This year unit 9 will continue its interest in housing and the belief that greater effort needs to be made to negotiate the balance between proximity and privacy in the densification of our towns and cities.
Whilst last year our focus was on a part of East London that is not only undergoing land use intensification but also is in need of establishing better relationships to new and existing employment zones, this year we will be focusing on a more neglected aspect of housing development, that of the city suburbs and provincial town fringes. As the debate continues over the expansion of towns into the green belt we shall examine a typical English town along the western rail corridor from London which like many towns across the country are experiencing population surges and are required to establish sites for new housing production.
The home to sites for our work this year will be the town and civil parish of Bruton in South Somerset, with Saxon origins and Celtic, Dark Ages and Roman sites in the surrounding heights of land. It is situated on the River Brue, seven miles from larger neighbouring towns, such as Shepton Mallet, Gillingham and Frome. London is a two-hour train ride away.
The town has a population of 2,945 and an area of 16 km2. Today the two main industries are farming and education. Wool was the main industry of the town in the middle-ages giving way to the silk industry in the late 18th century. Around the town are buildings formerly used in the wool and silk industries. There were major processing plants for grains, dairy and meat products, many of which now have moved on. A strong tradition of education remains,with five significant schools enjoying enviable reputations.
We will begin by examining the town's economic and social history, its landscape characteristics and geographical significance documenting the way in which these have impacted upon its architecture and urban morphology. During our field trip to the Canton of Grisons in Switzerland we will be studying the way in which several housing projects have located themselves architecturally within their context.
Returning to the rich architectural heritage of Bruton we will select several sites in which to make our ‘intensive land use propositions’. We will seek appropriate densities of habitation and an architecture of co-habitation.
We will be considering questions of privacy and community, of the interplay between the individual house and their collective belonging. We will consider how design details such as a door reveal and porch, steps and railings at once define the individual occupant and become the 'property' of the town.
|
