Publications – Happy to Live Here?
By Mark Hackett and Declan Hill
Published by PLACE Architecture and Built Environment Centre, Belfast, 2005
Happy to Live Here? was published to accompany the workshop and exhibition series of the same name, which ran in PLACE in 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.
Download Happy to Live Here? [PDF, 4.5mb]
- All content © the authors, 2005