Urgent Minor Matters: Re-Activating Archival Documents for Social Housing Futures

Abstract

Architectural archives of large-scale housing projects are usually ordered with construction in mind, but can they also function in support of the social in housing? This article reveals how particular notions of inhabitation were inscribed in documents used in the design processes of a post-World War II housing estate, the Byker Redevelopment in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (1968-83). From their site office, Ralph Erskine’s Arkitektkontor AB experimented with communicative processes with residents, some of which were kept on record and stored. Scribbles on furnished drawings point to particular imaginaries involving sometimes just one household; residents’ voices are noted in lists, in a local newspaper and in evaluative reports. Re-activating the office archive ethnographically, I stitch together episodic accounts from these scant scraps. The aim is not an all-embracing representation of historical events, but instead the possibility to attend to small truths of the social – urgent minor matters – in mainstream housing futures.