Design for Home's David Birkbeck has compiled a picture gallery of poorly designed UK housing. Prepare to be depressed …

The author of Building for Life, David Birkbeck, has made a pastime out of photographing badly-designed new homes. This is but a small sample of his collection, picked by him to identify some of the shortcomings of modern housing. The rest of the scheme may be great – but even the best buildings have their flaws.

The names in this motley crew have been removed to protect the guilty parties, but all of these are schemes which have been built in the last 10 years. A number of them have even received support from Cabe - ignored to various degrees by the builders.

Hackney housing development with a hidden entry
Hackney: Where's the front door?

Car park for development in Oldham
A few small flats in a sea of black-top

Hidden alley on Exeter housig scheme
A mugger's paradise in Exeter

Wheely bin or front garden
Brighton: Ousted wheely bin blocks path to the front door

Ugly fencing outside new home
South London: Holding pen for wild wheely bins

Unviting entrances to housing block
London: A prisoner in your own home

Housing with low-cost boundary in London
London: Luxury-end bollards jar against a cheap boundary solution

Rear entrance to home
Can you guess what it is yet?


Mixture of designs in a doorway
Three generations of design in a single doorway: Victorian lamp, sixties frosted glass and a modern Scandinavian door

Upload your own hideous housing design pictures at the Building Network houses of horror group.

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