[Closed] Worst building in UK

Glad you guys have the money to buy houses with interesting architecture.

Surely the Hepworth at Wakefield needs a mention in worst buildings.

And there wasn't a wet eye in the house:

Glad you guys have the money to buy houses with interesting architecture.

I don't, and I don't own a house, does that mean I shouldn't have a view on architecture? Ah, trollery...

This and the millions just like it, dull, uninspiring cookie cutter architecture that makes no attempt to enhance anyones life beyond keeping the weather off them.

Yours for £375,000

Wouldn't mind if they were cheap.

muppetWrangler wins. And they're always on enormous soulless housing estates, where every single road looks exactly like the next, with exactly the same leased BMW rep-mobiles in the drive. And theres absolutely nothing whatsoever you can actually do without getting in your car and driving 5 miles round 27 roundabouts first

*shudders at the thought of it*

Muppetwrangler, I'll see your soulless house and I'll raise you the latest unimaginative pastiche development from Redrow homes:

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Now what we should be building is new homes that actually look new, something like this:

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Wouldn't mind if they were cheap.

If you want to spend £3k (obv also requires land) and save the other £372000 for interesting stuff:

[IMG] [/IMG]

Many come to mind, but in my area there is one outright winner:

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The former Bradford and Bingley BS HQ slap bang in the middle of what could be a nice little commuter town, surrounded by pretty hills and woods.

The definition of architectural blight.

For all that I like brutalism, the B&B is a bizarre failure of a building - again, it's exacerbated by being careworn though.

Having a career in building has led me to believe that all architects are incredibly crap at design and construction technique - It really is beyond belief

I can't believe I'm going to defend architects, but...

The concept architect comes up with a unique scheme which looks amazing, will enhance the environs and be wonderful to live or work in.

The client doesn't want to spend that much as he won't get the returns or investment on that much capital, so the design gets compromised.

The planners are stuck in the sixties and tied up in their own red tape, can't approve the form or materials, so the design gets compromised.

The structural engineer can't make the shape work without £££ or losing volume to structure, so the design gets compromised.

The services designer can't achieve the environmental or performance requirements so the design gets compromised

Everyone piles all the risk to succeed on the poor contractor (thats me!) who is balancing all the above factors on a knife edge to make the build work with next to no margin. The contractor value engineers the scheme and improves buildability to reduce risk, so teh design gets compromised.

The interior designer can't match the colour of the cushions to the walls, so ...

Its no wonder so much potential is missed in modern construction!

Malvern Rider: Leave Brierley Hill flats alone! They've served as my north star for years - anytime I've found myself lost (drunk) in a strange part of the borough, all I've needed do was find high ground and navigate by the orientation of the flats.

Plus when I was a young'un they made a handy dumping ground for the scaggy ne'erdowells I went to school with, keeping Stourbridge (comparatively) s****y.

-salutes the stars-
[img][url= https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5520/9481619645_430827990b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5520/9481619645_430827990b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/frRMbM ]PICT0104[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people/46181615@N07/ ]spud-face[/url], on Flickr[/img]

ye gads, it took some time to figure out how to flickr link

~edit - many a happy lunch

[img][url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4115/4931848575_4414816012.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4115/4931848575_4414816012.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/8vP1KZ ]PICT0167[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people/46181615@N07/ ]spud-face[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Oh and I've just been looking at a scheme very similar to Agent007's above, using Modern Methods of Construction (off site manufacture primarily), very high energy performance, looks fantastic.

Unfortunately the planners took so long fannyig around wanting tweaks (it was stuck in the middle of a Londo multi-storey estate FFS) that cost increases mean it is now no longer viable and we're back to teh drawing board.

🙄

grrr rant over

Malvern Rider: Leave Brierley Hill flats alone!

No worries, I did! Took me two years to escape, and I think by that time the area was also becoming absorbed/gentrified (!) by Merry Hell Shopping Mecca. Took a trip back there recently and was delighted to discover that the Bull and Bladder still serves the joint-first best beer know to humanity, and some of the friendliest locals reminded me that the area wasn't all bad, just the blocks! Argh the blocks!

MR (ex-scaggy Stourbridge ne-er do well 😉 )

A lot of Brutalist architecture represented here. I always think that a lot of these examples would look stunning if they just painted over the grey concrete hideousness. Why don't they do that, is there a reason?

Er, you know why it's called Brutalism, right?

Stumpy01, what year were you there?? It's changed a lot since I left ('96) in more than just the buildings on campus.

New accommodation across the river from the Gym and on the old all weather pitch. A new lecture block up by where the old Maths building was. Departments slashed and burned. Sad really.

Anyway, the legend I heard was that the architect of the lecture theatre saw that it had been built the wrong way round and jumped off the top. Mind you, legend also has it that the whole campus is back to front; the old HQ with the pond in front should have been at the back, with the gym end being at the front.

