Home futures: a house biography of futures for a modernist high-rise estate

Introduction

I am standing on the balcony of a flat on the top floor of Wendover, one of the high-rise blocks at a modernist high-rise estate called the Aylesbury Estate in London. The estate was designed in 1965 by the architecture and planning department of the local council, Southwark, in the style of brutalism. In front of me I can see rows of concrete in straight lines, vertical walkways, blocks of varying heights (high and mid-rise) and green open spaces. The Aylesbury Estate reflects a modernist vision of the future. Le Corbusier and Alison and Peter Smithson, who sought to create a new modern age, influenced the original architects of the estate. Le Corbusier sought truth in architecture through the perfection of geometry. ¹ Modernist architects of the postwar period believed that they were not just creating buildings, but an urban utopia of equality and community. For example, the allocation of flats in Le Corbusier’s high-rises or ‘Unites’ was not based on social class, but on rational considerations such as household size. ² Self contained neighbourhoods in the sky, ‘Unites’ had facilities where people could relax, socialize, and ‘think’, such as swimming pools on the roof, and cafes and restaurants. Traces of this future are still evident in the architecture of the estate.

However, this modernist vision is not the only future found at the Aylesbury Estate. Standing next to me on the balcony is Fahana, the resident who owns the flat. The estate is planned for demolition and regeneration. Residents had already been moved out of a large part of the estate, the northeast and southwest corners, leaving vacated flats. Contemplating her own future, the scene in front of Fahana must have meant something very different than that intended by the modernist architects.

Attending to both design and lived experience illustrates that there is not just one future, but multiple futures associated with modernist high-rise estates. To explore these futures, the paper draws on the house biographical approach from the cultural geographies of home literature. ³ This approach has been chosen because house biographies tell ‘the story of particular buildings over time’, and examine design and lived experience. They also examine buildings as home, a concept that tends to be omitted in housing and architecture literature on estates. However, house biographies tell the story of a building’s past, thus following a tendency of the cultural geographies of home literature to focus on the past (and present). This paper furthers the house biographical approach by developing a ‘house biography of futures’ for the Aylesbury Estate. It argues that a house biography of futures examines the multiple futures of house, building, estate and the built environment. These futures include the futures governed by powerful actors and the everyday futures of home.

To develop the house biography the paper draws on geographical research on the future, time and home. ⁴ Literature on time tends to argue that time is multiple and complex, and situated within broader social, economic and political processes. Within this work on time, research on the future has explored themes such the governance of the future by state actors ⁵ and lived futures. ⁶ These ideas inform this house biographical approach. In developing the biography, the paper shows how the future is present in domestic materiality and in resident practices and lived experiences, thus contributing to the argument that home is an important site of futures. It argues that more attention should be paid to the multiple and complex futures of everyday domestic space.

It should be stated that this biography of the Aylesbury Estate also adds and connects to a small number of social scientific studies that have provided accounts of particular modernist high-rise estates. These studies include Rainwater’s ⁷ seminal book Behind Ghetto Walls that documented everyday family life at Pruitt Igoe, the modernist high-rise estate in St Louis, United States, that was demolished in the 1970s. Rather than blame design, Rainwater attributed the social and physical decline of Pruitt Igoe to wider structures of race. More recently, cultural geographer Jane M Jacobs and her research team have produced a biography of the high-rise estate Red Road in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Informed by social theory, they foreground the estate’s technology, such as its windows, and explore the high-rise as a ‘building event’ held temporarily stable by wider networks of actors. ⁸

The next section discusses the house biography of futures in the context of scholarship on the cultural geographies of home, and geographical literature on time and the future. A research methods section outlines the qualitative methods used in the study. The empirical section provides the house biography of futures for the Aylesbury Estate, where the governance of futures by powerful actors and the everyday futures of home are examined. A conclusion discusses the wider implications for geographical literatures on home and the future.

A house biography of futures

House biographies examine particular buildings over time. They have origins in research that has explored the history of architectural forms, such as bungalows, ⁹ or individual buildings, like Pullitzer’s New York World Building in New York City. ¹⁰ House biographies are diverse. For example, Lees ¹¹ explores material change in the interior of a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, New York City, which has resulted from upgrading. Llewellyn ¹² examines the architectural ideas behind the design and the embodied practices of residents at Kensal House, one of the first modernist social housing schemes in the UK. Other house biographies have turned to the life stories of well-known people in their homes. Investigating houses in Primrose Hill and Chalcot Square London, Chee ¹³ provides an account of Sylvia Plath’s domestic life through her poetry, thus emphasizing the intimate and meaningful space of home. House biographies tend to situate these stories within wider social, cultural and economic processes. Lees ¹⁴ relates the transformation of the brownstone to supergentrification, while Chee ¹⁵ situates Plath’s experiences within gendered ideas of home. Other life stories in house have focused on sexuality. ¹⁶

