Miles Dean

Rather than existing in a physical site, the work positions itself against the industries involved in this form of housing delivery. 

In the UK we have a small group of dominant companies that deliver the lion's share of our homes. They face little threat from others resulting in a unique and challenging lack of distinction and quality. The conditions that allowed these companies to grow to where they today show little signs of changing. What good would it do to envision a world where housing was delivered without them?

I want to connect the industry's high-level thinking with the physical reality of its houses. Written into every wall, product, component, appliance and detail is the DNA of the company that built it. The company-wide policies and processes employed to deliver these homes need attention too. What does Persimmon ask of itself? How does it engage with customers, contracts, and councils?  The research was conducted from a broad range of sources, from academic papers to Youtube new house tours by everyday people and bloggers. I found valuable information on the Burnley FC fans forum and in stranger places still. Understanding how these companies are reported on in the news was illuminating - much less was said about the architecture than the profits these companies make. Persimmon’s own marketing collateral as well as their in-depth annual reports offered up an insight into how the industry sees itself.

Thinking about how these homes will increasingly be relied upon by first time buyers and growing families looking to get on the property ladder, what kind of potential could or should these houses support?

Thinking about how these homes will increasingly be relied upon by first time buyers and growing families looking to get on the property ladder, what kind of potential could or should these houses support?

What I want to provide is choice. Currently, the way homes are finished not only suggest a certain way of living, but they also explicitly discourage people from acting. If someone wanted or needed a home to be a certain way these days, their need to re-do work. Take out the kitchen, remove a wall and so on… This is wasteful, time-consuming and destructive. Can we cut out that refurbishment and create a context where things are done for the first time right? Could each house become a home - fulfil some kind of penitential - and depart from the standardised world that created it?

Persimmon, and others like it, are notorious for their build quality. Extensive structural and cosmetic defects are almost industry standard. Rarely is a home occupied without a long list of snags and defects coming between the housebuilders and the homeowners. So why don’t we pull back on this over-provision and ask of our housebuilders to commit their efforts to the parts of a house that need to be done well?

Part of my criticism of these homes is that the legacy they create is problematically short-sighted. They offer a relationship with the house where you move in, hang a picture and get busy living. 

Whilst this model works for some, what about those that want more? With the housing market in the UK short on options for people wanting to get on the ladder, increasingly we will need to ask more from companies and the homes they build. By looking into these short and long term futures, can we start to ask for homes that support some kind of positive legacy? Is it also right to ask for, or better still be given permission to house ourselves rather than be housed?

This isn’t a solution to the problems this industry both creates and faces, but it represents a different way of doing things and asks if big business and individual agency can co-exist and thrive?

The strategy is to place late-stage building actions in the hands of trades appointed by occupants. Self-build practices, with their roots in the '60s, had high hopes but mostly they envisioned a total revolution. Each one creates for oneself kinda thing. What if we water that down a little and suggest the occupants do a little more than they currently can but not quite the whole thing…

Access to and quality of information is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was back then thanks in no small part to the internet. With DIY content flooding social media platforms with information on how to take control of your own environment and skilled professionals breaking down their practice on youtube, are we ready for the subtle democratisation of late-stage construction? The information to support agency is always at hand. Can we give people permission to use it?

I want to put this model to the test. Following on from the formal end of the project, I plan on exhibiting a model of a housing landscape that has undergone this process of starting with less and finishing with more. 8 potential occupants will finish and inhabit 8 Permission homes with respects to their own aspirations and available means. Will the hegemony of these landscapes be broken? Will people embrace the opportunity to arrange their homes for themselves? The project explores how one process finishes and another begins, and in just the same way I am excited to see how these templates of potential are appropriated by different people.