I was driving on the A40 into central London earlier and could see the tower from the fly over. It was pretty surreal to see the husk that remains.

+1 to heads rolling over this

Can this be true? I don't buy it, but I have little idea how the rich think. I've got a lot of money but that's not enough because what bothers me is the appearance of that building over there? That's the mentality? There is a lot of low-grade housing in that area, as well as a lot of riches.

Besides, there are plenty of rich, liberal, educated Hampstead types who think that brutalist architecture is interesting and worth preserving in its original form. There is something else going on here. Maybe it's just pure greed and corruption, but speculating on that will degenerate into politics, as this thread almost inevitably will.

I simplified my point, but more broadly the money spent renovating Grenfell and similar buildings was disproportionately allocated to cosmetic improvements with a disregard for fundamental safety concerns that betrays a wider lack of interest in the welfare of the less fortunate. That money could have been spent on more pressing issues than the external appearance of the building, and the fact that multiple safety concerns were expressed and ignored whilst developers literally wrapped the building in flammable materials to save money is a metaphor for the bigger picture of the privileged few ignoring and oppressing the poor.

The people living in Grenfell were not all necessarily "poor", but they represented the 99% whose voices are not heard by those in power. The contempt with which they were treated is indicative of a wider issue of systemic disrespect, neglect and abuse. Corbyn has successfully identified the Tory government (and Theresa May specifically) as representative of the wealthy and the privileged, and has positioned himself and his party as the opposition to the status quo. It's a winning message, and May's government is in big trouble.

You start by stating the bleeding obvious, and then you make some party political point out of that. It is cheap and ignorant to treat it as a May vs Corbyn thing.

Greed and corruption is not party political; it is a part of human nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Dan_Smith

No, the cladding has been added mainly for insulation, to keep the flats warmer and reduce energy use. While they were at it they tried to improve the blocks' appearance, in part to discourage vandalism and make people happier to live there.

It's not a party thing. Councils of both parties have been (unknowingly it seems) allowing dangerous materials for the sake of 'deregulation', cutting costs and letting contractors self-certify their work. Everyone completely lost the plot.

From what I've read this cladding is quite common in the UK and has never engulfed an entire building before so most likely this tragedy was caused by flammable cladding + other stuff like flammable internal building insulation + insufficient steps to stop fire jumping from floor to floor.

Here's are 2012 photos of one of the buildings in Camden that is getting evacuated.

http://images.archant.co.uk/polopoly..._630/image.jpg

I spent a fortune chemical washing building facades that I didn't have to just to make them look better. I've heard it called 'Pride of Ownership' and that describes why I did it.

I think Camden Council are satisfied with the insulation layer of the cladding on the Chalcots towers, and with the firestopping in the cavity. It's the outer rainscreen skin with the PE core (the same as Grenfell's) that they don't like. They say it's not what was specified. And the fire brigade have also raised issues with the gas pipes -- I take it they mean firestopping around new pipes which penetrate internal firewalls -- and fire doors. So the council does not want the legal liability till those things are fixed.

But the Chalcots blocks have had two flat fires in the last five years, since the refurbishment, and each was contained in the flat where it started, so the building performed as it should. It could be because of the less flammable insulation; and the design, materials and fitment of the windows may be superior to Grenfell's.

Or they may just have been lucky.

That, and that the Grenfell residents may have got extremely unlucky in the way the fires started and spread, was my first thought too.

Fire spreads for specific physical reasons. But Chalcots residents may have been lucky in that their windows were not replaced with flush-fit ones. At Grenfell, new double-glazed windows were fitted, and these were not recessed but flush with the new cladding.

That is, each window formed a box, projecting out of the building's fireproof concrete shell, into the flammable exterior cladding. And the openable frames were not sealed firestops. So that any fire in any room anywhere in the tower could more or less immediately ignite the cladding. And, in turn, fire in the cladding could penetrate any room in the tower very easily.

Cladding didn't make it look better, IMHO; it made it look worse.

I think it looks better

Definitely looks better.

It was 40+ years old and its appearance was an eye sore not only for local rich people but most importantly also for its residents: clearly a visual improvement.

I've lived in blocks of a similar vintage and when concrete starts to stain it's quite depressingly awful. People who think this doesn't have a marked effect on residents' happiness usually have no experience of living in this type of accommodation.

Like you've conducted a meaningful survey on what people think and what experience they have.

@lastcardcharlie. Will watch the video.

For now though, the fact that in countries where these blocks are mostly under the management and ownership of the residents, this type of primarily cosmetic "insulation" is wildly popular would suggest that residents do care what their block looks like.

Most people care about the external appearance of the place they live - it seems to be human nature to be house proud. Perhaps the poor of London are an exception but i doubt it.

I see mainly middle class NW6 people (ironically where I went to school) being poncey about how living right next to a busy train line reminds them of being near a waterfall, and how the block is reminiscent of the terraces of Bath, while some admit it's scary, daunting and frightening.

Now go and find some youtubes of what residents of Broadwater Farm in Tottenham or Angel Town estate in Brixton (both of which bear a strong resemblance architecturally to this) have to say about those estates (I've lived in both).

LOL

It's not necessarily worth watching, but some residents like being surrounded by 40+ year old concrete, in contrast to Jalfrezi's unsubstantiated claims.

You said this is the case in your neighbourhood, but what evidence is there that it is so in other countries, and particularly the UK?

I never suggested otherwise, except to say that they care more about the lifts working properly.

You seem to be confusing personal experience with statistics. It's spelt Angell Town, BTW.

Yes it is. I moved out c. 1990 so perhaps you'll forgive a shaky memory of the spelling of the godawful place (the estate, not Brixton).


You seem to be demanding statistics despite posting a video featuring personal experience. Basically you don't seem to have any idea of what you're talking about but that's OK because you've found a youtube.

short post:

I think the evidence for a majority view would be in what impact cladding has on the prices of flats in the blocks. I tried google and got lots of sites saying it increased the value, but they were mostly trying to sell cladding so I suppose that isn't surprising

TL;DR post:

I think I can accept there is a range of tastes on the matter. My own views have changed over time. For example in the past I would associate a view like this (old photo of my estate - essentially the same pattern we can see here repeats five times in a long line)



with high crime and general danger, but now I actually live on a decently planned estate and can see how much space there is between the blocks, how many kids there are for my own kids to play with and how safe it is - the main road is lined by tall trees from he right of the picture to the top - hundreds of kids can walk to the school (left middle) in a few minutes mostly without crossing any road at all - then I would no longer go back to the atomised life of a spread out town with all the kids playing separately in their back gardens and being ferried by car to school and to play dates.

Obviously the above has changed how I feel about the physical appearance of blocks too.

conclusion to both posts:

The thing is, some people (including residents or evil rich neighbours) will like a particular look and some people will dislike it so it's a distraction and incorrect to set it in terms of modernist residents vs post-modernist neighbours.

The cladding was entirely for appearance but done incorrectly; basically sealing up the old structure without bringing it up to code. My firm had a meeting about this as we spec similar cladding in our buildings. Below is a boring ass recap of such.

No, that's not correct, it was mainly for insulation. And if you people think Grenfell is in Camden you're miles out. And the government insists that the cladding materials were against regulations for buildings over 18 metres high.

I am most certainly not an architect so you could be right, but I did just sit in a meeting where it was said that the poor people were sealed in the building with concrete and didn't have a chance and this was because the high-end neighbors wanted the building to look better.