Future Dereliction

[RichardH]

I was pondering (o'er many a forgotten tome of quaint and curious lore).

There's been a decided uptick recently in the number of derelict sites being reported as "demolished", or "bulldozed", or "collapsed into rubble", and at least one which has been dismantled despite its listed status. (Not to mention "accidentally set on fire".) There are also quite a few reports that sites have been converted (with greater or lesser degrees of sympathy towards the original building). At the same time, there are new buildings being put up all over the place. Sometimes with interesting and curious facades, but in generally the innards seem to be flimsy: the soft, fleshy innards beneath the hard carapace as 'twere. We've seen examples of derelict buildings of this nature where a building may look outwardly solid, but the insides have all collapsed into a heap of twisted metal frames and drywall.

And even where the buildings are solidly constructed, they seem to be depressingly "same-y". Gone are the days where an architect would have thought nothing of building a spiral staircase up to a room 10 feet square, or constructing walls that are square-ish. Public buildings seem to be the worst for this. I've seen several new-ish courthouses, been in two new hospitals and a fairly new health centre, and if you ignore the contents, they're all alike: constructed of hollow cubes with interchangeable innards. It's easy to see how, should these buildings need to be repurposed, they can quickly be modified to suit the new demands. Houses and factories increasingly seem to be built using the same recipe, too: 1) build a box; 2) put things in it.

Are we coming to the end of dereliction as we know it? Is it now in its "silver age"? In the year 2525 (assuming man is still alive and woman can survive) what will they find?

Excuse me, I'm going to see what that bloody raven wants.

 

[DARREN138]

Never a more truer word spoken O learned one!
The problem with the majority of architechs these days seems to be that none are willing to take any kind of risks when it comes to overall style as,unfortunately,cost of project far outweighs all other considerations and therefore all modern buildings seem to be being built to the cheapest (and blandest!) specification.
Look at any Cinema that was built in the 30's or 40's and you can see that design of that time seemed to be about creating something truly spectacular with little worry about cost cutting measures. How very sad it is to see some of the utter characterless crap that gets constructed these days.

 

[highcannons]

All very true. And even domestic construction has had the same treatment. Not only do constructors use more but thinner timber, thus speeding rot or fire, but if you were placed within modern development estates you could be anywhere in the country.

There will be more dereliction, the rubbish western economy and it's further decline will see to that. But the nature of that dereliction will change to the fleeting, numbing sameness that does nobody any favours. Of course the same symptom will ensure such sites become rare in the future as they quickly rot away and are not replaced by new construction.

Dereliction by it's nature is a symptom of economics - that much is obvious. The nature of modern construction is the characteristic that will alter the beast!

 

[UrbanX]

Hmm, I too have been pondering this lately..

I think: Urbex will never end, or die out. It will simply evolve.


Under the umbrella term "urbex" we can expect more 'live' sites including things like drains and cranes, as well as infiltrations.

Although the domestic buildings we produce now aren't generally as architecturally unique as in days gone by, I believe they are still inspiring. (Careful what you say, I work in architecture). Besides, look at Pripyat, none of it is architecturally inspiring, what makes it the explore is what is left behind.

I live in a box Barratt house built in the 90's. If I found something similar in 20 years, with an iPod charger still plugged in, a can of 'Monster' energy drink, and a One Direction poster, I'd still find it cool!

Viva La Urbex!

 

[RichardH]

No offence intended to any architects. Some of my best friends are architects...

I should point out I was referring to dereliction, not urbex, and I'm aware that the two are not the same, even though they may have many commonalities. I'm not really whinging about aesthetics (well, only a little bit). More about the seeming lack of differentiation between one building and the next, and the impermanence of many of the inner structures of a building which, once gone, leave the building as nothing more than a box. You do have a point about people leaving interesting relics behind them, though.

... and a One Direction poster, I'd still find it cool!...

It's ok, you're among friends. You can find Wand Erection cool and we'll still like you.

 

[Foxylady]

Bugger! Just when I was starting to come out of my nihilistic, end-of-the-world, what's-the-point-of-it-all depression (I should never have bought those Torchwood DVDs)!

There is one kind of residential building that seems to go on forever 'n' ever and will amaze future generations. The council house. Don't laugh...I'm serious. Although they were built to be fairly utilitarian, some are quite quirky and are a damn site nicer than new builds right now. My flat is council and it's brilliant...you can get the footprint of an entire NB in my living room and the other rooms are almost as big. I'm not sure they'll ever become derelict though...you'd have to prize people out like limpets from a rock, they are that good!

 

[RichardH]

Bugger! Just when I was starting to come out of my nihilistic, end-of-the-world, what's-the-point-of-it-all depression (I should never have bought those Torchwood DVDs)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbU7ofv1fko&feature=player_detailpage#t=236s

I know what you mean about council houses. There are some lovely ones out there.

 

[Foxylady]

LOL! Cheers, Richard...just what I needed.

 

[Richard Davies]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbU7ofv1fko&feature=player_detailpage#t=236s

I know what you mean about council houses. There are some lovely ones out there.

Though I remember my Dad mentioning that some in the 1960's & 70's were put up on the cheap to meet targets & had to be condemed within 20 years.

 

[Foxylady]

Though I remember my Dad mentioning that some in the 1960's & 70's were put up on the cheap to meet targets & had to be condemed within 20 years.

Good point, Richard. A lot of the cutting edge architecture of the estates at the time degenerated quite quickly. As a social experiment, they failed quite spectacularly too.

 

[highcannons]

The early estates in Milton Keynes, Conniburrow for example, were put up quick and cheap with a limited life. The idea was to get bods there to attract work etc and allow the area to develop. In those early days if you got a job in the area you got a council 'house' within a week.

