Britain's tower blocks - Dreamspaces - BBC

[@pauliewalnuts3040]

These flats go for over £600,000 now which is madness!

[@jaredini]

I have lived in 60's high rises for years, nothing wrong with them, it's a shame that they get the bad name they do. Council high rise for me any time!

[@brumbredbornjoe]

Same here I live in a tower block in Slovakia and I love the place. Spacious rooms, pleasant neighbours. Make's me wonder where all the negative stigma come's from. I think they're great.

[@aaaaaa2206]

The bigger the building, the bigger the chance of you living in close proximity to scumbags. You can't find the antisocial ones easily in a tower, you just find the marks they leave. Trash, bottles, graffiti, vandalism. In a 4 storey building with 12 flats per building it is much easier to find the black sheep of the community because people know each other. Too big communities alienate people. People can cope with a small number of people.

[@Zigga.kepler]

It's the looks and aesthetic which make it look negative. Large concrete buildings especially in cloudy days can look very depressing

[@btnled357]

Its fantastic that they can renovate some of the better 1950/60s tower blocks and turn them into luxury homes for those who can afford them but watch out for those maintenance bills later !!!

[@targatop1]

Pinter House, became 'Redrose House' in The Sweeney,episode 'Selected Target', Filmed in October 1976. Plenty of internal and external film.

[@Crispman_777]

This was certainly made in the 00s wasn't it? The editing and music say it all.

[@elgee6202]

And the "cool" and "funky" all lower-case font that seemed to predominate from about 2000 to 2006.

[@marcopolo-ni3rv]

the music is from the late 90s and early 2000s.

[@aeromaximon]

Dreamspaces aired on BBC World in 2003. I think it ran until 2005.

[@MancstaSam]

all these people chatting shit about how awful tower blocks are and to tear them down i can guarantee have never lived in a tower block..i grew up in a tower block and have lots of happy memories!

[@pennyawful861]

Happy memories of being robbed every time you open the door and step outsidem there's a reason why people say they grew up in a council estate/tower block when they refer to their bad poor and rough upbringing.

[@GN10Gaming]

@@pennyawful861 oh fuck off. You're the *exact* person he's talking about when he says "all these people chatting shit who have never lived in a tower block" take some advice from someone who has, eh?

[@liquidvibez]

200.000 £ back then I wonder how much it's worth now haha maybe 4?

[@tygermask1]

2 bed in keeling house is now worth about 650.000......madness!!!

[@PendellTheEnigmaUKZz]

***** it's a right mess here mate, all these apartment blocks poppin up round vauxhall and what not and they cost a mill a pop, hardly gonna help the overpopulation, us working class as u say r just being driven out, I'm young myself but there aint a hope in hell of me ever buying a place in london unfortunately

[@kangaroo4847]

@@PendellTheEnigmaUKZz Unfortunately it is likely I will have to move out of this country to buy a house

[@GN10Gaming]

3:40 - "So what was it like when you first moved here?" "A bit-" "Really?"

[@maxmilburn6130]

"the pits"

[@cash4sellers]

Hold on....most of those old building were built in the 50s/60s and the first guy claim he paid £200k [min 1:10]. Having said that, this journalist is not saying that most of the people living on those block of flats now own the flat because bought direct from the Council authority or Housing Association for silly money and therefore every private subject is kept well away from buying one of those flats in London. Just look how much is the value of a flat in London to realise £200k are peanuts!

[@americansarebeggersamerica6895]

i think i would prefer to live here in the west of ireland where i live on the ground and i wouldnt have the worry of the kids falling down 4/5/r/6 stories, i have a 4 bed house, 2 sitting rooms, dining room, big kitchen, 2 bathrooms and a pantry on 5 acres of land with a bog to cut my turf that heats my house,the heating also runs on oil. this cost me 180,000 euro which is about 135,000 pound sterling. and i have plenty of work and i have sea side and can afford a holiday home, the freedom is unbeliveable

[@BF2042Pro]

Nice for some.

[@Zedek]

As you said: West Ireland with acres of land. I do not wish to live in "the outbacks". Each to their own. I live in an 8-storey one, but on the ground floor and thus I can see the "garden" of the property when I look out of my windows.

[@dsprev8509]

Irish house prices are generally disastrous

[@shrivel1]

Another floor upstairs for sleeping? It's a flaming maisonette!

