Edwardian morals, Thatcher and bad design - why Britain's homes are so hot

[dalton99a]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/britain-worst-built-homes-europe-extreme-weather-upgrade

Edwardian morals, Thatcher and bad design – why Britain’s homes are so hot
Compared with our northern and southern European neighbours, Britain’s homebuilders disregard environmental performance
Phineas Harper

...

British domestic architecture has also been shaped by idiosyncratic rules that contribute to its poor environmental credentials. For instance, in many parts of the UK, homes that face each other at the rear are required to be built 21 metres apart. This large distance means that instead of clustering buildings together around cool courtyards or shady streets, as is common in hotter climates, many homes in new neighbourhoods are directly exposed to the sun.

The 21-metre rule is, according to the Stirling prize-winning architect Annalie Riches, a bizarre hangover from 1902, originally intended to protect the modesty of Edwardian women. The urban designers Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker walked apart in a field until they could no longer see each other’s nipples through their shirts. The two men measured the distance between them to be 70ft (21 metres), and this became the distance that is still used today, 120 years later, to dictate how far apart many British homes should be built.

As a result, entire British neighbourhoods have been designed with more attention paid to this antiquated rule than to the risk of overheating. Many streets of houses are also designed so homes face each other, with no orientation taking account of the movement of the sun or from which direction the wind normally blows, as is common in other countries.

This style of urbanism derives from pre-modern British social conventions that prioritised the formality of street-facing front doors over considerations of comfort or environmental performance. Marianna Janowicz, an architect and founder of the feminist architecture collective Edit, says, “Many British terrace houses were designed to follow a strict social order – formal rooms were at the front while women and servants were kept from sight at the back. Propriety and social mores took precedence over comfort and efficiency.”

British homes are also on average the smallest in Europe, with tiny rooms, low ceilings and miserly amounts of floor space. The 1960s Parker Morris standard set a modest but decent minimum size for all public housing, but it was abolished in 1980 by Margaret Thatcher’s government. This led to a collapse in dwelling sizes: one 2005 study revealed that typical newly built British dwellings were barely half the size of new Greek or Danish homes.

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[msongs]

1. those far apart houses mostly had gardens filling up the empty space with cooling greenery and

producing fresh veggies for the people, along with chickens and pigs

[Sky Jewels]

2. Interesting.

I'd say that for the past several centuries it was more of a concern to heat homes sufficiently in that damp, chilly climate, so smaller houses made sense from that standpoint. But, times have certainly changed ...

[ret5hd]

3. Well, the weather wasn't quite as warm then either.