Growing up on a council estate in Washington, Tyne and Wear, architect George Clarke has a very personal experience of the positive impact of social housing.
He will be putting that to good use in a new three part series for Channel Four marking the centenary of the nation’s council house movement and sets out to explore the very latest design and building methods to build the perfect council estate – aspirational and beautiful in design, somewhere where communities can grow and where people can be proud to live.
George will visit some of the world’s most outstanding social housing schemes, sharing ideas and experiences to design and help create part of a mini-estate of 30 new homes in Manchester.
“I’m really excited to be working with Manchester City Council on our innovative new social housing project. Council housing is as important today as it was 100 years ago when it was first set up to tackle the country’s housing crisis. Families need high quality, beautiful homes and most importantly they need to feel part of an inclusive community, as I did growing up on an estate. We must also get rid of the stigma sometimes associated with council housing. Truly affordable homes for rent are needed by so many people and I hope our exciting project will help stimulate much needed change across Britain and inspire council’s to build better and build beautiful.”
Clemency Green, Channel 4 Commissioning Editor Features and Formats, added: “This is a hugely exciting project at a pivotal moment in the history of social housing. We love the ambition at the heart of this series; to create a blueprint for the next generation of social housing to be proud of, and that is a joy to live in.”
