Domestic Architecture 1700 to 1960

13 Post-War Housing, 1960s Low Rise

The Parker Morris report of 1961 recommended standards for all new homes, public and private which reflected changing patterns of living with more informality in the way space in the house was used. The main recommendations were for more living and circulation space and better heating throughout the house so that all spaces could be used freely. The idea of a parlour set aside for best was abandoned in favour of two living spaces, one for private or quiet activity and the other for eating although the latter could be part of an enlarged kitchen. The kitchen was to be extensively fitted and provided with plenty of space for storage and the use of electric domestic appliances, such as washing machines and refrigerators. These recommendations were made mandatory for public sector housing in 1967 and briefly for local authority housing in 1969 and although they were never made mandatory for private housing their influence was widely felt.
In the private sector there was a marked trend towards a growth in the size of operations with large building firms such as Taylor Woodrow, Laing and Wimpey using architects to bring high standards of construction and design to the privately built post-war house. Typical features of the plan included garages linked or integrated with the main house – covered but open fronted parking spaces were marketed as ‘car-ports’; some halls were spacious and well lit with low horizontal or long vertical windows and overlooked by ‘gallery’ landings. Other features of the interior included L-shaped open living areas with space for dining area at one end and opening through french windows to a paved sitting-out area, the ‘patio’; a downstairs W.C or small ‘study’ was often incorporated in the downstairs plan. In keeping with the Parker Morris report, some kitchens contained a dining space so that they became family rooms whilst there was much emphasis on the luxury fitted kitchen with a stainless steel sink and work tops.
Exterior styling varied but there were, nevertheless, common characteristics which give sixties housing an identity of its own. Plain, flat wall surfaces with large oblong ‘picture’ windows were typical. The windows usually had robust wooden frames with opening top lights. Front doors were usually glazed in small glazed panels, usually with rippled glass whilst the woodwork was painted a light colour: white, pale sky blue or primrose yellow were popular. Some roofs were flat but the typical sixties house has a low pitched roof with an end gable finished with a prominent but unadorned barge board painted white. Roof tiles were generally of brown or grey concrete and although red brick walls were found on 1960s housing, light brown, grey or buff coloured bricks were widely favoured. Claddings of tiles (usually of concrete), white painted boarding applied between the ground and first windows typified the 1960s house and continued to be popular into the 1970s.
The external design of some houses took their inspiration from Scandinavian models and these are instantly recognisable for their steeply pitched roof - gable to the front - filled with vertical timbers and sweeping almost to the ground. The same effect was often continued inside with pine panelled kitchens and timbered ceilings. Also popular in the 1960s were neo-Georgian style characterised by red brick walls, pedimented porches, small paned windows and fake louvered shutters. A larger style was sometimes called the ‘Colonial’ with double garages under a colonnaded facade incorporating bow windows and concrete urns.
For the first time in five hundred years the roof line of many new houses was unbroken by chimney stacks. From the early sixties, following the recommendations of the Parker Morris report houses most new houses were built new with full or partial central heating; moreover, the use of open coal fires had declined since the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1956. Some houses retained an open fireplace as a feature with a prominent end gable flue sometimes built – or at least clad - in stone to add ‘character’ to the house whilst in the living room, the fireplace opening was surrounded in stonework: In the later 1960s, ‘Cotswold’ stone fireplaces became popular, regardless of the underlying local geology. The grate often contained a back boiler capable of heating two or three radiators and a towel rail although after 1960 oil fired central heating systems were widely adopted. Comfort, convenience and efficiency – in the utilisation of space and the consumption of energy - were now established as the chief factors shaping the future of urban house design.