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Saturday 22 November 2008

Princely homes that hold their value in every sense

Venetia Thompson says that the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment does work that nobody else can and constructs homes that buck current property market trends

Yet the Foundation still faces opposition. Dittmar attributes this to a variety of factors. The housing industry is still built on a model of ‘rapid turnaround’ and economic short-termism. Many developers are still focused on making money from the immediate uplift in land value upon gaining planning permission — as opposed to the additional value that has been proven to accrue from building something that actually has long-term value. Second, planners are still trained to apply standards that are derived from the 1950s model of the segregated cul-de-sac housing estate. While John Prescott proposed a strategy that would get away from this outdated model, and was theoretically in line with the Foundation’s aims, Dittmar insists that words alone are not enough; it is not until something is actually drawn that you can see people’s intentions. Dittmar says that he and the Modernist Richard Rogers would probably reach the same broad conclusions about what a community should be: mixed use, ‘walkable’, and with a high quality of design. However, what they would actually build would be entirely different.

Where Rogers and much of the Modern movement sets architecture in a rigorously ideological context, the Prince’s Foundation approaches its work from a practical perspective, derived from common sense and a respect for basic human needs and values. The Foundation is ultimately an educational charity and believes in learning by doing, and by studying past techniques.

Dittmar is concerned that property, whether private or public, has become increasingly commodified and that, in the process, its value in the broadest sense has been stripped away. He believes that property should be looked at in terms of 100- or 200-year spans; we should be trying to create buildings that are adaptable and generate value over long periods of time; value, in other words, which is economic, social and environmental.

More articles from: Venetia Thompson | this section

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