Example housing dissertation topic 4:

An evaluation of the success of Trusteel and ‘no fines’ houses.

Hailed as solutions to the housing crisis of the late 1940s, ‘no-fines’ and Trusteel houses have, in more recent years, presented owners with a number of problems, not least of which have been rusting steel, insufficient insulation, crumbling cement, and an inability – as a consequence of such issues – to secure mortgages upon them. Despite these problems, they remain home, especially upon social housing estates, to a significant proportion of the population and their internal spaciousness is in excess of the council houses built thereafter. Moreover, it is possible for the defects in their structure to be remedied. Accordingly, this dissertation interviews architects, planners and residents so as to arise at a reasoned conclusion regarding whether these houses are still, as they were in the 1940s, ‘fit for purpose’, or whether they should now be demolished in their entirety and replaced with new builds.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Bothwell, K., Saich, M. and Mallion, P. (2011). Retrofit of existing housing in the United Kingdom: The carbon reduction possibilities. Conference Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 13-15 July 2011.
• Harrison, H., Mullin, S., Reeves, B. and Stevens, A. (2005). ‘Identification and assessment of non-traditional UK housing’. Structural Survey, vol. 23(3), pp. 172-179.
• Sommerville, J., Craig, N. and Charles, A. (2011). ‘No-fines concrete in the UK social housing stock: 50 years on’. Structural Survey, vol. 29(4), pp. 294-302.