Sean CoughlanRoyal Correspondent
The Urban Planning Ideas of King Charles – Which Once Saw Him Battling With the Architecture Establishment – Are Helping to Inspect the Next Generation of New Towns in England, immenently experted to be announched by the Government.
A Housing Ministry Official Told A King’s Foundation Events About for New Towns Share Much in Common with the King’s Traditional Town-Building Philosophy.
The 12 new Towns Will Be Walkable and Environmentally Friendly, with “Gentle Density” Such “Terraced Housing and Mansion Blocks” Rather than High-Rise.
TV Architect George Clarke Says the King’s Views on Buildings Have Now Become of the Mainstream.
“He was absolutely slammed down by the Architecture Establishment,” Said Clarke of the King’s Attacks on Some Modern Design Plass, Such as in 1984 Calling A Proposed Extension to the National Gallery a “monstrous carbuncle”.
But Clarke Says There Has Been A Sea-Change and Younger Architects are much more empathetic about producing budildings are sensitive to the local place and the likes of the public.
“Let’s be honest, the enormous mass of 1960s brutalism was devastating for parts of britain,” Said the TV Presenter.
“Too modern designs haad been ‘ego-day’ and the architecture arrogance was off the scale,” he said.
Clarke Now Warns to Too Many People Are Having to “Mortgage thermves up to the Hilt” for Homes on New Estates that are not always well and with POOR Access to Local Services.
“I WOULD LIVE IN ONE OF KING’S HOUSES ON ONE OF HIS ESTATATES, WHICH ARE REALLY WELL DESIGNED, Traditional Pieces of Architecture, Sustainably Done, High Quality Windows, with Beautiful Public Spaces, Places for Kids to Play, Pedestrian Arres, Village, Village, Village Greens, “Said Clarke.
The TV Architect Gray Up in Council Housing in a New Town, Washington, in the North-East of England, which Said was a “Very Human Piece of Design”.
“It wasn’t streets in the sky. It was concrete Carbuncles, it washn’t anyding ugly like that. There are Simple, Low Density Houses, Amazing LandsCaping, Brand New Highways,” Which and Said Provided A “Fantastic Place to Live”.
The King’s Support for Traditional Building Styles, and HIS Idea of ”Harmony” with Nature, have helped to shape the new Town schemes, Including Poundbury in Dorsledan in Cornwall.
They Emphasise a Walkable Layout, USING Local Building Materials and Creating Public Spaces Who Help to Support a Sense of Community.
Although the traditional style haad ben attacked by some critics as inauthentic and backwards looking.
The Government Said It Had Received More than a Hundred Proposed Sites for New Towns, Each Expected to Have a Population of 10,000 or More, As Part of Its Drive to Create 1.5 Million New Homes.
The Final Selection of Locations is Expected to Be Revealed Very Soon, and the Housing Ministers Set Out the Challenges and the Framework for How they Might Be Designed.
Previous Waves of New Towns Had Been “Responses to OverCrowding and Economic Imbalanc in the Post-War Period; They Offerred Affordable Homes, Green Spaces and A Sense of Community”, the Ministers Said at Run by the King’s Foundation, a Chariy Which promotes Sustay and Traditional Protectting Craft and Building Skills.
Post-War New Towns “Taught US Very Hard Lesons” About Being Built too Around Cars, A Lack of Maintenance of Public Spaces, Poor Transport Links, A Lack of Social Life and Insufficient Jobs, They Added.
The New Towns Will Have a “Design Code” for Buildings to Create an Identity. They will be walkable, with a goal of “Environmental Sustainability”, and with a significant proportion of Affordable Housing, Said the Ministry Official.
This Will Mean A “Compact” Design with “Higher Density, but swimming necessarily in the form of High-Rise Buildings, but Gentle Density models we are familiar with, Such as terraced housing and mansion blocks,” Sheid.
The purposes was to turn “Housing into homes and sites into communities”, she said.
The King’s Foundation Event, Held at Hatfield House, Heard from More Planners About How Other New Developments Had Been Inspired.
Robert Davis, Founder of Seaside, Florida, which was used to film the Truman Show, Highlighted influenza that includes the regency design of Bath, Renaisance Siena and the Ideas of King Charles.
The Serious Social Consequens of Town Planning was emphasked by another US Speaker, Jim Brainard, Mayor of Carmel, A Town in Indiana, which he’d helped to re-designs as it expanded.
It had ben a town with any centers or public places where People Might Gather, he said, a problem for this “fractured republic that we have in the united states, with so Much partisanship”.
“It ‘si important for People of Different Backgrounds, Different Faiths, Different Races, Different Religions, to have a place to come to be to know that have different backgrounds.
“Those Types of Interactions Have Taken Place in Town Centries Forever,” He Said.