Tom Davies
I believe that heritage forms a key part of today’s society and development, to be both cared-for and used effectively. This view offers the best way to communicate and gain a broader understanding and appreciation of cultural values for society allowing us to utilise, develop and take care of our heritage for the future.
Recent project work includes working with Instead Heritage on the additional assessment for aquaculture proposals in the Vega Archipelago World Heritage Site, North Norway. Organising and guiding a study trip to Oslo for 20th Century Society, UK. Heritage work for the renovation of Frogner Nursery, and I am currently digging medieval archaeology in Oslo Old Town.
I am currently awaiting committee on my doctoral studies at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design which started off trying to develop existing approaches to designation and protection and stakeholder enfranchisement looking at Post-war Brutalist public and residential architecture and ended up being a revision of my entire attitude to heritage work! Through the PhD I have worked with a host of fantastic people and together we have developed resident-led conservation guidance and an application for Grade II* Listing of Highgate New Town, Camden a use-strategy and repair-programme for the Tenants Hall at Alexandra Road and a study of strategic heritage protection for Vestli in East Oslo.
Along the way I have discovered many things included a connection between Vestli and Agatha Christie! My studies unsurprisingly have roots in professional work at Arcadis Consulting and an MSc in Built Environment: sustainable heritage management.
At Arcadis Consulting I was employed as Senior Archaeology/Heritage Consultant and worked on multidisciplinary EIA based projects, Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects and provided heritage lead for a large garden city scheme in the South of England. I have also provided built heritage consultancy for the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate for the Dokiver project, developing historic building recording methods for energy buildings developing a standard for power building documentation.
Other recent work includes writing and publishing a book about the John Roan School, South London, providing heritage consultancy for the the station at Irun, North Spain and organising the Sofienberg 'Heritage and Community' Festival in our district of Sofienberg, Oslo.
Supervisors: Even Smith Wergeland, Luis Diaz, and David Roberts
Recent project work includes working with Instead Heritage on the additional assessment for aquaculture proposals in the Vega Archipelago World Heritage Site, North Norway. Organising and guiding a study trip to Oslo for 20th Century Society, UK. Heritage work for the renovation of Frogner Nursery, and I am currently digging medieval archaeology in Oslo Old Town.
I am currently awaiting committee on my doctoral studies at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design which started off trying to develop existing approaches to designation and protection and stakeholder enfranchisement looking at Post-war Brutalist public and residential architecture and ended up being a revision of my entire attitude to heritage work! Through the PhD I have worked with a host of fantastic people and together we have developed resident-led conservation guidance and an application for Grade II* Listing of Highgate New Town, Camden a use-strategy and repair-programme for the Tenants Hall at Alexandra Road and a study of strategic heritage protection for Vestli in East Oslo.
Along the way I have discovered many things included a connection between Vestli and Agatha Christie! My studies unsurprisingly have roots in professional work at Arcadis Consulting and an MSc in Built Environment: sustainable heritage management.
At Arcadis Consulting I was employed as Senior Archaeology/Heritage Consultant and worked on multidisciplinary EIA based projects, Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects and provided heritage lead for a large garden city scheme in the South of England. I have also provided built heritage consultancy for the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate for the Dokiver project, developing historic building recording methods for energy buildings developing a standard for power building documentation.
Other recent work includes writing and publishing a book about the John Roan School, South London, providing heritage consultancy for the the station at Irun, North Spain and organising the Sofienberg 'Heritage and Community' Festival in our district of Sofienberg, Oslo.
Supervisors: Even Smith Wergeland, Luis Diaz, and David Roberts
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http://www.kulturland.se/portfolio/eaa-2021/
From the paper "The community has constant exposure to changing local conditions in the resource network that supports their livelihoods, giving them a direct connection to the tangible resource, whilst heritage professionals and the authorities have tools and infrastructure to support the management of those resources. A delicate balance is required to refocus conservation on resource management and livelihoods in this way, to the collective benefit of both parties in planning for the future. Through which we can move toward new better-informed conservation and management."
https://placesjournal.org/reading-list/post-war-housing-community-heritage-and-myth/
author), children and teenagers (and some adults) from Vestli and elsewhere across Oslo, Masters students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) and community artists Kim Frydenlund Grane and Torgeir Stige. It presents an account of the heritage of one of Oslo’s largest post-war communities both as place and community.
