Is 'modern' Housing Design Going To Age Terribly?

[OnionTerror]

I've lived in both. The older style house was horrifically expensive to heat but it was twice as large for the same rental as the new build house. Whereas older housing tends to be in the centre of town, where parking can be at an extreme premium (at times can be non-existent)..

Pros & cons for both, but the older houses have much more character, and they don't look like that they've been made out of lego.

[Parkwell]

Taking your comment literally....OK lets.

I agree with you. You may have missed my earlier comment that I generally favour the older stuff. My floorplans thread was started because I've become sick and tired of the ever worsening internal layouts of modern/converted housing.

Although I have reservations about some things. Old basements can often be susceptible to damp and be costly to refit. Loft rooms can impact the insulation potential. But these things should be reflected in the overall price - if only that were the case nowadays.

BUT.......design is a separate issue from build quality and size, that is being discussed here.

To be fair the original post was about design rather than build quality. I think both are very important. Houses need to be functional and pleasing to the eye. I like Alba's stance that homes are for living in rather than constantly doing DIY. A happy balance should be possible and I hate the complete lack of pride most new build projects have. Even if they only stand 50 years we still have to walk past them everyday.

[Millaise]

The older ones have a few steps up, meaning a little privacy in the front room.

And basements, by the look of it.

[Millaise]

To be fair the original post was about design rather than build quality. I think both are very important. Houses need to be functional and pleasing to the eye.

Have you seen this Alain de Botton video?

He blames the entire UK housing crisis on crappy, soulless, artless, repetitive housing developments; this is a view I haven't heard raised very often. He reckons that locals would never have objected in the first place if housing had been sensitive, and actually improved the character of the land. This doesn't explain why councils tear down hobbit houses, or why we can't put up Lammas houses where we like. I suspect the objecting to planning applications has become so automatic, and entrenched among NIMBYs that they don't even pause to consider what they are doing.

[porca misèria]

He blames the entire UK housing crisis on crappy, soulless, artless, repetitive housing developments;

I've said that before on here. It's our permanent post-1945 housing crisis. Once a decade or so it comes to a boil, and we build another generation of "low cost" houses, destined to be the slums of a couple of decades on as they decay.

The contrast is Germany since 1945, where they built to high quality rather than low price, meaning they have a much better stock of decent housing and don't have our chronic crisis. Hence my move to Germany in 1985 upgrading me from total slum to a very nice flat

[Parkwell]

Have you seen this Alain de Botton video?

I've not seen that before and I agree with it. One part of the problem is ugliness. I've only really seen it discussed here, people like porca I expect. I support the idea of encouraging higher earners to self build with a focus on quality and if you'll forgive the buzzword sustainability. If need be have govt subsidise the land price. These people will take pride in what they build for their families, increasing the stock of quality housing, hopefully receiving less objections from locals, and taking pressure of existing housing that can be renovated more affordably by average and lower earners.

I also favour the building of new towns as a way to bypass nimbyism and get a lot of houses built quickly. Although that hasn't worked so well recently. Again the focus needs to be on quality housing of all sizes. For all it's formative difficulties and the mocking of concrete cows, Milton Keynes has been a long term success story. We should be aiming higher and getting involvement from co-operatives and individual self builders, people from all walks of life. Government can provide the opportunities and then do it's best to guide lightly from the sidelines.

What is Lammas housing?

[Parkwell]

What are the modern ones? Those little toy porches make them look 1990s-ish, but they look a bit bigger than was likely then.

I can't find the exact details. I'd guess they are from 2006 onwards. I've seen similar designs built near me this year. It's marketed as a four bed terrace. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/new-homes-for-sale/property-22053115.html. I wouldn't expect much of the interior.

[Riedquat]

Have you seen this Alain de Botton video?

He blames the entire UK housing crisis on crappy, soulless, artless, repetitive housing developments; this is a view I haven't heard raised very often. He reckons that locals would never have objected in the first place if housing had been sensitive, and actually improved the character of the land. This doesn't explain why councils tear down hobbit houses, or why we can't put up Lammas houses where we like. I suspect the objecting to planning applications has become so automatic, and entrenched among NIMBYs that they don't even pause to consider what they are doing.

I wouldn't go quite that far - the rate of housebuilding over the last century or so has been incredibly frightening, that rate of increase in developed area is going to run headlong into objections sooner or later. That said the amount and degree of objection would certainly be less if we hadn't had decades of building souless, characterless boxes (and the same is true for just about everything else that gets built - looks cheap and nasty, without even being cheap). A much slower, better designed rate of development would cause far fewer issues, although we're past the point where there's simply too much anyway (at least for those who don't like being surrounded by large town after large town).

