in somecountry old build allow to used newspaper as filler they save some building budget since some build not allow for more than 100 years... as a guy who keep fixing building.. it don't need 100.. and few 10 years.. you lost watertight and it a building.. it take forver to find the leak and plug it like your broken teeth.
Sums up quite nice most of the things built/done/raised/laid down during that era, be it architecture or culture or whatever. Kinda makes me understand the true origin of OK Boomer. Greetings from a post-soviet country.
'she was taken by surprise by an explosion that blew her across the room' yeah I'd be a bit surprised if I got yeeted across the room by a bloody gas explosion
In many cases most or all of the bolts that were supposed to secure the panels were omitted owing to poor quality control at the factory - the holes didn't line up... Consequently much of the structure was simply placed and only remained standing through the loads imposed through self-weight. I'm amazed it didn't collapse during construction.
bruh I've only done a couple years of theatrical construction and I've never worked with concrete, but I legit had to stop and process that someone actually did that... Like, even toddlers can intuit the difference in structural integrity between newspaper and concrete
@特にありません I've been a site manager on many UK jobs where we've done major renovations to skyscrapers. I can confirm from the wear on core cutting bits, and from having to move the cores that they are not made from paper. Other countries I cannot vouch for.
2020: Entire Russia is still filled with such blocks and also building new every year. And disasters are kind of normal... www.google.com/search?q=%D0%B2%D0%B7%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B2%D1%8B+%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2+%D0%B2+%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8&client=ms-unknown&prmd=nvi&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjE1pzzxqPsAhXG-ioKHQbvCEsQ_AUoA3oECBoQAw&biw=412&bih=727&dpr=2.63
@Moon自殺 It's not corruption at play. It's the unwillingness to spend money on demolition. Safely demolishing a place costs money, and in many cases, money is being spent elsewhere, and in part, because people do not want to pay more in tax to get things done immediately. The sadder part though, is that money is prioritized over human lives, as we can clearly see with matters such as the Coronavirus.
@@JagoHazzard which ones - I could probably explain what are OK, and what might not be. Meanwhile there is another YT vid report on the investigation on this, which does cover the reasons for the collapse, if built correctly the system might have worked. Do you think all these towers come from the kids in the 1950s playing with Unifix Cubes at school and Tri-ang Arkitect kits at home ?
"Shoddy workmanship" When you put newspaper in the wall instead of concrete in the formwork (or nothing at all), and put random screws in... It's not "shoddy" It can't even be called "workmanship" and every single person who did this should be fired, a toddler could build a more logically sound structure than that.
No, no it isn't. This objectively isn't the rich turning a profit. This is unskilled, blue-collar workers turning a profit. As stated, they were paid by how much they did, not quality. So they cut corners. Literally everyone wants to make the most money with least effort.
Builders: "Oh no, this is like the worst case scenario." Investigators: "What we have witnessed is the best case scenario possible given how they were constructed."
Well, builders build buildings and investigators investigate disasters, their perspectives are always going to be different. The best case scenario for a builder is that the building lasts until it's decommissioned, the best case scenario for an investigator is that few or even no one is killed or hurt during a disaster.
- "And was surprised by an explosion that took her across the room and blew out her walls" **half drenched in blood laying on the other side of the room while her arm is dangling from a single joint. She spoke calmly: "well what an inconvenient surprise"
And here in Sydney, Australia, we have new high-rise "apartments" that have cracked, and another that started sinking. Shoddy work, shoddy inspection practices, and plain corruption still go on today. A few heads on pikes might make these people think twice.
Not just Sydney, I work in commercial and see some toe curling stuff. I just finished up a re-roof on a high end apartment block (hail damage on a 6 month old roof, $2.8 million apartments) The day that hail hit was the luckiest day of that builders life,the roofing work was beyond shoddy and would have lead to years of litigation, in the end the insurance company paid me to install correctly and the builders shitty quality assurance gets to live to the next project.
Flammable cladding was a conveniant skapegoat though. Grenfell Tower had far more faults than just that, and likely would have still resulted in a catastrophic fire without it. (many firedoors missing, compromised internal devisions between apartments, only one stairwell, countless undocumented residents... it was a disaster waiting to happen)
Jim Taylor Have to disagree there. The cladding was the pivotal factor in the Grenfell case. While you are correct to say that there were other defects, none of those could have resulted in anything close to the catastrophe that actually occurred. The reason for that is simple - compartmentation. As a purpose built block, it was designed to contain fire within the dwelling of origin for at least 60 minutes. The cladding enabled a small fire to spread back into flats from outside, and the air gaps underneath the panels allowed flames to spread up and around the building incredibly quickly. Without that opportunity for rapid spread, any fire starting would have been largely contained at its point of origin, and you would not have seen anything like what happened.