The idea of house biographies has been taken forward by Blunt ¹⁷ in her biography of a settlement house called Christadora House in New York City. She argues that house biographies ‘tell the story of a house as home’. Therefore, as well as examining the materiality of house, they also attend to the imaginary dimensions of home, such as emotion, memory, attachment, belonging and identity. They attend to human lives, experiences and practices. The critical geographies of home, which Blunt draws on, argues that the materiality of home is not neutral but actively co-constructs domestic life. ¹⁸ Therefore, Blunt ¹⁹ argues that house biographies should also explore the relationship between built form and inhabitation, rather like Llewellyn’s exploration of Kensal House, and situate the story within a wider context. In her biography she explores the material culture and type of residents who inhabited flats on the top floors of Christadora House. It also illustrates how the design encouraged the formation of a community life that followed the ideals of the settlement movement.

House biographies, therefore, provide accounts of the past. They tell the reader about the past lives of buildings. ²⁰ This emphasis reflects a tendency of the cultural geographies of home literature to focus on the past (and present). For example, some research explores home in past time periods, like the Georgian home or the Victorian slums of London, ²¹ or the relationship between material culture and memory in diaspora. ²² This focus on the past is not surprising given the importance placed on representing and exploring collective and personal histories. As Pile ²³ illustrates the city is full of reminders of the past, such as memorials and statues that help to construct a national identity and place of belonging. The idea that the past can explain the present is also embedded in Western thought, for example in psychoanalytic approaches that locate present pain in past trauma.

However, this centring of the past and present means that the future has been comparatively neglected in the house biographical approach, as it has in geographical scholarship on home more widely. Only a few studies about home directly engage with the future, such as Kenyon’s ²⁴ exploration of the importance of the imagined future home for UK students. Other research involves the future but does not make it the main subject of study, such as the examination of energy use in home ²⁵ and some work on domicide. ²⁶ Therefore, rather than continue to focus on the past per se, this article aims to develop a house biography of futures.

To develop this house biography of futures, the paper draws on research on home, time and the future in human geography. ²⁷ Early geographical work provided universal accounts of time, ²⁸ such as Harvey’s theory of time-space compression. This reductive approach was critiqued by May and Thrift ²⁹ for concealing a diversity of times and spaces. More recent research argues that time is multiple and complex. For example, studying the urban environment, Degen ³⁰ reveals the multiple and diverse temporalities of planners, residents and tourists found at La Rambla in Barcelona. Geographers have also explored the multiple temporalities of home, including the presence of the past in home through memory and material culture. ³¹

Within this work on time, a growing body of geographical research investigates the future. There has been a strong interest in how the state governs the future. ³² Some research has argued that the state can make future threats present through technological and social practices. State action is then taken to avert the anticipated future disaster. ³³ Lived experience is another important theme, for example Griffiths and Joronen ³⁴ argue that the Israeli state makes Palestinians feel uncertain about the future to assert control. This uncertainty also aids the colonization of land. Other authors are exploring the role of lived futures in migration. ³⁵ Further emphasizing the politics of time, research is examining the future and marginalization. Derickson and MacKinnon ³⁶ show how the marginalized can be excluded from mainstream environmental action, whilst Jeffrey and Dyson ³⁷ argue that more attention should be paid to the production of counter futures.

Therefore, like the house biographical approach, a house biography of futures tells the story of a house as home, while situating this narrative in a wider social, cultural and economic context. However, rather than focus on the past, a house biography of futures explores the multiple futures of house, building, estate and the built environment. These futures include the governance of the future by powerful actors and the everyday futures of home, thus connecting to scholarship in human geography that explores the future. Exploring lived experience means that a house biography of futures continues to attend to human lives, practices and experiences, and the domestic imaginary that makes home meaningful. ³⁸

Researching the Aylesbury Estate

The Aylesbury Estate was chosen because, as one of the largest examples of modernist social housing in Europe, it epitomizes the postwar intention of architects and policy makers to create a progressive and egalitarian modernist future in the city. As discussed in the next section, the estate’s perceived decline from the late 1970s has also implicated it in other futures, including those associated with its regeneration. To create the biography qualitative fieldwork was undertaken at the Aylesbury Estate from 2013 to 2015. ³⁹ The fieldwork involved archival research, oral history interviews, home tours, semi-structured in-depth interviews and photography. The archival research mainly occurred at Southwark’s Local History Library and Archive, which provided some information about the estate’s design. The oral history interviews involved 25 residents, all of who had lived on the estate for over 5 years. A range of ages, genders and attitudes towards the regeneration were included. Following the oral history residents were asked whether they wanted to participate in a home tour, which involved interviewing participants as they walked around their flats. The oral history interviews and home tours provided a depth of information about the everyday futures of home on the estate.