This account can be used to inform both Vestli’s current management and care and steer the development of future planning and conservation initiatives. It does this by presenting Vestli as an evolving place through its developing qualities and heritage values over time, built upon a
combination of research and community engagement. This forms the basis for the heritage strategy for Vestli presented in this study.
Peter Tábori’s Highgate New Town: Phase 1 (1967-78), one of the exemplary projects built at Camden from the late ‘60s (Alexandra Road, Maiden Lane etc.), is a singular achievement in the ‘urban-renewal’ and community-focus of the late 1960s, which blends continuity and the exoticism of Italian hill-towns to create vibrant place and community. This study tells the story of its development from origins in its challenging design to the heritage of its community today, spanning a wealth of rich connections from Richard and Su Rogers, Neave Brown, Ernö Goldfinger and the Etruscan God Tinia to Jane Jacobs and the megastructures of Paul Rudolph on the other side of the Atlantic.
Reflecting the gathering recognition of Tábori’s achievement seen in its inclusion in a 2019 RIBA-funded project identifying nine exemplar housing schemes for future housing models, this study presents community-led Conservation Area guidance and an application for Grade II* Listing to recognise and support Highgate New Town: Phase 1. As a residentled initiative, this story is told by the residents, historians and other sources, making a compelling case for care and support on the basis of its exceptional heritage values, the importance of its vital and unusual community spaces for its community and strong resident support from within that community.
The authors (Tom Davies and the WERA Working-Group) would like to thank; Professor Mark Swenarton (Cooks Camden: the making of Modern Housing) who contributed expert knowledge and support throughout and Fabian Watkinson, who kick-started the project and contributed boundless enthusiasm and invaluable assistance, as well as Even Smith Wergeland (AHO, Oslo), Luis Diaz (University of Brighton) and David Roberts (The Bartlett, UCL), for their guidance and steadfast support. Thanks also to Jonathon Makepeace at RIBA for the permission to use some of Tim Crocker and Martin Charles’ fantastic images and illustrator Stephanie Bower for lending her image of Civita di Bagnoregio.
Summary for Use-Strategy and Management Plan for The Alexandra Road and Ainsworth Estate Tenants Hall (the Hall) was produced by the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate Tenants and Residents Association (TRA) and Tom Davies (AHO) with input from Professor Mark Swenarton. It sets out strategies for repair, upkeep and use of the Hall developed by the Residents’ working group through studies and workshops undertaken between Spring 2019 and 2020. The programme of use and care builds on architect Neave Brown’s intention that it function as a vital community resource at the heart of Alexandra Road and the way in which AR’s community have used and cared for the Hall over the past 40 years. It considers the Hall, roof-garden and terraces as a grouped resource, reviewing past, current and potential future use and repair needs. A digital model of the Hall, roof-garden and terraces (developed for the study) will be used for monitoring and managing daily use and repairs. Other outputs of the study comprise conservation principles for the Hall’s future
management and an application to funding for repairs and consolidated use required in the immediate future. The resident-led process behind the study, intends equal weighting to design-intent, what was realised at construction, and its
adoption and adaptation by the residents so as to provide balanced representation of place and community.
statement it presents an account of the heritage of one of Oslo’s largest post-war communities both as place and community. This account can be used to inform both Vestli’s current management and care and steer the development of future planning and conservation initiatives. It does this by presenting Vestli as an evolving
place through its developing qualities and heritage values over time, built upon a combination of research and community engagement. This forms the basis for the heritage strategy for Vestli presented in this study.
Discussions with the Oslo Municipality Cultural Heritage Management Office (hereafter OCHO) and Stovner District Council (to which Vestli belongs) during the study, have enabled it to take its lead from current heritage work from OCHO and with that basing the heritage strategy for Vestli upon current heritage legislation and ‘tools’.
