wendy house

I first heard of the Park Hill estate during my undergraduate environmental psychology classes in 1986.  The architect’s, Ivor Smith and Jack Lynn’s, vision for a high rise estate to replace sprawling slums in the northern English city of Sheffield with “Streets in the Sky”. Streets in the sky would recreate the strengths of the communities which had flourished in the back to back slums and provide improved living conditions at a bargain price. Taking people out of small, damp, Victorian terraces where  kids played in the streets and giving them streets in the sky with views over the city, inside toilets, covered walkways, balcony’s where children could play and neighbours could chat, with room for attractive open park land around the high rise buildings.  Smith and Lynn’s designs were heavily influenced by Le Corbuiser’s Breton Brut as evident in his Marseilles Unité d’Habitation. Breton Brut became known in Britain as ‘Brutalism’,  simple functional form. They wanted to build in a sense of neighbourliness into these functional spaces.

These changes were intended to improve the standard of living for people now living in a slum area locally know as ‘Little Chicago’ in the gangster era.  The Park Hill estate was completed in 1961 with 995 flats that could house over two thousand people overlooking Sheffield city centre. Front doors opened to a 12 ft wide balcony, a street, that runs right across the estate over bridges between buildings.  Milk floats could trundle from door to door along streets named the same asthose in the original slums they replaced.  People that were neighbours in the slums were rehoused next to each other.

Worthy, admirable intentions

When built,  the social ideal didn’t happen

The estate soon became known as Sheffield’s San Quentin. The failure of the original design vision has been blamed on many things including

• easy access routes for muggers
• poor sound insulation
• the streets being open to the inclement Sheffield weather
• the building’s ugliness
• the poverty of the occupants

In 1998 Park Hill became the largest grade 2  listed building in europe.

This centruy English Heritage, Urban Splash and Sheffield city council have been renovating Park Hill.

It’s difficult to tell from the publicity what is being changed to make the project work  as a successful place to live this time. A recent BBC TV programme about the renovation focussed on English heritage’s aesthetic and structural requirements for preservation not mentioning any changes to the space aimed at improving the occupants expereince of living there. The programme made the vision appear less social that the original. So what will have changed since it first opened?  It looks like the renovation will be

• It’s prettier with bright rainbow colours
• occupants will not all be council tenants, some will be home owners and some shared ownership. They will be a different socio-economic mix
• the streets will not be open to the Sheffield weather
• living there comes with the kudos of living in a classic listed building

Sheffield city centre on a cold, wet March evening hosted this advert, selling shorts.

Pressumably the advertisers believe there is something in this image that will make women want to buy their product. Something aspirational and attractive in this image?   The unusual placing of the arms, the lack voluptuousness?   The image firth  made me want to cry with pain then scream with anger.  I wonder why the advertisers didn’t try adding the humour  with a topical retro 1970′s theme and spread her across the bonnet of a sports car implying if she purchased these shorts she could get fucked by men who can afford a good sports car.

Oftentimes it feels like the 21st century redefinition of feminism is an appropriation of examples of  freedom of choice that in actuality  maintain the role of women as slaves.

Term of endearment or insult?   Sometimes it can be difficult to tell.  

The first time my college roomate from Sheffield called me a ‘Mardy cow’,   apart from having to ask her what ‘mardy’ was, I was a tad offended.    No-one had ever called me a  ’cow’  , to my face, before.   Clearly I’d had a sheltered youth.   My  Sheffield room-mate quickly put my right on this one,   cow is a term of endearment.      Apparantly ‘Mardy Cow’ was an affectionate expression to convey her extreme disappointment that I wasn’t going to be joining her for an evening of heavy metal music appreciation.   Not really my bag.  

I’d rather be a crazy sheep listening to the likes of curiosity killed the cat,   I can’t help admiring the lyrics and  behatted lankey body movements of the rather charming Ben.   But not my room-mates cup of tea.   I called her a mardy cow and she replied by demonstrating how her long hair accentuated the head-banging experience.   Excellent.

Curiosity killed the cat sang Misfit

Emergency exit from a Northern English office building.  

Using the helter skelter  is an anytime activity, not reserved for emergencies.  

I didn’t check if there was a helipad on the roof for emergency entrances.