Clare Nash - Contemporary vernacular design : how British housing can rediscover its soul

Firstly, an apology: there were many other schemes that I would have liked to feature in this book due to their interpretation of Contemporary Vernacular Design. Some of these were not included because they were not housing, others because, very sadly, I simply could not fit them in.

A special thank you to the following:

James , thank you for your patience and support despite the feeling that the book would never end. Also for dragging me away from the computer screen on regular occasions.

My parents , for their general ethos: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Paul Oliver, Aylin Orbasli and Marcel Vellinga , for opening my eyes to vernacular architecture and changing the course of my career.

All of the contributors : architects, developers, housing associations and residents . Thank you for the time you found to answer my questions and provide information.

Julia Phillips , who has been wonderful at editing, researching, organising and translating.

Katie Reilly , who read the entire manuscript, giving me feedback at an early stage.

Piers Taylor , for agreeing to be a part of this book and for ongoing support and encouragement.

Hattie Hartman , for a very helpful review and time taken helping to craft the book.

Fay Gibbons, Sharla Plant, Phil Handley and James Hutchinson of RIBA Publishing for their patience, understanding and attention to detail, also Ian McDonald (copy editor).

Great Britain has some of the most beautiful, appropriate and resilient housing in the world. The majority of this housing was built before 1940, was not designed by architects, and forms the backbone of our towns, villages and cities. In many ways, it used to be so easy: we built unselfconsciously, using local materials, customs and techniques effortlessly forming our own vernacular.

Since the Second World War, however, almost all of the housing stock that we have produced has been substandard to the point that it has wrecked many of the towns and villages that had survived unscathed for generations. This was caused by poor planning policy and urban design, ideologically misguided architects and, perhaps most importantly, the shortsighted selfishness of volume housebuilders who refuse to put good design before quick profit.

Most volume housing has not been designed by architects but to a certain extent, our vernacular housing showed that it didnt necessarily need to be. If we followed certain fundamental rules of thumb, we could create decent, ordinary, resilient houses that together formed a cohesive beauty greater than a collection of individual buildings.

Piers Taylors Visible Studio near Bath.

The housing that was designed (often overdesigned) by architects in the postwar period didnt fare much better communities were uprooted and rehoused in buildings lacking the fundamental ingredients that allowed those communities to re-form and thrive in the way that they had previously.

The ability of housing to become place making has, by and large, become lost from our nations psyche. The tyranny of the dream home, perpetuated by populist TV programmes, means that many people aspire to a statement, detached dwelling with a double garage and a sea of tarmac rather than the simple dignity of a house, in a street, that purposely subjugates its own individuality for the greater good of place. This latter type of housing the house that becomes the street, that becomes the neighbourhood, that becomes the town is effortlessly democratic.

This does not mean that we need to hark back to a mythical golden age of prewar housing: on the contrary, as Clare Nash has painstakingly researched, there is much contemporary housing that is exceptional, and shows what is possible in any context in the UK.

Much of the housing that Clare writes about in this book is affordable, alluring, durable and democratic, and shows there is another way to that provided by the volume housebuilders. Clares study shows how well we can do it when we want to. She restates the importance and significance of the ordinary, the everyday and the vernacular. In the face of the impending ransacking of the landscape by new and inappropriate housing, Clares exemplars show the potential for a beautiful built future to house successive generations effectively.

A manifesto for change, this book needs to be thrust into the hands of all developers and housebuilders. It also needs to be read by everybody else to wean us off our addiction to the false promise of the exclusive, individual luxury home. Let us hope that we can look forward to a new era of effortless, vernacular place making, using the building blocks of the versatile and appropriate housing shown here.

PIERS TAYLOR, INVISIBLE STUDIO