[@sanchoodell6789]

No! Its NOT a maisonette. Its a split level apartment! (or duplex, if you will)

[@Amelia-qg9po]

Duplex not a maisonette. Duplexes are apartments what have two levels, maisonettes have one apartment above/side them, they are manly all on one level

[@user-hg8td6ej1m]

Not going to lie the narrator literally called it a maisonet

[@sharleneclarke8816]

@@Amelia-qg9po no a maisonette has two levels I live in one

[@sharleneclarke1163]

@@Amelia-qg9po Maisonette's have two floors I live in one

[@rabscots910]

"beauty?" Yeh - looks interesting on an architect's rendering. But a nightmare to live in. In Glasgow - we had more tower blocks than any other city in the world. The highest being 32 storeys. Some are even two levels - internally. After living in a 17 storey tower block in Glasgow. one of three. It was only 5 years after being built that the walls began to turn black with mould. I was about the same age as the building. There was no heating - the internal heating broke when people first tried to use it. And could not be repaired - EVER. So it remained unused from inception. There are so many things I could tell you. But there are thousands and thousands of people who grew up in those 50s and 60s builds who have social integration problems from living in those buildings. It isolates and separates people from the ground level of reality.

[@JudgeMarmianWiZard]

+Boy Trent I think depends what the neighbors are like and the council,I lived in a tower block in Manchester on the 11th floor for 3 years and was very happy as most of the neighbors were decent and we had a good care taker, then i lived in a different one on the 15th floor and it was more iscolating feeling the neighbors near me seemed scared for some reason and the council let anyone in one neighbor had a dog barking all day, then they made "Improvements" and the windows wouldn't open very wide and were even smaller and the balcony was sealed off , I don't think the government will invest in any more social housing, now as they want everything private .

***** All manners of housing have a spectrum of quality. Just look at some of those slums in the USA or Australia of detached housing on 1/4 acre blocks.

[@roddy2body]

Boy Trent Can you imagine if they actually renovated the high rises in Glasgow as they have with these..

[@rabscots910]

It's an architect's dream but a nightmare for the human spirit. Regardless of granite worktops or how much polish there is in that space. It becomes a portal into space. Have you ever noticed that people who live in high rises never actually look outside? There's a reason for that. Just my own personal experience and of growing up in the towers. Watch what they did to other people.

[@classicartfoundation639]

Yeah they're so unhealthy in many ways

[@FabledFrame]

gentrification in action.

[@jneal21]

That’s why I sold my flat in Brixton and moved to Bromley one of the last fairly affordable boroughs by London standards

[@KennedyChristian]

Is this David Adjaye???

[@agustincabrerarodriguez4977]

Hi!!! I have to do a presentation of the “Keeling House”… i need your help please!! Dont you have a sketch up model of the building?? Or the plans in auto cad?? thankss and love from Argentina!!

[@PneumatinisPlaktukas15]

People should not blame tower blocks for the councils’ inability to properly maintain them.

[@taiterobinson793]

You wouldn’t think or believe that this was almost 20 years ago! I wonder if it’s still like this now?

[@christopherlyon7189]

High fences to keep out the locals!

[@MajorCaliber]

Well, YEAH... I mean it's not the Danes or Chinese who are the vandals, it's the bloody locals, eh wot? =:O

[@samharrison8016]

maybe they should focus on doing up tower blocks with normal people living for a change not just for the rich because it's really unfair

[@K1duzdizz]

Man said ooooh kitty 😂😂😂

[@danton8302]

200k, that aint bad... I thought it would be more... *FAR* more

[@cool_beans]

Mr. O Negative 6210 its more now

[@Kyle-pp7dv]

Took 10 years to reach 650K for a 2 bed in the same tower

[@Amelia-qg9po]

@Kyle No one will EVER pay that

[@Channel567-7]

I wouldn’t live in any from a safety aspect of fire, even without cladding. Saw towering inferno movie when young now terrified of tower blocks since.

[@Amelia-qg9po]

Tower blocks look like prisons to me. Deeply depressing and I always think of an prison when I see one, I’ve visited a friend in one, he lived on the 5th floor, inside was quite big but the room was freezing due to it being so high and the windows were drafty, he rented his flat off the council, it was one exactly like this

[@PneumatinisPlaktukas15]

I think they’re beautiful.