It was important to understand how actors associated with the state had attempted to govern the estate’s future. Therefore, semi-structured in-depth interviews were undertaken with eight people who had worked on the estate. These participants included two of the architects who originally designed the estate while working in Southwark’s Architecture and Planning Department and architect Will Alsop. His firm created a masterplan for the estate’s regeneration in 2000. An interview was also conducted at the housing association Notting Hill Housing Trust, which is Southwark Council’s main partner in regeneration. Photographs of residents, their flats and the estate were taken for an exhibition at a museum, which communicated the estate’s story to a wider audience. ⁴⁰ Alongside other mediums, such as art, the photographs contributed to making the exhibition feel engaging and personal. They provided visual information on the estate’s past, present and future, and an indication of how residents’ domestic lives were affected by the different time periods of the estate.

Governing the future

Actors associated with the state have tried to govern the future of the Aylesbury Estate throughout its history. The main way they have tried to achieve this governance is through architecture and design. The Aylesbury Estate was part of the wider shaping of the Walworth Square Mile in Southwark, London. Perceived as slum housing, this area was identified for slum clearance and renewal in the 1960s. Southwark Council’s ambition was to create a modernist future comprised of Elephant and Castle shopping mall, the Heygate Estate, the Aylesbury Estate and Burgess Park. Southwark’s Department of Architecture and Planning, which was committed to modernism, designed the Aylesbury Estate. Many of its architects had come from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) that drew on architects like Le Corbusier and Alison and Peter Smithson, who founded British brutalism. Therefore, the architects of the Aylesbury Estate, which was designed in 1965, were trained in large modernist urban planning and firmly believed that architecture could produce a more socially just future. As one of the architects, Cubit, stated:

In the fourth year (of the AA) you’re working on large housing schemes. So the idea of large comprehensive redevelopment of urban architecture was very much contemporary with the thinking . . . Architects weren’t kind of imagining a corporate world. People were imagining doing town halls and schools and public housing. It was the spirit of the time. We were committed to the idea of rebuilding Britain (interview, 2014).

The architects and Southwark policy makers imagined that the Aylesbury Estate’s design would substantially improve the residents’ urban domestic lives. The estate architecturally embodied modernity, rationality, efficiency, healthy living and community. It was constructed using modern building techniques, materials and systems, for example, the Jespersen 12 m large panel system. Modernist architects wanted to improve urban health by bringing the country to the city. ⁴¹ Therefore, as well as blocks of four to five storeys, high-rises were built to meet density targets and create green spaces. To improve pedestrian safety and the efficiency of movement the architects designed vertical walkways across the estate. Following Le Corbusier’s Unites d’Habitation in Marseille, it was imagined that these walkways would be busy ‘streets in the sky’ providing access to shops and community facilities, including a health centre, community hall, youth club and communal laundries. In this way an ideal form of modern urban living, involving nature and community, would be created through architecture and technology. As another of the original architects, James, stated:

It is streets in the air. The Smithson’s were very keen on showing how streets in the air could replicate the traditional street life, which was so valued at that time. So very broad galleries, street like galleries, and community facilities. We wanted to ensure there was a strong community life (interview, 2014).

This modernist shaping of the future also involved the domestic interior of flats. Many of the tenement houses, which residents had moved from, lacked basic amenities. By comparison, flats on the Aylesbury Estate had heating, hot running water and indoor bathrooms. The flats were large because they were designed to Parker Morris standards, which set the minimum size of dwellings in the post-war years, and had built in storage. Following modernist principles the interiors were well-organized, open plan and flexible, ⁴² for example a sliding partition could separate the kitchen/dining room from the living room. The one-bedroom flats were designed to be dual aspect so that residents could look east and west across London. The high-rise blocks were built on a north-south axis to maximize sunlight into flats and provide residents with a view of Burgess Park. This design is influenced by the Bauhaus principle of Zeilenbau, ⁴³ which priorities daylight and green space. As one resident stated, recognizing the modern design:

It was well equipped. It had plenty of sockets, modern sockets, yeah. The Aylesbury Estate was quite a modern design in its own time and I think, to certain extent, it still holds its own with modern flats nowadays. They had modern open plan which was very much one of the features. So I think the designers were quite forward looking (Simon, oral history interview, 2013).