@@tjfSIM Then I must counter-disagree, for I cited several examples for why the compartmentation on the tower was unfit for purpose, and indeed fatally compromised. Like the compartmentation on the Titanic, such a scheme doesn't work if there are large gaps in its coverage, such as excessive penetrations between compartments, missing fire doors and irregular residents untrained in fire safety. The cladding was certainly what allowed the fire to spread Around the building, as so fast, but with such blatent faults with the interior and only one stairwell, the building was a cutprice deathtrap waiting to happen, from the day it was built. I am a little biased in this topic though, as I had a particularly odious [and now disowned] relation in the structual engineering sector whom used to defend buildings like this, despite knowing their numerous faults and the systematically poor adhesion to standards.
@@jimtaylor294 I think you are spot-on, Sir. If architects, builders, and the people responsible for overseeing and maintaining buildings actually did what they were (supposedly) competent at, then there would be fewer fires, collapses and other structural failures, not to mention heat rays from the walkie-talkie tower. As usual, "lessons will be learned" but they never are.
@@jimtaylor294 Gaps in vertical and horizontal separation internally certainly would result in smoke spread, but we are still talking about a purpose built block with reinforced concrete floors and walls between flats. Even with gaps or defects, you would not get anything like the degree of fire travel that occurred, and certainly nowhere near as quickly. The same goes for fire doors. In the case of Grenfell, it would be elements like excessive gaps between doors and frames, and missing smoke seals, that would be the main issue. I completely agree that this may well have enabled smoke to enter the common areas from the flats, and to enter flats from the common areas, so the stay-put policy was compromised. Lots of people raise the issue of the single escape route, and I have to say that comes from a lack of understanding of the building regulations applying to purpose built blocks, where a minimum 60 minutes separation and 'stay put policy' applies. There are hundreds of buildings in the UK (and abroad) that were built to the same principle. Again, the problem here was not the staircase, it was the rapid breaching of compartmentation. I stand by my point that without the external spread facilitated by the cladding, a disaster of this scale could not have occurred.
@Jonathan F they wouldn't care less as they will be sleeping soundly in their beds of cash, while we normal commoners would be sleeping inside coffin boxes as a result of their "mistakes".
I work in construction and have done for 40 years. I can guarantee that the people involved at every level do not give a shit. All they need is paperwork and they are good to go. Nobody who knows what they are doing is in control of anything in case they expose those above them. You'd be amazed at what I've seen hidden in buildings.
In my town here in Sweden it's the 70- and 80s houses that are shit. The economy was good so everyone wanted to build houses and bam whole streets of the plain same looking houses that actually aren't too great actually
Grew up in a tower block, neither ugly nor dangerous. The block houses residents to this day, nobody is complaining. It's just that the surroundings are much more beautiful today than they used to be, more nice trees.
truth be told, most people didn't care what it looked like, as long as they had a roof over their head, to bad they didn't have a wall in front of them.
Out local council has just installed mains powered smoke alarms in nearly every room of our house last week as a result of Grenfell. But was there ever a third party regulator hired to approve of work on these kinds of buildings?
Should also be noted that the Nielsen Larson panel system was not properly tested for the number of stories Ronan Point was built to - it was meant for the construction of low rise blocks of flats.
It's original Danish design was limited to under-8 storeys, but with modifications, it was used (though never in Denmark) for blocks up to 17 storeys in Malaysia (Pilot project in Kuala Lumpur, though, the high cost and high level of industrial readiness and transportation requirements made it not be reproduced) and in 19 storey blocks in Puerto Rico. It is hard to find out if these modifications involved any structural changes, though from floor plans they seem to have used the same load bearing span, though thickness of the load bearing panels may have been adjusted.
Reina Takagawa funny it would have been designed by Danes, of LEGO fame, because it does look like it works in a similar fashion. However, such a tall concrete structure without continuous internal reinforcement in the form of rebar, can only be described as sheer engineering insanity. I’ve seen many structures done with prefabricated pieces, including some buildings in my unabashedly brutalist neighborhood - if not the wall on my own balcony-turned-sunroom, which may have been poured in place but I suspect was intended to be prefabricated in the original plan as it’s very thin - or one of the Torralta hotel towers at Tróia by the Conceição Silva studio where I’ve stayed at for a few days, in which those are stuck onto a regular reinforced concrete frame. Obviously. As for how this almost literal house of cards got approved in the first place, it really boggles the mind.