Thanks to Even Smith Wergeland, Abloom Oslo, Deichmanske Stovner, Vestli School, students participants from Vestli and other areas of Oslo, AHO Masters students (various) 2018-2019, In-Transit studio (AHO) and more
Prepared by: The Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate Tenants and Residents Association Working Group & Tom Davies (with input from Prof. Mark Swenarton)
Acknowledgements- The range of contributions to and support for this project has been considerable. Thanks first and foremost to the Residents of Alexandra Road who have taken part in the study and to Professor Mark Swenarton for his expert advice and support. Also to Even Smith-Wergeland (AHO), Luis Diaz (University of Brighton), David Roberts (The Bartlett) and John Allan (Isokon Trust) for their support and guidance in developing the approach used and also to Giacomo Pelizarri (AHO) for his efforts in producing the use-strategy and conservation model and illustrations included in this report and to Palak Dudani (AHO) for amongst other things suggesting the model as a responsive solution to monitoring the Hall suited to the purposes of this project.
This strained balance is explored through Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road
(1968–78), one of the numerous late sixties projects where boroughs
took over struggling private projects, and is contextualised by examples
from Scandinavia to demonstrate how things might otherwise have been. Alexandra Road’s outward appearance, urban and formal strategies reinforce an interpretation of the project as a typical late welfare state project.1 This is exemplified by its material language — concrete, expressive repetitive structure — which absorbs a range of different unit types and program elements such as community centre, shop, school, building department depot, play centre. This is supported by Brown’s assertions that it was conceived as a “seamless piece of the city,” a project possible only
in its specific socio-political context. However, beneath its highly controlled formal and spatial language, the conditions of its making and subsequent lived experience exposed it as a project “released into a different world to that in which it was conceived[,] set on the very cusp of the change from socialism to the me-generation.”2
This essay looks at that shift and considers the nature of ‘heritage values’ and how they might be developed further. Working from today’s approach to mitigation it takes art-critic Walter Benjamin’s assertion that we should bridge the gap between ‘actor’ (heritage and practitioner) and ‘audience’ (community/society) by ‘filling in…the orchestra-pit’ (Coles 1999:28). Exploring ideas such as making heritage ‘manifest’, Foucault’s heterotopias and Lefebvre’s distinctions of the ‘ordinary’ and ‘other’, it considers how we might anchor these heritage values in our everyday and work towards a heritage narrative which represents both place and the community that hold those heritage values (Foucault 1967, Lefebvre 1987, Diaz 2005 & Gonzalez-Ruibal 2008). It concludes with three-steps for achieving such a heritage narrative.
considers the ongoing reappraisal of the buildings of the period as heritage, the different agents involved, and the diverse challenges presented for the care of the buildings and communities who live and work in them. The notions of ‘contemporariness’ and ‘context’ demonstrated by the principle of ‘as found’ in Brutalism are investigated, focusing on how they reintroduced ‘community’ as a primary consideration. This approach is manifested in the Low Rise High Density (LRHD) projects of the late 1960s and in the longer term, many of the principles underpinning sustainability today. Review of current heritage practice takes a suggestion from architectural historian Alan Powers, proposing that we refocus on the ‘essence’ of buildings rather than
on their materiality, which can also be seen in today’s practice, and considers how this ‘essence’ should be extended to include community. The article concludes by considering how an integrated approach, drawing together the different themes of heritage, planning, and housing policy, might improve current practice to the benefit of both buildings and communities.
(AHO) together with architectural historian Professor Mark Swenarton as consultant. The report sets out conservation guidance, developed through a community-led process and specific to HNT, for inclusion in the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area (DPCA). This is followed by the application for Grade II* Listing for the deliberation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Historic England (HE), which seeks to recognise the national significance of HNT as exemplary public-housing. These are made on the basis of its exceptional heritage values, the importance of retaining community spaces for its community and strong resident support from that community.
http://www.kulturland.se/portfolio/eaa-2021/
From the paper "The community has constant exposure to changing local conditions in the resource network that supports their livelihoods, giving them a direct connection to the tangible resource, whilst heritage professionals and the authorities have tools and infrastructure to support the management of those resources. A delicate balance is required to refocus conservation on resource management and livelihoods in this way, to the collective benefit of both parties in planning for the future. Through which we can move toward new better-informed conservation and management."
https://placesjournal.org/reading-list/post-war-housing-community-heritage-and-myth/
author), children and teenagers (and some adults) from Vestli and elsewhere across Oslo, Masters students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) and community artists Kim Frydenlund Grane and Torgeir Stige. It presents an account of the heritage of one of Oslo’s largest post-war communities both as place and community.