However, this modernist future was only partially realized. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government enforced a £1 m reduction in the budget just before construction and, therefore, ‘serious levels of savings had to be made’ (Cubitt, interview, 2014). This cost cutting altered the intended functioning and ‘look’ of the estate, for example less expensive lifts were installed, which had implications later on, and the vertical walkways were not rendered leaving exposed bare concrete. Physical and social problems began to be reported in the late 1970s. Although care should be taken not to fall into stereotypes of estates, ⁴⁴ these problems accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. The estate was not adequately maintained by the council resulting in water leaks and problems with the heating. There were higher incidents of anti-social behaviour and crime, which resulted in estate stigmatization in the popular press. ⁴⁵

The Aylesbury Estate was not a dystopian living environment or a ‘sink estate’, but its design did not produce the utopian future that the architects intended. This difference between a future imagined and future realized illustrates the indeterminacy of the future. ⁴⁶ The future can be influenced, strategized over and hoped for, but never governed with certainty. This indeterminacy is due to the complexity by which the future unfolds. The architects and policy makers could not control the future at the estate because the social world is not just influenced by design. Just as house biographies attend to the wider context in which buildings are situated, estate life was also influenced by wider social, cultural and economic changes. These changes included the deindustrialization of the inner city, which increased unemployment, and higher proportions of residents of colour due to immigration. The two processes resulted in a more oppressed and marginalized population living on the estate. The decline in public spending on social housing from the 1980s further meant less money for maintenance and repairs. The belief in the ability of design to shape the social world illustrates the singularity of modernist thought and the primacy of technology in the postwar years. ⁴⁷

It is this indeterminacy that can lead to new modes or periods of future governance. The perceived ‘failure’ of the modernist dream at the Aylesbury Estate and estates in Europe and the United States brought a series of actions and policy responses. A technocratic industry of experts, policy makers and designers emerged to alter a dystopian present and recast the future. In the United States, Newman ⁴⁸ argued that anti-social behaviour and crime is more likely on modernist estates because they have high proportions of indefensible spaces. He argued that these spaces, like stairwells and lifts, have limited resident surveillance, as windows do not overlook them. Residents are also less likely to intervene in social problems because they do not feel a sense of territorial ownership. Coleman ⁴⁹ brought these ideas to the UK in her book Utopia on Trial, which influenced government policy through Design Improvement Controlled Experiment (DICE). ⁵⁰ DICE led to the removal of indefensible spaces from modernist estates, for example sections of vertical walkways were either blocked off or demolished at the Aylesbury Estate (Figure 1). Despite the critique of modernist architecture, defensible space and DICE were still founded on the belief that the future could be governed through design. They simply argued that modernist estate architecture created dystopia, rather than utopia.

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Figure 1.

Photo of blocked off vertical walkway, which used to be above Thurlow Street, from Wendover.

The governance of the future is situated in a politics. At the estate conflict sometimes emerged between Southwark Council and residents. For example, not convinced by the singular focus on indefensible space, some of the Tenants and Residents Associations (T&RAs) lobbied the council to install security systems in the high-rise blocks. The high-rise entrances at the Aylesbury Estate are open and the public can access the shared spaces. There are different types of high-rise security systems, with the most effective having a concierge, secured double door entrances with transparent glass, CCTV and intercoms. Recognising that this would be too expensive, the T&RAs asked the council to close off the high-rise entrances and install intercoms. This solution would have decreased the likelihood of crime and anti-social behaviour in the high-rise shared spaces, thus encouraging a safer future. ⁵¹ However, following consultation, Southwark Council decided against their use arguing that the cost would be too high. This contestation over how to construct the future is a characteristic of future governance, with its resolution revealing power imbalances. ⁵² Illustrating a lack of power, a frustrated resident called Sarah who used to live in one of the high-rises called Bradenham stated:

I moaned and moaned and moaned, for years. I said to them ‘why can’t we?’ I’m not saying have a concierge sitting there 24/7, but like what’s wrong with an entry phone system? And I said ‘why can’t we have something like that?’ ‘Oh no no. A high-rise block. It’s expensive’ they said. But I kept saying ‘no it’s not!’ (oral history interview, 2013).

Further indicating the indeterminacy of the future, DICE failed to improve social problems on the estate. ⁵³ These social problems were magnified by the media and the state in the 1990s. ⁵⁴ When Tony Blair visited in 1997 to give his first speech as Prime Minister he claimed that the estate symbolized all that is wrong with modern Britain. Southwark Council responded to these negative discourses by deciding that the only way to ‘fix’ the Aylesbury Estate and alter its future was to demolish most of it and rebuild the built environment and its community. These events echo Goetz’s ⁵⁵ argument that the stigmatization of public housing is part of a wider delegitimizing discourse that paves the way for policy change. In 2000 the estate was awarded a New Deal for Communities (NDC), a government funded programme for the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods, to improve and regenerate the estate. Southwark Council’s response was similar to the slum clearance of the tenement homes in the Walworth Square Mile that happened 40 years before. On both occasions it has tried to reset the future by annihilating the present.