@@Mainyehc It is perfectly safe and appropriate, if built and assembled and with the correctly set up joints. The most common set-up, is for rebar to protrude from the panels and these will be welded together with the rebar from the panel below, and these joints would thereafter be concreted. The UK situation is quite different from much of Europe, in that, as mentioned, the construction industry remained technologically primitive. In Continental Europe, the push towards increased prefabrication and industrialised building, was driven primarily by the fact that wages were increasing so rapidly during the post-war recovery. Britain's early recovery was sluggish, and labour savings were not quite as important, and there was anyhow an ample supply of workers. It was the growing shortage of construction workers as the 1960's progressed that was the primary driver for the implementation of industrialised building in the UK, and several subsequent governments were keen to use it as a means of increasing the technological level of the construction industry. Thus the setting up of the National Building Agency to oversee this, and so on, in the late 1960's. But, given the lack of expertise that the industry as a whole had, and the very sudden and rapid implementation of it, it is not surprising that the result was at times very problematic; there were problems in many cottage estates too. In most other countries, this development was gradual, and knowledge and expertise was allowed to accumulate. In the UK, the share of industrialised construction methods rose sharply in the late 1960's, and peaked in 1970, after which it basically collapsed. In much of Western Europe, various industrialised methods are still prevalent to a large degree (though in the majority of cases, it is never expressed visually). The blocks seen in the opening of the video, for example, along with many surviving blocks are traditional in-situ frame with infill buildings, or "conventional" constructions. At the time in 1968, load bearing panel structures usually did not exceed 15 storeys, however (all early Soviet high-rise housing blocks above 9 storeys were frame blocks with non-load bearing panels or block infill, for example). A taller building requires larger and more robust panels--it is not clear to me if this was considered in the case of the Freemason's Road estate--though, regardless, the overall quality of the concrete used in the panels was sub-par and below even what was specified.
Good point, there are some Larsen Nielsens in Prague - Czech republic, however they are mostly built in 8 story version, but also some 12 story versions were built
@M J Probably the same one they showed us at college. I was either doing my OND or HNC in Building Studies at the time. It made an impact though, I'm going back circa 30 years now
This shouldve been the gas stoves advertisment "5 years guarantee, and could withstand explosions that blew you to the other side of the room and took out a whole building"
People unfortunately don't go to prison for this kind of stuff since they know their way around laws which helps them escape prison even when ~70 people are killed such as the massive fire in a huge leisure centre on the Isle of Man in the 1970s...
“Resident Ivy Hodge, a 56 year old cake decorator, lit a match to light her gas stove and was surprised by an explosion which blew her across the room.” Not that I’ve ever been blown across the room by an explosion, but that certainly does seem like quite the surprise.
Now I picture a bunch of old grandmas drinking vodka in a circle of chairs playing cards when someone above their floor slams their door, “Jenga, blyat! Hehehe. Mixalkova, pass me the cane”
Better off living in an 'old school' slum than these chicken coops. Grew up in very poor conditions but always had a cat and dog to let outside and cuddle with.
Debatable. Some genuinely good housing - that simply lacked features like an indoor toilet - were flattened to build many of these monolithic grey deathtraps. My grandmother lived for nearly a quarter-century in a house that had been thrown up in the 1800's for railway workers; in original configuration it would be deemed a practical cave dwelling by modern eyes, yet by the period she had it, all mod con's had been long since installed, making it a very comfortable place to live.
Also debatable, blocks of panels or how call them in Czech republic / Slovakia - "panelák" are mostly considered as decent and affordable housing where unless neighbours and owners council are douchebags, then it is also calm place to live and without needs to care about whole infrastructure which is mostly shared.
^ No; physics & human nature did. People like to have living space, not to feel like sardines in a tin... especially a poorly noise insulated, mould prone & questionably built tin.
@Maintenance Renegade Aspirational pictures of the future in newspaper colour supplements of the 1960s often featured skyscrapers separated by acres of grassland and linked by monorails or overhead walkways (and sprinkled with helicopters or flying cars). I never saw how that was better than having lots of two or three-storey houses on the ground, as most cities did at that time, but our urban planners obviously felt differently.
It wasn't the government that built them! It wasn't the government that decided to design them that way, build them poorly and employ badly trained workers for a quick profit. The government sure has some responsibility but not as much as the company that did the crime. The likes of Tony Hayward, Goldman Sachs, Fred Goodwin, Elizabeth Holmes et al would agree strongly with you though!
Being a Swedish anglophile, I'm loving your channel. I've visit England a few times over the years and it seems that tragic events coexist with my journeys to the green island. First time it was in 1982 and while in London the IRA terrorist bombed Hyde park and Regents park. Second time I visited was in 1987 and just after I left London there was the Kings Cross station fire. In 2005 I went to London on a business trip. Stayed at a small hotell just by the, you guessed right, Kings Cross station. I went home only a week before the terrorist attack in that station. I've also visited England without major disaster so I'm not totally cursed....