[@FoxOnFilm2209]

Yeah quite a lot of brutalist buildings look like that but sometimes they do it right and it looks decent

[@FraserIdiot]

and now its on fire

[@LadyOfTheRabbits]

My parents used to live in Keeling house with my older brother when he was about 4 years old. They had to move because the house was actually falling apart. They said that loved living there, it was just a shame about the area.

[@roseharvey2664]

Given an actual choice most people would like to live in a house with a garden. But flats can be good places to live. The surrounding environment is usually the key to whether people want to live in a block or not. If the place suffers from poverty and in turn Crime, who wants to live there? The last guy lives in council run building, he said things changed when the council introduced concierges, before it had been disgusting. He also preferred the block painted, but I guess even if it had been peer washed it probably would have spruced it up and improved it. People do need to take pride in and value their living space, but that doesn't work too well when things get on a massive scale and no resources are put in. But the residents do need to put in some time and effort to keep their own patch in a good state. Once things deteriorate people give up. It's a shame that a it of this housing has gone private, but in truth that does seem to make the places liveable again. I don't like the way all council tenants get chucked out just when the place becomes desirable. More effort to actually have a mix of tenants should be made. The concierge system is a good investment to improving the housing stock and improving people's lives

[@philrabe910]

Painting the aggregate? NONONO. Just acid wash it, it'll spruce right back up. Can I assume that replacement poor housing hasn't been forthcoming as these flats are taken out of the low income inventory and upscaled?

[@ColonelForkEyes]

Yes, Thatcher gave people right to buy property from council but forbade councils from investing that capital back into housing. Hence the insane prices in both London and the rest of the UK nowadays.

[@Helderhugo]

3:51 tv cabo (ZON) from Portugal.

[@DRnab1983]

its the class of people you put in those places that matters, sad thing is in the uk and most of europe with good social supports and free education people go as far as they want and no further as a wise man once said there are 3 classes those that are unmovable, those that are movable and those that move

[@rabscots910]

once again.....youre incorrect and let's not judge others by your own standards. kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnnIhp1ofc99m80

[@broxboy86]

the presenters a bit over the top, but i agree with the core of his arguement, tower blocks are fine, as long as they are well taken care of. unfortunately, many were built badly in the first place, and arent maintained well. however, we shouldnt forget that 40 years ago we were demolishing all the tenements because we thought they were ugly and outdated, in favour of tower blocks. we wouldnt do that now. perhaps in 40 years we will learn to appreciate tower blocks in the same way

[@pennyawful861]

They are not taken care of because nobody wants to live in them. Why do you think it's always the poor that end up in them.

[@PneumatinisPlaktukas15]

@@pennyawful861 I’d gladly live in one.

[@AS-dr2ro]

I grew up in social housing in a block of flats they where fantastic houses very well built post war large apartments with no issues. The common areas where immaculate as all the neighbours took turns to wash the stairs once a week and every year they painted the walls and planted the front gardens. I have very happy memories from childhood and teen years. Everyone took pride in where we lived and me and all other youngsters would not have dared to vandalise in anyway as we where brought up better than that. I moved to my own Council flat when I had my son 8 years ago and the difference was night and day. Nobody cleaned the stairs, graffiti, rubbish, paint peeling, walls crumbling the list goes on. Again it was a very well built house but none of the neighbours worked and had no care for their free rent paid home. I saved and bought a property 4 years ago and again am in a place where their is pride in the community. I work for local council and it’s just a fact that 99% if social housing tenant ma are on benefits with rent paid and majority just don’t care about their homes as it’s all paid and done for them. A person working for their money and paying rent is more inclined to take care of their property.

[@Dev1nci]

Ahahaha I was half watching this, about to comment ‘I’m glad brutalism is being appreciated’ and then like ‘O look! It’s David Adjaye!’ 😂 He seems a stellar chap, went to one of his discussions about a historically poignant building and yet he kept the waters clean despite attempts to get him to be biased on an unrelated political matter at the time. And he was very respectful to everyone even those with a very uneducated reading of his work.

[@urizen1]

it was gentle sarcasm. still hard to miss though.

[@saborfrancias]

@703rd that is the idea that why london is cool i dont want resorts 5 stars

[@AliciaSykes]

£200k, that's a bargain!! Nowadays these units are going for over a million.

