De Bockstraat is part of a very large scale redevelopment of a run down inner city area of The Hague, and consists of l 83 dwellings for rent and for sale. The perspective shows the central square. LOCAL DISTINCTIVEN again, 'product miles' allows a choice between materials based on weight and distance travelled. The use of indigenous materials weighed against imported materials (with indigenous materials in addition supporting indigenous crafts.) In conclusion, sustainable housing is a key aspect of sustainable development. Until exemplar projects are fully evaluated we should use indicators to guide good practice. The move towards more sustainable housing will in itself create the new vernacular. Britain:theTrabanthouse buildersof Europe? Martin Richardson worries that we sacrifice quality at every turn. What's gone wrong with British housing? Returning from Europe, it's hard to believe that this generally wealthy, educated, socially responsible count1y can still be despoiling its cities, towns and villages with housing of such abysmal quality. The UK house building indust1y has achieved the distinction of producing the Trabant housing of Europe. We seem for some years now to have settled into a fearful paralysis, a wistful nostalgia. We do not flatter our heritage by inept mimicry, we degrade it. One can enumerate reasons for this condition: our early industrialisation and our flight from its horrors into the imagined wholesomeness of the past, creating a kind of refuge for troubled times, such as our traumatic affair with the (largely degraded) modernism of the 1960s; a sense that the past was better than ever the future could be; our class system that (endorsed by Prince Charles) equates class with classical; and the de-culturisation and decontrol of the Thatcher years. The ve1y title of the 1998 East Midlands conference implies that even a future can only be validated by viewing it in the rear mirror. And the idea that we have to quote the leaflet, to Context 60 December 1998 "blend with our historic settlements" implies a use of hushed voices in sacred places. Yet, though no current planning officer transposed to that time and place would have let him do it, John Wood did not build Bath in hushed tones. What characterises the old places and buildings that we love is their authenticity, their dramatic geology of strata and intrusions that reflect the materials and construction of their time, the dynamics of their evolution. The attempt to snuggle up to an idealised historically correct past with obsequious parody has been a dreadful failure. Under the most auspicious circumstances, with the best talents, whether in Richmond or Dorchester, it does not work. The scenographic image does not bear close scrutiny. Society, materials, economics, the spirit of the times have changed too much. To respect the past is to understand its vitality, not to ape its mannerisms. Foster's intervention in Burlington House shows just this. Sadly this is an all too rare example. Yet only an hour or two's flight away we find societies constructing futures without their eyes transfixed by the rear mirror. Denmark has been fortunate in its transition to modernity, as though it had passed seamlessly from 1830 to 1930 without the physical and social trauma that we have experienced. A quiet and sympathetic contempora1y architecture is happily accepted and created by a kitchless society, which respects progressive, evolutiona1y design, and social experiment, as a desirable, responsible and normal part of every day life. In Germany the Weimar Republic was at the cutting edge of modernity, and the great housing projects of the 1920s still enchant by their quiet, seemingly un-revolutionary liveability. The Nazis gave neo-classicism and neovernacularism a bad name, which perhaps saved Germany from our post war regressions. Berlin can now show a sequence of progressive projects, repairing and extending its fabric, that convince by their built quality and as places to live in. Ten years ago I won a competition for a housing project in The Hague, where my work has been ever since. This has afforded me a close view of the Netherlands, a country which, with its own brand of modernity, its commitment to physical and social development and its cultural responsibility, presents a model of what can be 13
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