realm around the blocks was not well thought out and in many cases became a sea of concrete podiums with no landscaping or sense of place.
If we are capable of learning the lessons from the past and commit ourselves to producing homes that are well designed and constructed, then surely high-rise housing can succeed. It seems to me that the problem lies in collective amnesia in respect of the causes of past failure. Everything we do today in housing is heavily numbers-driven without including quality and sustainability in the targets to be met. Without rigorous quality and high design standards we are in danger of wasting more public money and creating miserable housing for future generations.
Stephanie Al-Wahid
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