Author Archives: Matt Wood

CRTB: Building a Consensus

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Matt Wood

This piece on a Neighbourhood Plan emerging in Norton and Malton caught my eye, and has some resonance with some of my earlier observations about the Community Right to Build.

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Cheer up, The Guardian!

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Matt Wood

The Guardian Housing Network blog posted a ‘social housing gallery’ last week. I told them I thought it was a bit bleak, and that I’d rummage out some of my own snaps of council housing in Norfolk, to cheer them … Continue reading →

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The Cork Rural Design Guide

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Matt Wood

In a recent post I talked about the impact that local ‘design guides’ might have on how developers approach the design of new housing, and previously I’d talked a bit about the Norfolk Residential Design Guide. I noted that aside … Continue reading →

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Community Right to Build: It’s All Gone a Bit Quiet.

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Matt Wood

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the Community Right to Build (CRTB) initiative, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s gone a bit quiet recently. This is partly true; the initial flurry of interest in the press following the … Continue reading →

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On ‘Local Distinctiveness’

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Matt Wood

In my previous post I reflected on the complex issue of ‘local distinctiveness’. Back in 2006 I attended a seminar run by the English Historic Towns Forum entitled ‘Designing for Housing Growth: Sustaining Historic Towns’, and was quite alarmed by … Continue reading →

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Local Materials Faux Pas

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Matt Wood

While writing the recent posts on local building materials, I was thinking about an estate in Wymondham called Whispering Oaks. The development is set at the very northern tip of the town, over a mile from the town centre and … Continue reading →

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Building Norfolk

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Matt Wood

Matthew Rice’s book ‘Building Norfolk’ attracted quite a lot of attention when it was published last year; not surprisingly. It is a beautiful book full of exuberant, colourful drawings. I could write a whole other post, lamenting the death of … Continue reading →

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Norfolk’s ‘High-Road’ Buildings

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Matt Wood

As I explained in a previous post Stewart Brand in his excellent book ‘How Buildings Learn’ makes a distinction between ‘high road’ or special buildings and ‘low road’ or normal, everyday buildings. I also noted that the vast majority of … Continue reading →

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More Norfolk ‘Stuff’

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Matt Wood

So the vast majority of Norfolk is covered in brick-built houses with pan-tiled roofs, with plenty of surviving older timber-framed buildings, typically rendered over and painted – but that’s not the end of the story, of course.

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Greetings from Legoland

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Matt Wood

This week, Housing Minister Grant Shapp’s wrote to the Design Council, which has taken over the charred remains of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), torched in the Coalition’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’. He urged them to … Continue reading →

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