Glad you guys have the money to buy houses with interesting architecture.

The problem is, as 007 points out, you can actually build interesting houses, to the same cost and density as the faux victorian/tudor/edwardian/georgian crap we do get.

In 100 years (or probably a lot less) this crap will all get torn down again and something else will get built in it's place.

[i]Now what we should be building is new homes that actually look new, something like this[/i]

THEY ARE DISGUSTING! In 10 years people will see them as an eyesore, I guarantee it.
Like round my way where they've built similar looking monstrosities on all the green land they can find.

Like this:
[img] [/img]

Hideous.

I like them. At least they're not trying to be something else.

For all that I like brutalism, the B&B is a bizarre failure of a building - again, it's exacerbated by being careworn though.

Am also a fan of brutalism. And, as with so many things, there are good and bad examples.

Unfortunately, we're no longer fans of modernity in this country, and so have reverted to caricature and a bland pastiche of a past that never existed.

What's weirdest of all is that in TV show/estate agent/aspiring middle class speak, "period" property really means Victorian and Edwardian. Which tells me all I need to know about the tastes of the British: stuck in the past.

Glad you guys have the money to buy houses with interesting architecture.

There's the problem, currently architecturally interesting buildings do carry a premium. Mostly because they are small scale, often individual schemes undertaken by people that actually care enough about what they are doing enough to try and do it well. If the major house building firms actually cared about their product rather than just churning identical estates then they would be able to significantly lower the costs.

It's not all the fault of Taylor Wimpey and Barratts though, the general public and the local planners are equally to blame for the sad state of domestic architecture in Britain. It seems that unless the house is some sort of pastiche of Tudor, Edwardian, Georgian or Victorian then it doesn't belong in 21st century Britain.

Cumbernauld shopping centre really is incredible... All the charm of the chernobyl sarcophagus, and new ugliness from every angle.

jambourgie - Member

A lot of Brutalist architecture represented here. I always think that a lot of these examples would look stunning if they just painted over the grey concrete hideousness. Why don't they do that, is there a reason?

Brutalism by definition is raw unpainted concrete. So yeah you could paint them but then they wouldn't be brutalist any more, and Zombie Le Corbusier would come and patronise you frenchly and undeadly.

Anyhow, I'm going to post my favourite bit of Brutalism the Roger Stevens Building in Leeds:
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[img] [/img]

A stunning, functional building made significantly better by having been looked after:

I can't believe I'm going to defend architects, but...

The concept architect comes up with a unique scheme which looks amazing, will enhance the environs and be wonderful to live or work in.

The client doesn't want to spend that much as he won't get the returns or investment on that much capital, so the design gets compromised.

The planners are stuck in the sixties and tied up in their own red tape, can't approve the form or materials, so the design gets compromised.

The structural engineer can't make the shape work without £££ or losing volume to structure, so the design gets compromised.

The services designer can't achieve the environmental or performance requirements so the design gets compromised

Everyone piles all the risk to succeed on the poor contractor (thats me!) who is balancing all the above factors on a knife edge to make the build work with next to no margin. The contractor value engineers the scheme and improves buildability to reduce risk, so teh design gets compromised.

The interior designer can't match the colour of the cushions to the walls, so ...

Its no wonder so much potential is missed in modern construction!

Quite agree with you but there must be a way round all this. In essence we are saying everyone's crap and that principally because there's not enough money to produce quality

<freud> Looks like a winged robot with a massive erection. </freud>

That's probably better because it wasn't just plonked like Godzilla in the middle of a bunch of Victorian or pre-WWII town planning, like the one I suggested in Bingley. Basically that, and the dual carriageway driven through the centre of town, have destroyed the place.

I'm guessing that is on a nice spread-out campus with plenty more concrete surrounding it.

In essence we are saying everyone's crap and that principally because there's not enough money to produce quality

Smaller, higher quality schemes? (I appreciate that probably doesn't then deliver the right ROI on the guys providing the funding - Stoner would know.)

[img] [/img] . . . . one of several uninspiringly hideous buildings which currently "grace" Plymouth.

Among many others, I LOVE these buildings.

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This and the millions just like it, dull, uninspiring cookie cutter architecture that makes no attempt to enhance anyones life beyond keeping the weather off them.

Glad you guys have the money to buy houses with interesting architecture.

While this is a fair statement to make, it's a shame because interesting design isn't necessarily expensive. The market does that, not the actual design. So much clever engineering, architecture and industrial design actually drives more efficient and cost effective production methods, but the "Designer Tax" ramps up the price, leading to a level of exclusivity that prevents them from ever making it to mass market and widespread adoption.