At some point after the wars, architecture and structural integrity were abandoned in favour of fitting as many people into homes in as short a space as possible. Really bloody disappointing (and quite scary to live in when you see what happens to similar buildings)
Almost the exact same thing happened in ancient Rome. To prevent slums, large apartment complexes called "islands" were built. Usually these were very unstable and the ground floor was the most expensive because it actually provided any shelter to the elements and a place for a shop. These buildings could collapse and catch fire very quickly, but they were also built extremely fast (there might be a link there) and thus they were seen as a solution to the influx of immigrants which was preferrable to slums. Weird that in 2000 years we made hardly any progress.
Yah, the ground floors of those Roman _insulae_ often had 1½- or 2-story-tall arches that could be used as shophouses, with a living/sleeping area in a loft above the shop. While the top floor units were smaller and had 5 stories' worth of stairs to climb to get to them. And it wasn't just Rome where ground floors were more expensive. In general, before elevators/lifts, the lower floors of buildings were more desirable, because you could _get_ to them more easily. Which was partly why starving artists so often lived in attic apartments -- as did Victor Frankenstein (as a poor medical student) in the original book. 🙂
Funny how the same types of apartments in the communist block are considered the best built and safest type of housing in the area. One thing you can't criticize them for, they were damn good builders.
@@GlamStacheessnostalgialounge Yugoslavia too. My city was destroyed in 1963 by a devastating earthquake and many Soviet/Yugoslav style tower blocks were constructed and none of them have ever collapsed or had any major problems so far. I currently live in a new apartment building that I think looks bad compare to the old ones. Greetings from Macedonia.
There is a great documentary from 1984 on UA-cam that discusses in detail everything that went wrong in the construction of these tower blocks. Search for "Inquiry. The Great British Housing Disaster". The one problem was that the large panel systems (LPS) used were not designed to be used in such large buildings, and those systems also were not designed to be used in a cold and humid climate, so there were moisture and mould problems in many of these LPS built blocks. The other problem were the unskilled workers paid a piece rate for each panel they assembled. So naturally they just wanted to get as many panels in place as they could, and being unskilled they did not understand the importance of the bolts and the cement. The documentary features interviews with former workers who were clueless, openly saying that if the bolts did not fall into place on the first try of putting in the panel, they just cut them off. In contrast, in the GDR (former socialist state in Eastern Germany), they built countless LPS based blocks, and most of those are still standing to this day, and have no problems at all thanks to two main differences: The LPS systems didn't use bolts. The steel rebar was extended out from the panels, so that the panels could be welded together. The welds were filled in with concrete. And the people who assembled the blocks were skilled workers. In the GDR, building LPS blocks was a profession that required several years of training.
The GDR thing you can apply to pretty much all the countries behind the Iron Curtain. I mean just look at bloody Pripyat. Those blocks are still standing three decades after being abandoned.
the soviets used prefab slabs made of a mix of concrete and slag, but only in the immidiate "oh shit we need houses NOW" post war periods, mostly the 1950's and 60's. then they just used regular concrete. surprisingly, almost all of those old blocs are still standing and used.
In Scotland we call tower blocks 'multis' as in multi-storey housing. Most have been retrofitted with a concierge these days with guards who will buzz you into the building, so the entrances to them are fairly nice looking and well maintained. However up until the 90's anyone could walk straight in the front door and so the lifts would always have broken buttons and that hard-to-forget smell of urine-on-aluminium. Though the piss smelling lift was still preferable to using one of the stairwells where you would occasionally find a gentleman passed out with a syringe sticking out of his arm, leg or groin.
Interesting stuff! I didn't expect that the UK had this kind of thing. In the US we call them "Projects" as in the "Housing Project" The US ones are the same as your description tho lol
@@Camdavis11 In the US they generally refer to public housing though. And they're often not even high rises. Depends on where you go. Basically a failure anywhere they're implemented either way. Always turns areas into high crime areas.
@@Camdavis11 I'm aware of the US variety. One of my favourite movies is Candyman and it is centred around a bunch of now-demolished tower blocks in Chicago that were known as Cabrini-Green. Supposedly the most violent place in the US for many years. I also remember the short-lived Eddie Murphy cartoon called The PJ's ;) But yeah, pee in the elevators, graffiti everywhere, a drug dealer on every floor and not somewhere you want to bring up kids.
@@krashd That's what happens when you have people who need to be in managed care running around left to their own devices. They pee/poop on stuff and themselves.
Another great vid Jago! My mum and dad were living in a block just behind Ronan Point at the time of the explosion and showed her this vid. Brought back some memories for her that's for sure. One in particular that she remembers the bang from the explosion as being in 'stereo' - as it were as the sound from the explosion itself and a another bang from their own fire place (also gas) because of the sudden pressure difference.
"Frankly, I think the central pillar system might need strengthening a bit." "Is that going to put the cost up?" "I'm afraid so." "I don't know that we need to worry about strengthening that much. After all, they're not meant to be luxury flats." "Absolutely. If we make sure the tenants are of light build, relatively sedentary, and we have a spot of good weather, I think we have a winner here."
