Archives – 2005
Happy to Live Here?
9 Nov 2005 – 19 Nov 2005
18 Jan 2006 – 28 Jan 2006
22 Feb 2006 – 13 May 2006
The Happy to Live Here? exhibition was created by two architects working in Belfast, Mark Hackett and Declan Hill. It was originally shown at PLACE in November 2005. It took as its starting point a review, in text and photographs, of the Minister for the Environment’s Housing Policy Initiative first released in January 1996. The Policy was published as a guidance document, “Creating Places: Achieving Quality in Residential Developments” in May 2000 (available to download from the NI Planning Service here).
The exhibition aimed to examine and question how the “Blue Book,” as it has come to be known, has impacted housing since 1996. Hackett and Hill interrogated many different issues including the orientation of houses, car parking, street layouts, the re-use of old buildings, possibilities for apartment living and home energy costs. As they delved into these issues, Hackett and Hill became especially interested in the quality of the public spaces, amenities and infrastructure around housing developments, and this interest is reflected in the images used in the exhibition.
Part of the Arts Council-funded audience development programme.
Related
Download the Happy to Live Here? Exhibition Booklet [PDF, 4.5mb]
- All content © the authors, 2005
Article: Declan Hill: “Happy to Live Here?” [Originally published in Your PLACE Or Mine?, PLACE, Belfast, 2008]
Housey Housey [Exhibition at PLACE, 2006]
Home Front [Exhibition at PLACE, 2009]
Talk: High Density Housing [Talk at PLACE, 2009]