This account can be used to inform both Vestli’s current management and care and steer the development of future planning and conservation initiatives. It does this by presenting Vestli as an evolving place through its developing qualities and heritage values over time, built upon a
combination of research and community engagement. This forms the basis for the heritage strategy for Vestli presented in this study.
Peter Tábori’s Highgate New Town: Phase 1 (1967-78), one of the exemplary projects built at Camden from the late ‘60s (Alexandra Road, Maiden Lane etc.), is a singular achievement in the ‘urban-renewal’ and community-focus of the late 1960s, which blends continuity and the exoticism of Italian hill-towns to create vibrant place and community. This study tells the story of its development from origins in its challenging design to the heritage of its community today, spanning a wealth of rich connections from Richard and Su Rogers, Neave Brown, Ernö Goldfinger and the Etruscan God Tinia to Jane Jacobs and the megastructures of Paul Rudolph on the other side of the Atlantic.
Reflecting the gathering recognition of Tábori’s achievement seen in its inclusion in a 2019 RIBA-funded project identifying nine exemplar housing schemes for future housing models, this study presents community-led Conservation Area guidance and an application for Grade II* Listing to recognise and support Highgate New Town: Phase 1. As a residentled initiative, this story is told by the residents, historians and other sources, making a compelling case for care and support on the basis of its exceptional heritage values, the importance of its vital and unusual community spaces for its community and strong resident support from within that community.
The authors (Tom Davies and the WERA Working-Group) would like to thank; Professor Mark Swenarton (Cooks Camden: the making of Modern Housing) who contributed expert knowledge and support throughout and Fabian Watkinson, who kick-started the project and contributed boundless enthusiasm and invaluable assistance, as well as Even Smith Wergeland (AHO, Oslo), Luis Diaz (University of Brighton) and David Roberts (The Bartlett, UCL), for their guidance and steadfast support. Thanks also to Jonathon Makepeace at RIBA for the permission to use some of Tim Crocker and Martin Charles’ fantastic images and illustrator Stephanie Bower for lending her image of Civita di Bagnoregio.
Summary for Use-Strategy and Management Plan for The Alexandra Road and Ainsworth Estate Tenants Hall (the Hall) was produced by the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate Tenants and Residents Association (TRA) and Tom Davies (AHO) with input from Professor Mark Swenarton. It sets out strategies for repair, upkeep and use of the Hall developed by the Residents’ working group through studies and workshops undertaken between Spring 2019 and 2020. The programme of use and care builds on architect Neave Brown’s intention that it function as a vital community resource at the heart of Alexandra Road and the way in which AR’s community have used and cared for the Hall over the past 40 years. It considers the Hall, roof-garden and terraces as a grouped resource, reviewing past, current and potential future use and repair needs. A digital model of the Hall, roof-garden and terraces (developed for the study) will be used for monitoring and managing daily use and repairs. Other outputs of the study comprise conservation principles for the Hall’s future
management and an application to funding for repairs and consolidated use required in the immediate future. The resident-led process behind the study, intends equal weighting to design-intent, what was realised at construction, and its
adoption and adaptation by the residents so as to provide balanced representation of place and community.
statement it presents an account of the heritage of one of Oslo’s largest post-war communities both as place and community. This account can be used to inform both Vestli’s current management and care and steer the development of future planning and conservation initiatives. It does this by presenting Vestli as an evolving
place through its developing qualities and heritage values over time, built upon a combination of research and community engagement. This forms the basis for the heritage strategy for Vestli presented in this study.
