Thousands of H+H aircrete blocks were set up and knocked over as part of arts festival in East London

With housing starts at their lowest since the Great Depression, materials firm H+H must have been pleased to have received an order for 8,000 of its Celcon aircrete blocks in east London.

Alas, this was no green shoot but an attempt at a giant domino-toppling record by performance art group Station House Opera.

The blocks fell between Mile End Park and Greenwich as part of the Create09 festival. Needless to say, the blocks won’t now be used for housing, but they will be recycled. H+H tells us 8,000 of them would build about five houses – now, using the blocks to do just that would really be impressive.