The Critic has very kindly already posted the article I wrote for their August/September issue, because I am conscious that the government is deeply immersed in formulating its plans for solving the housing crisis, including how and where to build the new towns it proposed in its manifesto.

Its not going to be easy for them, as the last government found, because of the strength of opposition to large-scale new development in the places where it is most needed. The big issue is how to provide big tracts of new housing without overloading the existing infrastructure, which is why it is sensible to think of planned new towns, including new schools and community facilities, instead of just tacking new housing schemes onto green field sites which is what developers tend to prefer.

https://thecritic.co.uk/will-labour-build-back-better/#:~:text=I%20hope%20Labour%20will%20resist,by%20unplanned%20light%20industrial%20building.

While in South Clapton, I took the opportunity to see the other project by Al-Jawad Pike, very close to Chowdhury Walk which has been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize: also well done, thoughtful brick architecture, slightly variegated by using different bricks.  Both Al-Jawad and Pike worked for David Chipperfield.  You can see the influence in the use of simple forms and care in the detailing:-

I went to see Chowdhury Walk, a set of eleven, nearly identical brick terrace houses in an obscure area of East Hackney which has been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize.  It’s very well done:  calm, thoughtful, pared back, slightly sculptural, good use of materials, excellent craft detailing.  It’s interesting seeing it in a sea of post-war social housing, much of it apparently reasonably successful.  But the type was abandoned in the 1980s so is now having to be reinvented.  Its project cost hasn’t been revealed.  I would think that the project cost needs to be taken into consideration:-

I bought some Wensleydale from Leila’s this morning and was treated to a lyrical account of where it comes from on a farm in Nidderdale where only fifteen shorthorns graze in wildflower meadows, the taste of which is said to be evident in the cheese.  I now can’t wait for lunch.

https://www.stonebeckcheese.co.uk/

I am so pleased that the London Review Bookshop is doing a memorial display of the Hazel Press.  Daphne loved the London Review Bookshop.  It was her base in London: somewhere to meet, buy books, gossip.  It was amazing to have got the Hazel Press going during COVID – wide-ranging, beautifully produced, but also Eco.  Very characteristic.  We must all go to pay our respects.

https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/booklists/hazel-press?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240801%20Bookshop%20Newsletter&utm_content=20240801%20Bookshop%20Newsletter+CID_61111570283f48dfd197d7afa9b9de03&utm_source=Bookshop%20email&utm_term=Remembering%20Daphne%20Warburg%20Astor