Discussions with the Oslo Municipality Cultural Heritage Management Office (hereafter OCHO) and Stovner District Council (to which Vestli belongs) during the study, have enabled it to take its lead from current heritage work from OCHO and with that basing the heritage strategy for Vestli upon current heritage legislation and ‘tools’.
Thanks to Even Smith Wergeland, Abloom Oslo, Deichmanske Stovner, Vestli School, students participants from Vestli and other areas of Oslo, AHO Masters students (various) 2018-2019, In-Transit studio (AHO) and more
Prepared by: The Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate Tenants and Residents Association Working Group & Tom Davies (with input from Prof. Mark Swenarton)
Acknowledgements- The range of contributions to and support for this project has been considerable. Thanks first and foremost to the Residents of Alexandra Road who have taken part in the study and to Professor Mark Swenarton for his expert advice and support. Also to Even Smith-Wergeland (AHO), Luis Diaz (University of Brighton), David Roberts (The Bartlett) and John Allan (Isokon Trust) for their support and guidance in developing the approach used and also to Giacomo Pelizarri (AHO) for his efforts in producing the use-strategy and conservation model and illustrations included in this report and to Palak Dudani (AHO) for amongst other things suggesting the model as a responsive solution to monitoring the Hall suited to the purposes of this project.
This strained balance is explored through Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road
(1968–78), one of the numerous late sixties projects where boroughs
took over struggling private projects, and is contextualised by examples
from Scandinavia to demonstrate how things might otherwise have been. Alexandra Road’s outward appearance, urban and formal strategies reinforce an interpretation of the project as a typical late welfare state project.1 This is exemplified by its material language — concrete, expressive repetitive structure — which absorbs a range of different unit types and program elements such as community centre, shop, school, building department depot, play centre. This is supported by Brown’s assertions that it was conceived as a “seamless piece of the city,” a project possible only
in its specific socio-political context. However, beneath its highly controlled formal and spatial language, the conditions of its making and subsequent lived experience exposed it as a project “released into a different world to that in which it was conceived[,] set on the very cusp of the change from socialism to the me-generation.”2
This essay looks at that shift and considers the nature of ‘heritage values’ and how they might be developed further. Working from today’s approach to mitigation it takes art-critic Walter Benjamin’s assertion that we should bridge the gap between ‘actor’ (heritage and practitioner) and ‘audience’ (community/society) by ‘filling in…the orchestra-pit’ (Coles 1999:28). Exploring ideas such as making heritage ‘manifest’, Foucault’s heterotopias and Lefebvre’s distinctions of the ‘ordinary’ and ‘other’, it considers how we might anchor these heritage values in our everyday and work towards a heritage narrative which represents both place and the community that hold those heritage values (Foucault 1967, Lefebvre 1987, Diaz 2005 & Gonzalez-Ruibal 2008). It concludes with three-steps for achieving such a heritage narrative.
considers the ongoing reappraisal of the buildings of the period as heritage, the different agents involved, and the diverse challenges presented for the care of the buildings and communities who live and work in them. The notions of ‘contemporariness’ and ‘context’ demonstrated by the principle of ‘as found’ in Brutalism are investigated, focusing on how they reintroduced ‘community’ as a primary consideration. This approach is manifested in the Low Rise High Density (LRHD) projects of the late 1960s and in the longer term, many of the principles underpinning sustainability today. Review of current heritage practice takes a suggestion from architectural historian Alan Powers, proposing that we refocus on the ‘essence’ of buildings rather than
on their materiality, which can also be seen in today’s practice, and considers how this ‘essence’ should be extended to include community. The article concludes by considering how an integrated approach, drawing together the different themes of heritage, planning, and housing policy, might improve current practice to the benefit of both buildings and communities.
(AHO) together with architectural historian Professor Mark Swenarton as consultant. The report sets out conservation guidance, developed through a community-led process and specific to HNT, for inclusion in the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area (DPCA). This is followed by the application for Grade II* Listing for the deliberation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Historic England (HE), which seeks to recognise the national significance of HNT as exemplary public-housing. These are made on the basis of its exceptional heritage values, the importance of retaining community spaces for its community and strong resident support from that community.