Having travelled to China, I've witnessed many such buildings being erected in a jiffy. Most of the time peeps already moved in before the thing's even half done. So yeah, it's quick and efficient, and people don't look the gift horse in the mouth when many have nowhere else to go. Yet I can't help but feel for these folks as tragedy is unquestionably pending upon them. These quickly but not steadily built low cost blocks will kill many.
@@VeyronBD I don't know if he was telling the truth but a colleague told me they were using bamboo as concrete reinforcement, I know the scaffolding was bamboo.
@@chickenpommes19 I think the nick-name for them is 'tofu buildings' because the materials they are using have the structural integrity of tofu. Don't worry about 30 years from now. They're falling apart now. They'll be lucky if any last that long.
Don't worry, Sydney has some too... Opal Tower anyone? Only difference is it's 'luxury' apartments in dense areas neighboring other high-rises, rather than standalone and public housing.
Canberra too. They finally pulled them down when they expanded the city centre. They were considered pretty sketchy by the general community. I guess it depended on what you were used to. I don’t know where they relocated everyone to, I’ll have to ask what happened when i next visit..
@@creatrixZBD Happen to be Canberran myself - the residents have been relocated to newer, freestanding properties all over - they don't get dumped in one suburb anymore.
@@TommyTom21 yeah i feel like most housing projects here are prefab buildings from the 50s-70s that were only intended to be temporary solutions. but it seems like they'll stick around for a while longer, since we love to create a spectacle out of poverty. god forbid public housing actually looks nice--how will the poor be motivated to stop being poor if they're not miserable?
Aiden Howlett thanks. Yeah i lived in the CBR for a couple years in the late 80s, but mostly i was down the snowfields, so not exactly a local :) so i kinda know stuff but not really, if that makes sense 🤷🏽♀️ I vaguely remember there being some public discussion about the social ramifications of concentrating everyone in one space versus seeding everyone out amongst the wider community. Canberra is a weird place, I love it and side-eye it at the same time. I’m glad I have family there to give me a reason to visit. 🖤
“It seems that as long as there is neglect from those in charge, the cost will always be paid in human life,” This will always be true as long as politicians are, effectively, pre-pardoned for such failures and never forced to take responsibility or pay the consequences of their neglect in cases like these.
Teaching my Year 13s about crimes of the powerful tomorrow, the timing of this post couldn't be better. Thank you. Also, love the posts on London streets, districts, rails and characters...
Thanks for posting this. We heard it go, though we didn't know what it was at the time - we lived in Plaistow in Newham, and mum said there had been "a hell of a bang" - we talked about it at school, and some said they'd actually seen it, though that might have been just kids trying to one-up others. And they wondered how it was built so cheaply ... they cut so many corners they ended up with a circle. ps reports soon after said that it could have been a lot worse: had it happened a few hours later a lot more people would have been in their kitchens, and would have been caught in the collapse.
Ah Yes, The joy of Human Filing Cabinets, as my dear wife so aptly calls them... Apart from being so often shodily built (here in Australia too), they were invariably the last style of accommodation appropriate for the needs of their tenants... 😵
So much ignorance and lack of empathy in this comment section. I just don't understand why some people don't believe everyone should be able to have a steady roof above their heads despite their socio-economic standing
This. In the 1960s, almost 400,000 houses were deemed to be unfit for habitation. Those people needed housing, and they needed it quick. I'm not defending the shoddy workmanship by any means but tower blocks like this (when built and maintained properly) were an efficient way of lifting people out of horrible living situations.
City is able to say such things because there is always an employer out there giving him money because the world moved on due to the fact that smarter people existed n allowed his bloodline to procreate by thinking of the other people.
@@mirzaahmed6589 they don't make stoves like they used to. If a stove can't survive an entire building collapsing don't bother trying to sell it to me.
@@Blue.. That stove was probably 15% steel, 5% ceramic and 80% cast iron. Those things were monsters and most likely had higher load bearing capacity than any of the walls around them.
And worried too. As a Brit who at the time about to move out of my parents. I saw so many buildings modified after the diaster. It's scary to think how many had that dangerous cladding, or how many corners were cut all across the country. I'm angry at Grenfell, but I'm enraged at the thousands more put at risk.
What sickened me about Grenfell was the amount of British army helicopters that could have been used to rescue people. Then a friend pointed out that that sort of effort only happens to rich homes in California. How many people cheered for air displays and they couldn't even fly them in to save lives? Those buildings are too high for fire brigades to deal with.
@@Stettafire I live in a London council flat, and (while I'm relatively sure we don't have the same cladding on our building) I still freak out whenever I hear a neighbour's fire alarm. My mum's the same, but she was working nearby at the time and saw the fire so naturally it hits her worse.