Estate regeneration does not involve one governed future, but multiple futures created by various state actors at different times. For example, in 2000 the housing association Faraday Community Housing commissioned British architect Will Alsop to design a masterplan for the estate. Masterplans imagine, arrange, legitimize and co-construct the material and social fabric of future built environments. They are also informed by wider ideologies and approaches. Drawing on postmodernism as opposed to modernism, Alsop and his team proposed a mixture of demolition, refurbishment and reshaping of the estate’s modernist design. They imagined that the new built environment would have curves, circles and bright colours, rather than straight lines and the slab grey of brutalism (see Figure 2). The community would also participate in the making of the future site by putting forward ideas and offering feedback on designs through a series of workshops. Therefore, Alsop’s approach to future governance was less authoritarian than the modernist architects and planners of the 1960s. As he stated:

If you go in as a designer, architect, master planner, whatever you like to call yourself, you need to go in with an open mind and allow a concept to evolve . . . I was quite influenced by people like Harbracken of having a more open view as to how you create the brief and how you work with the people living in the place. So what we attempted was to have a number of workshops and get people to not say what they want but to try and draw what they want (oral history interview, 2014).

Alsop’s masterplan shows how governed futures can be imagined, but not necessarily built. Before regeneration could take place the ownership of the estate had to be transferred from Southwark Council to Faraday Community Housing. However, legally a resident vote had to take place before this stock transfer could take place. Alsop’s plans were part of a redevelopment pack used by Faraday Community Housing to convince the estate community about the value of the stock transfer and regeneration. A group of residents called ‘Worried About Tenants’ Transfer’ (WATT) campaigned against the proposed regeneration. They argued that the regeneration would result in their displacement, that is, their removal from the site of the estate to housing further from central London. There were also concerns that the move would result in flat downsizing, the removal of secured tenancy and higher rents. To facilitate a different future in which they remained in their homes, WATT organized events, knocked on doors, delivered leaflets and petitioned. As is well documented, in 2001, 73% of residents voted against the regeneration, with 76% of residents turning out to vote. This action by the residents shows that governed futures can be, and are, contested and averted by ordinary urban dwellers. ⁵⁶

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Figure 2.

Alsop’s postmodern future drawn following two pilot workshops in 2000.

Southwark Council gradually reasserted their vision for the estate through a range of practices and techniques. They reappointed the NDC board, which was responsible for the regeneration, and enacted a form of community consultation. There is a politics to community consultation on regeneration schemes, with Lees ⁵⁷ arguing that the consultation at the estate only involved residents who were pro the council. ⁵⁸ Illustrating the work involved in making futures, the NDC board explored options, including the installation of security systems, refurbishment, and demolition and regeneration. A survey was also commissioned to examine resident views on regeneration, which has not been made public. Informed by the board’s findings, Southwark Council voted in favour of demolition in 2005. Residents would be moved out before handing the estate to a housing association, which is now Notting Hill Housing Trust, to avoid the need for another resident vote.

This reinsertion of Southwark Council’s imagined future led to further resident resistance through the legal system. ⁵⁹ Some residents refused to leave and Southwark Council decided to remove them using compulsory purchase orders (CPOs). This enabled 11 residents to appeal their CPOs to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which led to the first Aylesbury Estate public inquiry at Millwall FC in 2015. Lees and Robinson argue that the inquiry was a ‘David and Goliath scenario’. ⁶⁰ Following an estate occupation by activists in early 2016, a prison-like purple fence was installed around an emptied part of the estate where some public inquiry residents were still living. Despite this asymmetry of power, the residents won with the Secretary of State agreeing in 2016 that a compelling enough case had not been made for the CPOs.

The decision was later overturned in the high court based on a technicality resulting in a second public inquiry in Southwark Council’s Tooley Street offices in 2018. This new location signified the council’s increasing anxiety about the future. A high stakes affair, academic expertise played an important role. ⁶¹ Southwark Council reached a deal with two leaseholders mid-way through the inquiry after agreeing to alter its rehousing policy. At the time of writing, the demolition of the estate is on hold and resistance is ongoing. One of the founders of WATT opened an innovative and powerful exhibition in her flat, which told the story of resident resistance on the estate, in 2023 and delayed the regeneration by winning a judicial review claim in the high court, in January 2024, against an amendment to planning permission approved by Southwark Council.