[@Vingul]

2:52 can't even see the guy's face

[@grahhh5518]

Two years later tower block sets on fire

[@GN10Gaming]

It's been 2 years, still there.

[@TheSunnyking121]

Dream towers in London

[@neckojezioro123]

amazin...

[@crissieroserose]

it never occured to me that a high rise estate could be middle class !

[@Oakleaf700]

The council blocks of my youth, where my schoolfriends lived are now all gentrified, and privately owned. Grenfell Tower...the rich would not have been treated so. Tower blocks are not good places to live compared to terraces in my opinion.

[@thornbird6768]

Like in this vid these flats have now been taken over by young highly paid professionals and couples with no children !! The flats / maisonettes are well laid out and spacious but no good for families 👎🏻 that said these blocks should not be for private sale !! They were council housing and should stay that way !!

[@Oakleaf700]

@@thornbird6768 Spot on! It is crazy for Councils to sell them off privately.

[@elgee6202]

From 4:19 to 4:37 - I completely disagree that those blocks looked better unpainted, and they most certainly don't look more modern; they look more run down. The British obsession with not maintaining the appearance of Brutalist buildings, allowing them to go drab and decrepit with time and weather conditions, is what makes them so repulsive to many. A lick of paint is literally what saved the Brutalist Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury from demolition. Now it's unthinkable to flatten it. On the continent, Brutalist buildings are painted and kept up well. Look at Le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation (and its sister building in Germany), with its vibrant colours to soften and warm up the look of the block. It gives it a more homely feeling. The Alt-Erlaa estate in Vienna is painted white, giving a clean, functional look to the unusually shaped high rises, further softened by the vertical sprawl of greenery flowing over the balconies. England hasn't the best climate for concrete. It weathers better in the Mediterranean and other warmer places. So at the very least we can paint them to stop them degenerating into shit-holes, and it's a better alternative, as anyone who has lived in Grenfell Tower will know, that cladding them in material that's cheap (in both cost and appearance).

[@Kazzzy03]

now its on fire

[@jamessullivan9992]

when they were given away cheap or free they were trashed,so why not sell them to begin with?

[@andymurday4538]

Design that is Brutal to the eyes.

[@Jasmine8496]

Why does he have a really old TV weird man get upgraded and get real?

[@metromodernism]

Why do you still listen to Oasis? Come on man get real!

[@MrAnadad]

Barbican is the best out there and less crime compare to others

[@Yctzofficial]

3 bed room 1 kitchen no garden pets not allowed cost £800,000

[@70kg589]

2:08

[@thomsopa]

Gotta love British sarcasm ;)

[@PneumatinisPlaktukas15]

Very funny, I actually forgot to laugh.

[@chairmanofrussia]

I don't know what it is...they just look....unstable...to me....well...I'm talking about the "grimy" ones with all the burn marks on the facade and that look dilapidated....Isn't fire safety a problem too? Also, ever since I moved into an apartment building I've always felt like the hallways really add to the living experience for me, despite being outside the actual living space. What are the hallways like in tower blocks?

[@703rd]

@saborfrancias , yeah we need regeneration. also tower blocks dont provide defensible space against crime

[@debeerpaul]

200 THOUSAND QUID!!!!!

[@davidbrown8303]

They make sure the rich don't have a run down flat.

[@DrillEntertainmentNetwork]

outrageous gentrification

[@AnneHardingBondiJct]

Well that man... 1:10 "and would you say that was reasonable?" Sounds so awful. I hope he can go back to driving a tube train.

[@execelsior999]

No matter how folks tell me HOW BEAUTIFUL these ugly buildings are, what is the WORST of them is the colour of the concrete when it rains. Brutalism is VERY VERY UGLY - Londoners deserve better than this. I can not understand how English Heritage dares to give many of these ugly buildings heritage status and yet refuse so many older, more beautiful buildings since they underwent small changes - e.g. the Carlton Theatre, Haymarket.

[@matthewmayne5189]

It's true that they should give more heritage to older buildings of more classical designs. However brutalism is probably considered more reactionary to the time it was built in rather than aesthetically pleasing and that is perhaps why people find it attractive.

[@GN10Gaming]

Brutalism is classic, and some brutalist buildings are here to stay, thankfully.