The people complaining about heating in old houses - what sort of temperatures are they trying to maintain?

Edited August 21, 2016 by Riedquat

[Millaise]

What is Lammas housing?

This sort of thing: http://www.neatorama.com/2007/02/11/low-impact-houses-by-lammas/

They are a bit new-agey, but they can often be built without the need for special skills.

[cock-eyed octopus]

In 1971 me & new wife were saving for a new build Barratt Home (£4750 I recall). The price was going up faster than we could save a deposit, so we ended up in a 2 up 2 down + bodged bathroom extension for the same price. Never looked back.

Replaced the rotten timber floor (air bricks blocked) with concrete floor (carrier bag dpc), uncle installed gfch (bless him) & I redecorated. Built a garage & laid a lawn. At the end it was my house, right or wrong.

In those days you could drive 5 minutes out of the village & find tumbledown thatched cottages with land for £20k or less. Looking back it was like a dream; I fell in love with so many places as easily as I fall in love with beautiful women, & for much the same reasons, the romance & the mystery, their mystical, transcendental loveliness.

Practicalities don't come into it. I simply couldn't imagine living in a modern house.

[Meerkat]

Few houses, old and modern, in the UK seem to be well built.

+1

The overall standard is very low. Compared to similar latitudes in Europe or NA. Say, Australians might be more in awe with UK house building standards, but overall Blighty, as remarked a while ago in another thread, lags so many other European countries by many decades if not centuries in many instances. For an unpassionate bystander, it would make property prices look ever more ridiculous here. And it makes those UK politicians chasing ghosts in the greenhouse/global warming debacle look like fools. For the biggest contribution to reduction in CO2 emissions UK could make would be by building properly insulated dwellings. (And this apart from the discussion if the warming has been really caused by humans.) And don't get me started on internals - heating installations, floor quality...

In direct response to the thread's question about "modern" housing, a 2012 built 1M terrace in West London I rented got a seriously leaking roof by 2014, squeeky floors, damp smell on the ground floor in no time.. well, indications of serious structural issues... A 1960s house I currently rent is definitely an "upgrade" but not w/o its own, lighter problems higlighting the low level of overall craftsmanship seen and heard all too often.

[hp72]

As someone looking to build a new home via self-build, having seen this thread, I've been doing some research into what the "life expectancy" or "service life planning" is of modern builds.

I'm deeply surprised. I'm now considering eschewing timber-frame in favour of high-quality block and brick. Even if it costs more on day 0, the 50-100 year expectancy will be assured.

The relevant standard is BS ISO 15686 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_15686 , and referred to in BREEAM calculations.

There used to be a 60-year requirement (see first blog reference), but this seems to have dropped off the requirements in favour of "What client specifies at 20-60 years". (see BREEM reference)

I have a real concern that timber-frame (built with quick-grown and not slow-grow victorian grade) timber and many modern materials used by mass builders will last a decade or two until major overhauls are required. e.g. the TCO of Iron guttering can be £3 per section over 30 years compared to £12 for uPVC lasting 10 years and replaced many times (See old Telegraph article)

.

A symptom of the "quick fix, disposable society", maybe, but when it's a £300k+ item, an effective £10k+ per year replacement cost factor (over 30 years) makes the TCO (Total cost of ownership) much much higher than appears on the surface, leaving a huge (maybe unfixable) headache to the next generation.

A couple of relevant blogs / documents:

http://www.building4change.com/article.jsp?id=1497#.V77ncU0rK0o

Comment: Why housing needs a lifespan requirement

For all the compliance demanded of new housing, surely the lifespan of a building is fundamental to truly sustainable design. Then why is there no such requirement, asks Mark Oliver

http://www.engineering.ucl.ac.uk/engineering-exchange/files/2014/10/Fact-Sheet-Lifespan-and-Decisions-Social-Housing.pdf

What is the lifespan of a building and how is it estimated?

The lifetime of a building is how long it lasts from when it is first built to when it is replaced.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/advice/propertymarket/3319264/A-waste-of-energy.html

Should we swap our cherished Victorian terraces for energy-efficient modern homes, as the Government suggests? Jeff Howell questions the logic

http://www.breeam.com/BREEAMUK2014SchemeDocument/content/04_management/man02.htm

Aim: To deliver whole life value by encouraging the use of life cycle costing to improve design, specification, through-life maintenance and operation , and through the dissemination of capital cost reporting promote economic sustainability.