This history of governed futures at the Aylesbury Estate is underpinned by the ‘modernist god-trick’ or the belief in modernity that the future can be tamed. ⁶² The original architects and policy makers believed that a modernist future could be constructed by building the estate. When this was not realized, other professionals argued that correcting the estate’s design could avert a dystopian future. A wave of architects, policy makers and housing experts then imagined yet other futures for the site of the estate. These futures have been resisted and re-shaped by residents. The estate, therefore, brings to the fore the impermanence of governed futures because of the complexity by which the world unfolds. The future cannot be controlled. Just as house biographies examine how buildings are situated in wider social, economic and political contexts, these different futures also reflect the transition from the postwar welfare state to neoliberalism. In this way, the governance of the future is not ‘futuristic’ but strongly implicated in present contexts.

Everyday home futures

As well as governed futures, a house biography of futures also explores the everyday futures of home. These are the futures present in the materialities of home, and in residents’ practices and lived experiences. The future governed by modernist architects and policy makers in the 1960s, in turn, produced new modernist domestic futures in everyday life. For example, the materiality of the flats at the Aylesbury Estate expressed modernity. They were comparatively large with wall-to-wall windows to maximize daylight. Symbolising the modern age, they were well equipped with kitchens, indoor bathrooms, heating and hot running water. The flats were open plan but different areas, such as living and dining rooms, were clearly demarcated. Residents found them to be very modern, particularly because they were used to the flats in tenement housing that lacked modern amenities. As Simon, a resident who had moved onto the estate in the early 1970s, stated:

The flats inside were sort of modern. They had modern open plan which was very much new to us. The features, you had the kitchen which then opened out into a dining area, which then looked into the main living front room. It was nice because you didn’t have to sit in the front room to eat or you didn’t have to sit in the kitchen like we were used to. It was different. So I think it was very forward looking (oral history interview, 2013).

This materiality, involving flat design and modern technologies, resulted in new domestic practices. Residents stated that the flat interiors were more functional, logical and efficient. For example, for Simon (above) the flat meant being able to eat in a space specifically designed for dining. Another resident Shelley stated that domestic life ‘. . . was nice. The kitchen was over there and the dining area was separated there. So all you had to do was just walk over, put the plates down’. She found the flats easier and more practical to live in, which were intended characteristics of the modernist home. Modernist architects imagined that future estate life would be sociable and community orientated. ⁶³ There was some evidence of this sociability on the estate with the separate dining area often encouraging the gathering of family and friends for lunch or dinner, especially if there was a view as there was in high flats. ⁶⁴ Residents also used to socialize in the communal laundry rooms in the 1960s and 1970s, before they were made obsolete by personal washing machines. These more positive effects of modernist estate design tend to be overlooked in some academic literature and policy discourses. ⁶⁵

These domestic materialities and practices resulted in new bodily sensations and feelings. The electric heating system originally installed meant that residents felt warm in the kitchens, living rooms, hallways, bedrooms and bathrooms. Residents stated that this was a novel experience since most tenement housing did not have heating systems. As Betty, who was the first person to move into her flat in the 1970s, stated ‘It was warm and not just warmth in terms of temperature, but feeling warm on the inside’. Her comment illustrates that she found her flat not just physically warm, but emotionally warm. Differing from the perceived darkness of tenement housing, a high level of natural light was an important feature of modernist domestic life. ⁶⁶ The sensory experience of daylight is difficult to articulate, but residents often commented on the first time they encountered the light in their flats. This experience is not unique to the Aylesbury Estate with the high intensity of daylight in flats a common feature of modernist high-rise estates in London. ⁶⁷ Like the heating system, this daylight resulted in both new physical sensations and emotions for residents. As Simon stated:

The first thing I remember about the bedroom it had long windows which made it unusually bright. It made it very light and airy, it was noticeable. It was wonderful and it felt warm (oral history interview, 2013).

Therefore, a new form of domesticity was constructed at the Aylesbury Estate that involved materiality, and resident practices and lived experiences. This domesticity reflected the future that modernist architects such as Alison and Peter Smithson imagined would be created on modernist estates. The domestic environment and type of inhabitation was so different from that found in tenement housing that for some residents the estate evoked the future in the present. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was like stepping into modernity. Illustrating the relationship between materiality and emotion, this modernist domestic future helped to make residents feel at home, and sometimes generated positive emotions and feelings of belonging quickly. As Frank, who had lived in one of the high-rises called Taplow since the early 1970s, stated:

It was brand new and progressive. It was exciting. Loads forget what it was like prior to moving. It was an immense improvement. It was so modern, futuristic even . . . I was proud to live here . . . It felt home as soon as I moved in really (oral history interview, 2014).

