Architecture is an art of creating beautiful spaces, of designing structures where form follows function. It is an art based on the principles of Utility and Beauty.
Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.
The British planning system has evolved as a result of various social, economic and political events that took place in the last two centuries. The planning system is constantly evolving and now the emphasis is being given to ensure that the planning system is flexible so that it could cope with diverse requirements and keep up with the pace of changing nature of problems. Planners were regarded as experts who were given the liberty of modelling and predicting the future of cities. The local council took decision when an area was to be redeveloped. In 1972, an area called Millfield in Sunderland in the north east of England was taken under clearance and redevelopment by the local council. They decided to rehouse the residents. They were nineteenth century single storey terraces to house the factory workers.
Local council secured money from the Central government for the redevelopment of the area. Inspite of Millfield having a powerful residents association, it seemed as though they were only to defend the decisions of the planners and announced their plans. Planners paid little or no attention to the views of the public. To add to this, the chairman of the planning committee requested the residents association to address all correspondence to the planners and not him and he explained to them that the planning committee followed the recommendations of the planners. The planners remained adamant regarding the issue of public addressing the planners directly instead of the Chairman.
There was a huge consultation gap. Planners did not consider it necessary to consult the public on the planning matters. This led to a number of factual inaccuracies because Council failed to look get adequately involved with the matters concerning the public. Although there were some meetings between the planners and the residents association in which the planners only announced their plans and took no notes of the opinion of the people in the residents association.
Planning in theory and practice
The British planning system evolved as a result of various social, economic and political events that took place in the last two centuries. Initially, town planners had the sole responsibility for making decisions about the development and redevelopment of towns and cities. It was only after the post-war period that the importance and relevance of public participation was realized and taken into consideration. This apportion of decision-making power to the public brought about a change in the role of planners in society, from being sole controllers to advocates. Planning theories were developed with a view to provide a firm base for the planning practitioners. The relationship between planning theory and planning practice has always been under constant deliberation and is still evolving.
In earlier days, planners worked in a professional and politically controlled system. The discussions and plans were presented in a professional way which consisted of technical jargon that the public could not be expected to understand (Glass, 1959 cited in Cullingworth and Nadin, 2006). At the time, however, planners were perceived as acting in the general public interest, and hence the lack of public participation and political debate was not recognized as a problem.
During the post-war period, the need for urban and rural development became a necessity. Housing estates were being constructed with few amenities and urban centres rebuilt along with motorways to take in increasing traffic. Development in the villages was neglected and they suffered from a lack of proper infrastructure (Cullingworth and Nadin, 2006). This led to the destruction of social and physical fabric of the place and put planners in a difficult situation. Planners were seen as hostile figures and planning was conceived as bad (Allmendinger, 2009). Public participation was then introduced by Town and Country Planning Act in 1968 (Williams, 1984). Planning authorities created informal mechanisms which encouraged participation of local communities and interest groups to play a part in formulating and implementing planning policy.
Waste House is being constructed in the Grand Parade Campus of University of Brighton. Brighton is town in the southeast of England, UK. Duncan Baker Brown and Cat Fletcher are leads in the project. It is a challenging project. This house is going to be used as a studio for postgraduate design students. It will be open to public for viewing. The aim of the project is to demonstrate how waste can be efficiently used for the construction purposes without having to compromise on the quality.
Roof – solar roof (Solar PV tiles have been used on the roof.)
Sky harvester – Natural light source
Rainwater harvesting
Timber from local sustainer sources
Second hand timber
Since it is second hand timber and that its strength cannot be determined, the structural engineer assumes that the timber is of the weakest type and compensates in the design accordingly.
Walls
Lightweight prefabricated panels = lots of insulation
Reuse waste materials such as Hemp, glass, earth, tins, straw, carpet tiles
Heavy weight prefabricated panels = lots of heat storage
Chalk wall – 10 tonnes of chalk used + 10% clay
(Although only 100% chalk would mean better wall strength)