That ghastly cookie cutter Barratt Home nightmare pictured above represents to me a far deeper, darker dystopia than even the most grim and unapologetic brutalism ever did. At least the concrete tower blocks of the 60s and 70s were built against the backdrop of hope for a better future. This mock victorian rubbish we've littered our land and poisoned our culture with since the 90s is a shining example of the frankly ridiculous relationship we Brits have been convinced we should have with our houses. We don't have homes in the UK - we have property.

Today's housing developments don't reflect economics as much as an idealised view of a Great Britain that never actually existed for the majority of those who lived in it. Our national obsession with viewing the past as a safe haven to which we'd like to return is a symptom of fear and uncertainty, built on a misunderstanding of history that inhibits our present and impedes our future.

Anyone remember this monstrosity? South shore of Westminster Bridge, now replaced by a glass/steel hotel.

[img] ?height=598&width=900[/img]

But the original architect's design doesn't look *too* bad when presented like this:

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This Tim Moore book might appeal to some here as he visits some place mentioned here such as Cumbernauld.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Are-Awful-But-Like/dp/0099546930

THEY ARE DISGUSTING! In 10 years people will see them as an eyesore, I guarantee it.

Really, so you don't think big window's, lots of natural light, well thought out layouts etc will catch on? Here's a shot from inside:

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Still think that's disgusting or would you still prefer fake leaded windows for that authentic dark interior, mock Georgian columns, and tiny pokey bedrooms (lots of them to increase the selling value)?

Can't understand why people would want modern homes to be old fashioned in style?

This mock victorian rubbish we've littered our land and poisoned our culture with since the 90s is a shining example of the frankly ridiculous relationship we Brits have been convinced we should have with our houses. We don't have homes in the UK - we have property.

^^^^^^
*sounds of cheering*

Ahh well, if we're going to go with architects plans, can any Newcastle locals guess/remember what this was going to be in place of (clue - the buildings centre-right were being preserved and are still standing):

[img] [/img]

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jackthedog nails it. Beautifully put!

I find it depressing what it says about our country that huge swathes of the population are prepared to accept, and even embrace, living in the spirit-crushingly dullest, utterly soulless, most uninspiring, bland, backward-looking properties and surroundings, then adding in for good measure that its great, because its really handy for..... *insert name of mainline station/motorway junction /shopping mall here*

I despair!

@jackthedog - far more eloquently put than I could manage!

What I find incongruous with Brits is that inside our homes we apparently aspire to light and space and open plan (viz all the Victorian terraces knocked through from front to back), and yet are too scared that the outside won;t look like everything always has.

This mock victorian rubbish we've littered our land and poisoned our culture with since the 90s

Speaking to my parents and in-laws (all boomers), and the idea when they were young of buying Victorian housing is anathema because it was old, and tired and represented the past and not the future. Now they've become more conservative as they've aged, they and their offspring have lost their more youthful view and entrenched themselves and everyone else in some facade (and charade) based on principles no-one actually seems to want.

OMITN (lives in a 60s bungalow and is planning on making it ever more light and airy)

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These flats in Southampton are supposed to be, and I quote, "A upside down spaceship."

Glad someone mentioned Brunel Uni.

if not already mentioned...
half of the homes on Grand Desgins. Especially that Mill that should have been demolished. And all the fugly cubic box houses.

Another vote for the Beetham Tower. Just bland, dull and ugly for something that was billed as a "landmark" building for Manchester. The architect Ian Simpson is the son of a friend of my dads and his fee involved getting the penthouse suite. (At least he can't see the bloody thing from there I suppose).

He grew up in Heywood where I also grew up. I think he must have drawn his inspiration from some of Heywood's finest architecture.

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And to think, he could have designed something intersting like this - probably my favorite modern high rise building. The Twisting Torso in Malmo.

[img] [/img]

plyphon - Member

These flats in Southampton are supposed to be, and I quote, "A upside down spaceship."

Listed those are, just across the road from the Train Station..

nearly mentioned South Stoneham House (also in Southampton, and also a Uni building).

but that's more out of place than just "worst", and compared to that above, actaully looks "alright"

Long since been knocked down, but some of my favourite images =

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Modern houses aren't as horrible looking as the ones built from the 1930s to 1950s, with that god awful textured paint.

Unfortunately, we're no longer fans of modernity in this country, and so have reverted to caricature and a bland pastiche of a past that never existed.

What's weirdest of all is that in TV show/estate agent/aspiring middle class speak, "period" property really means Victorian and Edwardian. Which tells me all I need to know about the tastes of the British: stuck in the past.

There is that, I rather like some of the eco homes being built.

Glad somebody mentioned "the toast rack and fried egg" in Manchester. Brother's girlfriend studied there many, many years ago. Leaked all the time because of the tiers and slanted windows.

Now what we should be building is new homes that actually look new, something like this:

They actually look really cool imo, way better than those "cookie cutter" new builds that you see so many of.