The everyday futures of home also involved futures unrelated to the governance of the estate by powerful actors. These more ordinary domestic futures, which can be found in other forms of dwelling, included everyday routines and habitual practices. At the Aylesbury Estate examples of routines with a practical orientation were decorating flats to maintain home, saving money for the future, picking up children from school or walking under covered walkways when it rains. Other habitual practices were associated with leisure. For example, one resident, Jemma, discussed her routine of going ‘. . . swimming every Tuesdays and Thursdays’ followed by lunch. These practices echo Degen’s ⁶⁸ argument that multiple temporalities unfold in place. Domestic life on the estate involved multiple ‘spatio-temporalities’ orientated towards the future. Other routines sought to disrupt the mundane nature of domestic life. For example, at the mid-rise block Grayhurst, Daisy would move the furniture in her living room around every three weeks. Like the present, this further illustrates the dynamism of the future, which is not static but involves change. As she stated:

I never live the same. Always I try to move my sofas and furniture so it doesn’t get boring. Always every month I like to change something or to move something or to do something. Why? I don’t know. I don’t like to see always the same thing, the same (oral history interview, 2014).

Research on domestic materiality has tended to focus on the past. ⁶⁹ However, household objects can also involve the future. For example, a practicing Catholic, Violet had a painting of the Virgin Mary on her wall, and wooden statues of the Cross and rosemary beads on a side table (see Figure 3). Belief systems, like religion, can instil an array of futures in objects. ⁷⁰ Similarly, Violet’s religious artifacts elicit a range of futures, such as future church going practices, the act of continuing to have faith and belief in the afterlife. Another object, a large map of Peru over her dining room table, also evoked a future set of practices involving her family. As she stated:

Sometimes when my nephews are coming. They always have dinner here they say where I come from Arequipa. Always I’m trying to teach them where is Peru and they need the map as well. I always try to tell them and show them, you know, the names of the countries, regions and cities that they can’t remember. They’re coming next month and I’ll be doing the same (oral history interview, 2014).

These religious artifacts and the map illustrate that object futures are intertwined with the past. The future practices evoked by Violet’s map were informed by the memory of past family gatherings. This connection to the past suggests that objects can possess a timeline that involves the past, present and future. The examples also mean that futures can have their own temporalities. The religious artifacts had more permanent futures because they were sustained by a belief system and religious practices. By comparison, the map had a more ephemeral future as there will come a time when Violet’s nephews are old enough not to forget the location of Peru. Violet’s objects also illustrate that household materials are not neutral, but can influence how the future unfolds. The picture of the Virgin Mary encourages ongoing religious practices and the map contributes to a possible future where Violet’s nephews visit Peru.

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Figure 3.

Violet with a painting of the Virgin Mary above her head.

Everyday futures were also present in the imaginary dimensions of home, such as hopes and dreams. Residents at the estate talked about their hopes of finding a better job, meeting a partner, going on holiday or retiring early. Unhappy living in the high-rise block called Wendover, one of Jasmine’s dreams involved ‘. . . an overwhelming urge to move and to get out [of the estate]. Sometimes I daydream about it’. The use of the word ‘daydream’, where individuals are immersed in a present future, conveys how important moving was to Jasmine. There was also the future home. All the residents had an idea of their preferred home of the future with these imaginations involving ‘physical’ elements, like having two bedrooms, and social dimensions, such as having a family. The future home is intertwined with the past and present. Dynamic, it also transforms over time. For example, Frank had planned to live in an almshouse because of past and present encounters with the lifts at Taplow. His future home was also detailed and specific because he had been thinking about the move for some time:

I’m going to move to an almshouse. These two are run by charities but there’s also the council option as well . . . I’m conscious of the fact that if the lifts don’t work, there will come a time when taking the stairs becomes really difficult. So I will probably move soon (oral history interview, 2014).

The regeneration has resulted in another set of everyday home futures. Some of these regeneration futures are evident in the materiality of the estate. For example, the temporary showrooms set up by housing associations to provide a positive impression of regeneration is one way that the future becomes materially visible. Such showrooms further illustrate that objects are not neutral, but can actively attempt to shape the future in particular directions. The future associated with regeneration is also present in the sites that have been demolished, or are in the process of demolition. At the time of writing, the western half of the estate and parts of the northeastern corner have either been rebuilt or demolished. Such materialities of demolition are transitional spaces that signify a transformation from the past to the future. Blocks that have been mainly emptied of residents, and where flat doors and windows are boarded up by steel to prevent squatting also evoke the future. Like demolished buildings, these mainly deserted buildings signify that demolition and rebuilding is near.