They have since had pitched roofs put on them over the flat bitumen rooves and most now are in private hands as bedsits. And, despite any problems, as long as they turn a profit they will stay.

Totally agree about earlier council housed, built like brick sh*thouses! Last forever.

 

[Richard Davies]

Good point, Richard. A lot of the cutting edge architecture of the estates at the time degenerated quite quickly. As a social experiment, they failed quite spectacularly too.

The worst of that kind of corner cutting led to the Ronan Point collapse.

My cousin lived in Milton Keynes for a time & mentioned some pre-fab like houses were only supposed to be for builders during the early stages of development, but have stayed up partually due to higher than average houses prices.

 

[Dirus_Strictus]

I suspect many of the ideas within this thread, have been 'talked' about from the day mankind moved from the cave into a dwelling made from a fallen tree trunk covered in branches and leaves. Within the UK we have examples of poor and cost cutting building work (both in stone and written records) from the Norman times onward, - If you want to see some really good examples of shoddy, jerry built properties, go and delve under the floorboards and behind the plasterwork of some town terraces built by Georgian speculative builders.

Anybody with any understanding of social history will know why council houses were built with spacious rooms and gardens, but unfortunately the old inner city slums only exist in photographs and these give a very poor intimation of what life was actually like. Even the very few preserved examples fail to preserve the ever pervading smell, dirt and damp of the original era. Today it is construction and land costs that are the major limiting factors when it comes to the visual design of our new dwellings and estates, but one does wonder where the design ideas come from - still if you really search around it becomes very apparent that many designs are just rehashes from earlier times. Can anybody explain why architects produce office and community buildings to a derivative brick design for Northern towns and cities that are predominately stone? We still have plenty of 'eco friendly' stone available in these parts.

As for the thorny problem of Listing leading to dereliction - In my view listing is a two edged sword, old buildings generally exist because they have been adapted through the ages to new uses and very few exist exactly as they did on the day the were first occupied. Obviously a building such as this needs all the protection the 'law' will allow, but to me it seems that in listing many building the authorities are trapping them in an artificial time warp.

I can best illustrate this by using my own cottage - It is a two storey weavers cottage situated in a terrace of 38 similar and had a shop at the end and an ale house in the middle. The whole terrace is the oldest example of a co-operative self build club in north England, it was known locally for many years as 'Club Row'. Built 225 years ago in the days of cottage weaving, the cottages were built in pairs and occupied by drawing lots. There is a vaulted food/coal cellar with two thirds of the ground floor being 'living room', one third scullery and a stone staircase leading to the first floor. The first floor was one complete room open up to the roof rafters, heated by a small fireplace and lit by traditional weavers windows back and front it originally held two large treadle looms - the pulleys and weights still hang from the rafters in what is now my loft. Each cottage had its own outside privy. When first occupied a family of six lived and worked in this cottage - Parents and a baby sleeping amid the looms and the three elder children sleeping in the living room.

On the demise of the cottage weaving industry the cottages were turned into two bedroomed dwellings by adding boarded bedroom ceilings and a wooden partition wall - in this form eight people lived here for many years prior to WW1. In the 1950's the local council condemned the terrace and instigated compulsory purchase proceedings, because of the lack of internal bath/WC facilities. Lack of cash stopped this and with the advent of the home improvement grants the cottages were sympathetically modernised in the 60's.

Three miles from my terrace is another one, obviously built to the same design and for the same purpose; however, they were started during the decline of cottage weaving and were never occupied by hand weavers, being converted during build into two bed millworkers dwellings. Nowadays this terrace is situated in a conservation area and are listed, which leads to major problems. All these cottages are relatively small in bedroom area because of the provision of the internal bathroom, but they make ideal homes for couples or people trying to get a foot on the property ladder. Property in our terrace sells well, even in this financial climate. In the conservation area things a very different - because of the more stringent rules on what can and cannot be used for maintenance/ conversion, building costs a much greater and thus selling prices are greater also. The result of this being that cottages that are supposed to be in a premium living area stand empty for long periods - with all the resulting problems that this can bring.

Now all this dereliction of listed properties is obviously mana for some people, but personally I think it makes a mockery out of the system and people should look more toward accepting sympathetic alterations and reuse - our ancestors did it for centuries.

 

[RichardH]

Thanks Mr Strictus. You make some excellent points. I too am in favour of re-use of buildings to prevent dereliction, or at least for some sanity to be applied to the rules on materials.

I've ranted once before about a church I'm familiar with, Grade I listed, and absolutely gorgeous. When they came to repair part of the roof, they weren't allowed to use a MUCH cheaper alternative to lead, which was substantially lighter as well as long-lasting and looked pretty much like lead until you got right up close to examine it. This meant that they had to have other remedial work to support the new lead roof - all adding to the cost. All this even though the roof couldn't actually be seen unless you were standing on the church tower and looking down. Why? Because lead was the original material, and the repairs had to be like for like.

But on the other hand, I've also heaped fulsome praise upon the St Pancras Hotel restoration. Now there's an example of tasteful reuse. Obviously TPTB recognised that something needed to be done, and that the developer actually could be trusted to deliver. And he did.

Re-use happens in strange ways too, or at least it did when we didn't have the desire to flatten and start again. My parents now live in a small cottage that was built in 1820-ish (having downsized to ensure that none of the fledglings return to the nest). One of the walls has been dated to the late 17th Century. There's nothing interesting about it at all: it's just a stone wall, rather thick, and slightly different to the stonework of the rest of the cottage. Apparently it's all that remains of a large house. Destroyed by fire in the early 1700s, it was left in a ruinous state until some enterprising Georgian used the one remaining wall as part of his own cottage, as well as some other bits of rubble in the new build (and presumably flogged the rest).