I remember this... one thing that was noted also... the design was used and developed for housing in the Middle East - the first blocks where built in Saudi Arabia but they limited the height no more than 4 levels... in the UK they went as high as 24 levels but after 4 levels ie concrete panels and bolts would start not to line up etc so at the top you could only bolt 2 of 4 bolts together
That chimes with what my dad said who worked for Newham council. Apparently the remaining bolts had their heads cut off and were glued over the holes to cover it up.
@@dans2425 That's what I heard, the reason given that the builders were on piece rate - so much per bolt - so they weren't going to waste time forcing things through.
It is originally a Danish panel system, it was used for terrace and slab blocks, approved for heights up 8 storeys. The problem with the bolts not lining up is not a product of this, but of several other issues, relating to the expertise of the work force producing both the panels and doing the assembly, the quality of oversight, and of training. In the British case, the post-war construction industry remained relatively conservative and primitive and basic methods remained dominant, whereas this was not the case in continental Europe.
If you look on the intro to BBC/Pathe's "Look at Life" you can see the damage to the concrete slabs caused by poor handling and a rush to get the job done with piecemeal labour.
Poor workmanship is often held to be the reason for the failure of system-built tower blocks like Ronan Point, but that was not accidental. A major part of Henry Ford-type industrialisation was DE-SKILLING the workers. Instead of years of apprenticeship as a coach builder, car factories aimed to quickly train people to do simple repetitive tasks at high speed. Overseers were there to maintain speed, not quality. Staff were easily replaced, and had no incentive to take pride in their work. This deskilling (under the name of "New Ways of Working") is making its way into health and social services. Tasks are broken down into components, and wherever possible delegated to less qualified people working for lower pay. Hence things once done by doctors are done by nurses, registered nurses' work is done by care workers, and whole classes of patients are outsourced from hospitals to nursing homes, care homes and eventually "the community." Care homes do without experienced staff because minimum wage levels are lower for the very young. The new hospitals in Scotland are falling apart even before they can be opened, and much the same must be happening inside.
I knew someone who owned a heavy construction company, and his was one of the responding teams to the L'Ambience Plaza collapse in Connecticut in 1987. - Afterward, he was a much quieter person, who didn't sleep so well. I didn't see that kind of rapid personality change until late fall in 2001 when a number of EMT friends returned from their weeks of volunteer search & rescue work at the World Trade Center in NYC.
I remember this event happening, I was eleven at the time.My Uncle (now sadly deceased)had been the chief engineer on the bridge that crosses the railway in Cambridge (Hills Road to be precise).He explained at the time to me about the dominoe effect. While we are on the subject of homes can I once again implore of you Jago to make a video about the homeless who sleep on night buses.I am a night bus driver and it really is a disgrace that in the 21st century vast numbers of homeless people have to live this way.
You've got homeless people sleeping on night buses or wherever they can, while you have a family of parasites living life large in a huge mansion(Buckingham Palace)! In this 21st century, royalty is a useless anachronism.
@@neilforbes416 Britain is hundreds of millions of pounds better off because of the Royals. You might not like 'em personally, and you may hate the idea of a monarchy, but you can't say they cost any taxpayer money, because they DON'T. We make a BIG PROFIT out of the fact the country has an ancient monarchy. Check it out here:- ua-cam.com/video/bhyYgnhhKFw/v-deo.html
@@effyleven Ever been to Versailles palace in France? Sans Souci in Germany? BOTH Royal Palaces, BOTH attract millions of visitors, BOTH do not have a monarchy in residence so you can walk around and treat Royalty the way they should be treated: An historical subject that has no place in the 21st century. That "The Royals bring in the Tourists" BS has been long since disproved. #RepublicNow
While we are all bickering about wether we should have a monarchy or not and since it's highly unlikely that the Queen will be packing a shopping trolley and venturing out of Buckingham Palace to sleep on my night bus it seems to me this argument is irrelevant. People, such as Jago,for instance exposing the extent of the rough sleeping, not only on public transport but in general would be much more to the point rather than wether we have a monarchy or not.
i remember the grenfell tower fire. the air in front of my house was smokey that day. later saw it in the news. it was burning for days. i would never live in a tower after that. the amount of safety neglect in these buildings seems inhuman.
The problem was the people who put together these towers were not trained builders, they were unskilled workers paid a piece rate for each panel they assembled. So naturally they just wanted to get as many panels in place as they could, and being unskilled they did not understand the importance of the bolts and the cement. On UA-cam there is a really good documentary called "Inquiry. The Great British Housing Disaster" that also features interviews with former workers who were clueless, openly saying that if the bolts did not fall into place on the first try of putting in the panel, they just cut them off. Work supervisors did not help either, telling workers that even panels that were clearly defective had to be put in.