Residents embodied these everyday domestic futures of regeneration. Multiple temporalities of regeneration ⁷¹ were triggered through thoughts and imaginations about the future. For example, some residents imagined what their homes would look like in the future. This imaginary could be specific like Frank’s almshouse or just involve emptiness. As Joanna, a long term resident at Wendover, stated ‘. . . there’s a deep unknown. When I try to imagine my future home there’s just blackness’. This statement reflects the uncertainty about the future that has occurred in the Aylesbury Estate regeneration, where plans have regularly changed. It also conveys sadness due to the attachment that Joanna feels towards her present home. As she says later on ‘. . . I can’t imagine living without my flat’. To cope with the unknown, some residents have imagined different scenarios or pathways, which further illustrates the multiplicity of the future in regeneration. Living in one of the low-rise blocks, Sandra stated:

Well my absolute nightmare, fallback scenario is that if I can’t afford to live anywhere else in London I’m going to go and live in North Wales. But I think it actually will work that I can move into one of the intermediate housing, you know, ‘cos we’re building these mixed tenures where you’re private and intermediate and social rent. I mean I do think about moving obviously into another ex-council property off the estate, but I don’t want to move too far away (oral history interview, 2013).

Ultimately these futures produce emotions. One of the most prevalent of these emotions is anxiety, which could result from the thought of having to move and uncertainty over where residents will move to and when blocks will be demolished. This anxiety has been raised by the changes to regeneration plans that have occurred over a twenty-year period. The powerful emotions of loss and separation could also result from the imagined loss of the present home, community ties or specific objects, thus illustrating how the interplay between the material and the imaginary can produce emotion. As Lees and Robinson illustrate negative emotions, including grief, can also be acutely felt for residents protecting their homes through public inquiries. Discussing her experience of the first public inquiry, one of the leaseholders stated ‘Sometimes I was angry, sad, embarrassed, crying. I’m a very private person and I had lots of emotional feelings all at the same time’. ⁷² Just as emotions tend to be understood in terms of the past and present, these examples support the argument that emotions can also connect to the future. ⁷³ The negative emotions that residents could experience about the future is illustrated by the statement of Lucy, who lived in one of the low rise blocks called Foxcote:

It’s really scary, you’re going to lose your home. I mean, as I said, loads of people here like myself brought up the children. They’ve lived on the estate for years, you know. They’ve like people get to know each other, you know, and they’re just going to tear it all down (oral history interview, 2013).

Therefore, regeneration can have a significant influence on residents, before they move, because the future is present in home. Regeneration futures can emerge as thoughts and imaginations involving multiple domestic temporalities. The uncertainty of these futures can produce particularly intense emotions, especially anxiety, because they involve residents’ homes. Scholarship on home has long argued that home is central to being and identity, and, as Lucy’s comment shows, intertwined with family and community life. ⁷⁴ Therefore, the future loss of home does not just involve the imagined loss of the physical dwelling, but also the potential unmaking of feelings of belonging, positive emotions, identity and memories. ⁷⁵ It is not surprising that Lucy finds the future loss ‘scary’ and uses strong phrases like ‘tearing it [i.e. home] all down.’ The future demolition has resulted in a traumatic intrusion into her ‘present’ domestic life.

Conclusion

Telling the story of house as home, the strength of the house biographical approach is its attention to the material and imaginary dimensions of home, including human meanings and lived experiences. ⁷⁶ However, they have tended to provide accounts of buildings’ pasts. By comparison, this article has developed a house biography of futures for the Aylesbury Estate. It has argued that a house biography of futures examines the multiple futures of house, building, estate and the built environment. These futures include the governance of the future by powerful actors and the everyday futures of home. This approach has revealed some of the multiple futures of the Aylesbury Estate. A range of governed futures emerged due to the indeterminacy of the future. Southwark’s architects built a modernist future in the late 1960s. However, when problems emerged in the 1970s and 1980s attempts were made to ‘correct’ the future through defensible space and, when this failed, through demolition and regeneration. In turn, the governed futures of regeneration were affected by resident resistance. The approach has also brought to light the everyday futures of home on the estate. A new form of modernist domesticity was constructed in the 1960s–70s as well as more ordinary domestic futures and futures associated with the estate’s regeneration. As the estate is demolished, rebuilt and re-inhabited, it is important to recognize and value this history and lived experiences of futures at the Aylesbury Estate.

There are broader implications for debates about home and the future. First, there is a tendency for explorations of home to focus on the past and present, but this article has further supported the idea that home involves the future. It draws attention to the multiple futures of home. Powerful actors can attempt to construct a future in the domestic, which may not materialize because the future is indeterminate. The future is also emergent in the everyday home. Like the past, it is present in the materiality of home, such as its material culture, and in residents’ practices and lived experiences. Therefore, this house biography adds to the argument that home does not just temporally extend into the past, but also into the future in multiple and complex ways. Second, the article illustrates the benefits of productive ‘conversations’ between the cultural geographies of home and future geographies literatures. This interface has the potential to advance the temporal understandings of home, such as the idea that home involves governed futures. It can also help with the expansion of futures research into non-government and military spaces, like the domestic, and to literature on the lived experience of futures. Home futures are always lived, sensed and felt.