[@jax9574]

Trying to glorify these places, ask us that have lived there, I grew up in Trellick Tower, muggings on the regular, drug overdosed beggars out in the staircases and aisles. Robberies/burglaries constantly, rapes/molestation inside the lifts, suicides off balconies. People always looking to pick a fight with you as you're entering and leaving the only way of survival was aggression and a sharp presence of mind. Gang meets in the garages and what have you. Muggings happening in the canal walks. Accompanying the girls in my family and friends in and out of the place dropping them personally to the station or into the car Not quite the pretty picture now is it? It was a shabby depressing pisshole. So glad to have worked my way up and moved out from there.

[@stavdev7408]

So this is where social housing has got us we all paid for it but only those with the cash can benefit from it.

[@MichaelStergides]

I've seen Trellick from inside a train going to oxford and it was shocking really horrid! I shiver in the perspective that someday i may have to live in one of those

[@ECTBWHO]

: )

[@colinboyd9121]

Everyone knows the modern BBC is Britain's Pravda.

[@703rd]

these new tower blocks gated communities are great! the older ones are shit! they make london look gritty and grimey!!

[@chairmanofrussia]

NO. I say we have tower blocks like the one in this video except it isn't for the gifted...IT SHOULD BE FOR EVERYONE!

[@MrDasher01]

Is the host of this show out of his mind? There is not one redeeming feature on any of these monster buildings.

[@ElectricityTaster]

I had no idea shit could be sculpted into such forms.

[@Monovia1]

They are disgusting I live in Sheffield and have visited park hill and I can tell you it is hell it's disgusting they were built to replace slums but they have became slums

[@thespoonterer]

I will never ever live in a concrete high rise death trap human zoo. Not for as long as i live.

[@ajs41]

The interesting thing is that people in Far Eastern countries/places like China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, etc, seem to be able to live in high rise towers without too many problems. I think the reason is that they understand that in order to live in tower blocks everyone has to make a special effort to behave themselves. You just need a small percentage of people living in them to make life unbearable for everyone else. The problem in Western countries is that trouble-makers were allowed to set the agenda in a lot of tower block estates and most of the well-behaved people did everything they could to move out as quickly as possible if they had the chance to do so. But we're not allowed to say this in case it might offend some people. If an example had been made of the trouble-makers at the earliest possible opportunity many of the problems associated with tower block estates in Britain, France, America, etc, might have been avoided.

[@lauramolony]

Just wait. In 25 years it'll be all run down and shabby again.

[@MajorCaliber]

Do NOT paint da *bush-hammered* concrete, you idjits!... oh, too late. ;')

[@Yctzofficial]

They call blocks the home less camps

[@Potatoverynice]

The only brutality building I like is the Barbican centre, but the rest have simply eradicated away the beautiful buildings and views!

[@markcaldwell2831]

Famous? They were poorly built.

[@MajorCaliber]

NOT true--the ones built with "Large Panel Systems" (LPS) are shyt (Ronan Point, Grenfell, etc.), but by contrast, the ones built employing re-usable tunnel moulds, and *cast-in-place* (CIP) concrete are quite sound, and will last for centuries (Balfron Tower, Barbican, Park Hill in Sheffield, etc.)

[@chairmanofrussia]

The problem with capitalism. It's stupid...some things are not met to be privatized. One should never profit off of basic necessities...only an ass would do that. Medicine (i.e. health care) was created so that you don't die at age 35, not to make a profit. Electricity, water, and a home should all be free. Food? Instead of competing for people's money, how about competing for rewards from the government. You'd get the same quality as in capitalism except just from the gov't.

[@pennyawful861]

Abolish the bbc now.

[@GN10Gaming]

Look at this snowflake who can't take someone's opinion because they *personally* like architecture that you don't.

[@TrephineArtist]

This horrible modernist architecture was a mistake, wasn't intended to last long either, they should all be replaced.

[@Monovia1]

The presenters have lost there minds

[@seansco1]

Definition of a cracked pot

[@AnneHardingBondiJct]

That man is terrible. He uses really old fashioned words. . He knows nothing about finance. . Maybe he only knows video production.

[@LosBerkos]

. .

[@chairmanofrussia]

lol...wow...really?

[@sonic2batt]

Horrible

[@OohGoshYoureRight]

Well that man... 1:10 "and would you say that was reasonable?" Sounds so awful. I hope he can go back to driving a tube train.