I remember a few years ago watching a documentary about a block of high rise flats in India which had collapsed and an investigation found that rogue builders, instead of filling foundation cavities with concrete, had used empty oil drums. I remember thinking 'Well at least that sort of thing could never happen here.....'
Living in a House of Cards is no big deal. Many hands put their hearts and spades into the contract. The foreman Jack Diamond, had once worked on the Trump tower and was not for playing games and was known to have many connectors. He always came to the build suited and he had under him, four of a kind who were the floormen. I suppose you could say we always had a full-house, and I lived with gypsy, who claimed to be a bit of a stud, black Jack and Kitty. There was also the one-eyed old maid who always had what one would describe as a poker face and who had a reputation for being shorthanded. She was a bit of a railbird who claimed that she knew all the royals but I bet she was bluffing. Upstairs was flash with wet-board and window cards and there lived a straight and one pair who were queens and for tea we always ate stakes which we all agreed were ace.
@@johno4521 In India and many far east countries, everyone who is involved in a build project that falls down and is found to be corrupt face prison time. That is the one aspect of foreigners policy that would never happen here.
KebabMusicLtd Well, no, because it penalizes the wrong people - deliberately and with malice. In India an airline pilot can (if he survives) be imprisoned for an accident, even if the cause of the crash was executive meddling or ATC failures. Luckily a hefty bribe will usually smooth out things (but woe to you if you're poor!)
A colleague told me that the parents of a school friend of hers had lived there at the time. Anecdote as that the father got up and opened the bathroom door, he then paused and realise that there was no bathroom beyond the door. I'm slightly sceptical about this as it would mean that the noise of the collapse hadn't woken them. As neither the colleague, nor the friend whose parents this was had actually been born at the time it was only ever a second hand story.
I can't speak for anyone else. But I've slept through earthquakes, explosions and the collapse of a brick wall in our house (my parents walked into the room to check on me, but I was still asleep). Some people just are extremely heavy sleepers.
@@Stettafire I could see my dad sleeping through something like that, if it happened at the right (wrong?) point in his sleep cycle. Add in the noise of his CPAP machine and have his good ear buried in the pillow, and he'll be even less likely to be disturbed -- as long as the power doesn't go out.
"it seems that as long as there is neglect from those in charge, the cost will always be paid in human lives" wow that's actually a very good line and true
I was scrolling down my recommended during this video, and I saw someone post on community tab. It was a meme saying When your house collapsed but you’re in the living room. Crazy dude
There's always a perverse incentive to cut corners on buildings, even market-rate single-family residences (which makes me wonder why there aren't more round buildings like the Gherkin), whenever it's thought that the flaws won't become apparent until the builders are long gone. The bigger the building, the more the effect of any particular problem--whether it's structural or social (like noise insulation)--gets magnified, and the greater the disaster when something does go wrong.
Yes, it was. They then installed electric stoves and heaters, only to find out that the electrical system in some of these blocks could not cope with the additional load and would catch on fire...
@@IainGalli But do you live in a tower block that is based on a large panel system? Are the walls based on big concrete panels, or are they traditional brick walls? The ban on gas was only for LPS based tower blocks.
yes gas was removed from all system built blocks in Great Britain as a result of Ronan Point, however in many cases it has been reinstated, it seems safety is often least concern of officials, it is only a matter of time before the same happens again
@@Satters My flat is very low rise, only two stories, but the council were quite adamant in the rental agreement that no gas appliances of any kind were allowed in any of their flats at all... Ever... Under any circumstances. And then they fitted gas central heating :-)
Yep. Have a flat in an ex-soviet tower block I use when I meet my relatives. Even the soviets got social housing not completely wrong, and to think some of the best architects such as Zaha Hadid Architects are in the country and we still stubbornly put money in our pockets over safety.
It's not so much profits as it's often necessity. If you were to follow the regulations properly it'd probably be so expensive that you would never do it in the first place, which means rather than bad houses you get no houses, which can then lead to even worse methods of housing being necessary causing a higher loss of life in the end. Unsafe things exist mainly because of necessity more than negligence, everyone likes to complain when someone gets hurt but no one considers how much it would have cost to do it right initially. Safety costs money, if you don't want the victims to pay, you take their place and pay for them - Something very few of us are willing to do. The people that run building companies are humans too, not much unlike the rest of us. Before we can complain retrospectively, we have to understand that we are just as bad.
Pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug Though the problem of necessity begets the question, is it really necessary to go the lowest prices? Often it was the companies that bid lowest that got the job to make these tower blocks. Just a few extra million and these councils could’ve made sure these buildings had proper cladding, had proper construction. Hell you want a good example of social housing? Look no further than Singapore, a then poor country that built great social housing. Yes, unsafe things can exist out of necessity, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t improve on it once the situation gets better(ie; our economy’s gotten much better than the 60s). Lest we still have the cars of the 60s that had no crumple zones, no 3 point seatbelts and often lacked air bags.
