Since the Grenfell Tower fire in June, the architectural dream of Le Corbusier's 'streets in the sky' has, in many minds, become a living nightmare. Every high rise building in the country, and each of their residents, has become embroiled in the Grenfell story. As this debate with its practical and policy considerations continues, High Rise offers a radio meditation on the experience of tower block life.

What has come of that vision of airy existence above the bustle of the streets, with open horizons and light-filled apartments? What future can tower blocks now have in the provision of social and private housing? Who will want to live in them and, more to the point, what happens to the current residents?

In a mosaic of interviews gathered around the country, we hear from Rita in Margate's famous Arlington House, a block her father helped build. "It gleamed like a diamond back then," she says. Nicole, who lives in Cables Wynd House in Leith, featured in the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, shares the horror she experienced as a teenager living locked in the sky. We visit Rochdale where residents have mounted a campaign to stop the proposed demolition of their iconic Seven Sisters tower blocks.

In London, Bill speaks of his long, happy years on the notorious Pepys Estate in Deptford. Across the city, JP Ajunonwu, a resident in the iconic Trellick Tower, describes the night of the fire in neighbouring Grenfell Tower. Francesca and her young daughter visit what, until that night, she'd anticipated as being her wonderful new home on the 13th floor of a high rise.

And architectural writer Shumi Bose, who grew up in a tower block in Kolkata, outlines the dreams of the architects and urban planners who designed our modern cityscapes.

First broadcast 1st August 2017, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Rebecca Lloyd-Evans and Alan Hall

High Rise

Recently I had the great pleasure of speaking some of the residents of Excalibur Estate (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_Estate) in Catford, London. They allowed me to record our conversation for Social Housing Sound Archive, for which I'm very grateful. 

This is an extract from longer conversation with Margaret Rose Edwards - on the day before her 83rd Birthday - who has lived on the estate for over 35 years, and George Oliver, 75 years of age, also lives on the estate for more than 30 years.

It was not an 'interview', as such, as I tried to avoid asking questions or steering the conversation in any particular direction and preferred to let all residents speak freely about the subjects that concern and interest them. I enjoyed these conversations immensely and I hope you enjoy listening to the sections that I found of particular interest, edited from the full recording.

Excalibur Estate Margaret and George 'To us there our homes'

Ok Cool

This is a binaural field recording done at the Beacon Hill Children's Farm located in Victoria, BC. The farm has been operated by the Koenders family in conjunction with the Beacon Hill Farm Society since 1985. Their goal is to educate and encourage compassion towards animals. 
I recorded on a sunny Saturday morning just after 10am when they opened. I was able to witness 'the running fo the goats'. This is a mini stampede that runs the goats from their sleeping quarters to the open pens so they can be fed, groomed and interacted with.

Beacon Hill Children's Farm (binaural)

A tune called Spotted Pony that I enjoy playing at a relaxed pace.

Spotted Pony

Social Housing Sound Archive is a collection of sound recordings made by musician and recordist A.J. Holmes.

’Social Housing’ is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which is owned and managed by local authorities or by non-profit organisations (such as housing associations) initially built to house the ‘deserving poor’, working class and now intended to be let at low rents to those who are most in need.

Although I have a keen interest in the history of social housing in general the primary focus of the of this page is British council housing, prioritising estates in London which are current being demolished or under threat of demolition.

My aim is to document these environments and the most importantly the communities that they are home to; if only for posterity. 

I have a great personal affinity with such environments, as for most of the my life I have lived in council housing. I grew up on a estate in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, called Marks Gate, which is much like many post-war council estate all over Britain. It is modest in design and scale, consists mostly of timidly modernist houses, low rise flats and one Scandinavian style, system built, tower block, charmingly named High View House. It is a 1950’s (completed in 1959) appendage to the Becontree Estate; the inner-war housing project often referenced to as the largest ‘Public Housing’ (an earlier, international term for council or state own housing) estate in the world. In this respect it is ‘on the periphery of the periphery’, as Barking and Dagenham is located on far edges of east London (the exotic far east, if you will) and Marks Gate is on the furthest edge of that, sandwiched between the A12 trunk road and Hainault Forest, green belt. 

I currently live in a very pleasant 1930s built Neo-Georgian block of flats on an LCC (London Country Council) estate in the London borough of Hackney. I’m very proud to say that I’m a council tenant and extremely sad and infuriated by the decline and current state of social housing in the UK. I was burn in 1971 so most of the childhood was lived in the ‘pre-right to buy’ council housing area. Which was an extremely pleasant environment to grow up in. Though out my life I have observed the top down systematic erosion of these environments, through wilfully neglect, to the stage where a horrific tragedy like Grenfell Tower was - whoever shocking - unsurprising. Totally eradication of social housing now seems to be official government policy, with hundreds of council estates  - in London alone - subject to ‘regeneration schemes‘ resulting in particle or full demolition and thousands of families losing their homes and / or secure tenancy, with communities being displaced and dispersed all the country. 

In the wake of the terrible tragedy of Grenfell my only hope is that we have all turned a corner in our understand of the severity of the current housing crisis in the UK. Acknowledge that is not acceptable and that it must changed for the good of us all. 

I also hope that the inhumane ‘social cleaning’ that is currently taking place under the guise of so called ‘regeneration’ schemes can be radically re-considered. In the mean time I intend to continue documenting these environments and communities, in the hope that most of them will still be there for future generations to benefit from. If they are not, then may these records at least provide some indication of what was lost.

Excalibur Estate Margaret and George 'To us there our homes'

Social Housing Sound Archive

Related tracks