A Quill and Scroll: yes you can improve on it when things get better, but you also have to remember to reduce the restrictions if/when things inevitably get worse again, or better still the government should give avenues to save money because otherwise companies will do whatever they can to circumvent the rules which is what leads to so many of these problems. Things can only be as good as we can afford, and often we ask for much more than what we can afford, because no one wants to come to terms with reality.
Yet they're building more and more tower blocks, much closer together than they would allow in the 60s. We went to a local skate park last week only to did the council sold the site for three tower blocks. "Just pack 'em in and reap the council tax rewards for generations..."
@@pedroSilesia You short sighted prick. Taking your head out your arse and looking at the bigger picture you would see they're building unnafordable apartments all over the London whilst not installing any infrastructure. There are a lack of school places for a start and a year or two ago around 500 youth clubs were closed in the UK. This combined with building over things like skate parks will leave the youth with nothing to do. Dont come crying to me when they take their boredom and frustration out on society in other ways -- graffitti, robbings and other crime
the idea is that people in cities are happy to live at higher densities. In fact it is land theft of the same as the highland clearences and enclosure acts.
Yup. Eventually get demolished, residents displaced, area gentrified, and wealthy residents move in instead. Leaving the displaced residents, on the street, waiting to be rehoused in council houses that no longer belong to the council. What a brilliant job the government has done with housing over the years.
So basically it’s about the management and not the building style itself? I guess it’s just inherently more easy to abuse and take advantage of by builders and public bodies
The fascinating thing is how a partial building failure is still remembered in detail and talked about after half a century. There's a BBC special, I think called "The Great British Housing Disaster" or similar, here on UA-cam where you can see how horrible the construction methods were for literally everything in the 60s. But I suspect most brits know the story already. Some of those estates were demolished after just 14 years! What I don't get however, is how current building methods (such as the use of TIMBER FRAME on huge, 6-floor apartment buildings housing 300+ units) are just as terrible in different ways, but are unquestioned. There have been deadly fires with these wooden apartment blocks, but no outrage. In NJ a few years ago, a fire killed two people in one of these buildings- not only that, but the ENTIRE COMPLEX burned to the ground- literally to ash- in a few hours. There was nothing left. You brits actually give a care about your built environment, while stateside we're given utter garbage and nobody notices or cares; the only commentary is just ads by real estate agents hamming up how "luxurious!" and hip and "great value" they are. Ugh
I can’t believe I’m defending 5-over-1s but: it’s true that they can be extremely flammable *during construction* but they tend to be non-flammable once sprinklers and drywall are installed since drywall actually is pretty good at protecting timber framing from heat. So they *can* burn at very high temperatures, but for that to be possible or likely they kind of have to be unoccupied.
“She was surprised by an explosion that blew her across the room” I don’t know why but “surprised” doesn’t seem to fully grasp the severity of the situation there. 🧐
I think its safe to say now that building standards are poor enough not to trust any newbuild multi-storey homes. Yet there's still demand for them and they still get built. Welcome to modern London!
They don't get built like that any more. They may look the same but the external walls of modern construction are just there to keep the weather out and are not load baring
What else are people going to do? The only solution would be to develop other smaller cities into having more job opportunities but no one would willingly agree to that. Not the small cities that would change nor the large cities that would loose resources
You have heard of the postwar town building boom... right?. Entire towns were created and urban 'Metroland' expanded, precisely for the purpose of bleeding off excess population from places like London, Birmingham & Glasgow.
@@jimtaylor294 metroland was mostly inter-War and was mostly urban growth along public transport routes rather than new towns in the classic Post war model. New tows like Welwyn Garden City was part of metroland but most of the new town growth was post war and associated with private transport. That gave us towns like Basingstoke, Harlow and Milton Keynes. What we need now are very dense, high quality housing in both new rural development areas and urban regeneration that does not require the use of private transport.
God ., I lived in a tower block in Kennington, on the 18th floor for four years, and I loved it, massive views over the River, pros n cons for sure, but when Grenfell tragedy happened I felt awkward .. and slightly apprehensive.
Now.. imagine the disaster if that house had been fully packed with tenants during the great storm, a full collapse of the Ronan Point with people in it..
Agreed! Many Tower Blocks in Liverpool have been demolished since I moved here nearly 30 years ago. Some were even converted to student accomodation, but when students started taking the Lift Shafts instead of the lifts or stairs and getting themselves killed in the process. They too were demolished.
How are they controversial? Everyone hates them. I've not heard anyone take the other side of the argument. Towers like the Shard for the superrich, with a hotel and concierge controlling the building are fine, but sink estates for the poor with broken lifts and places for muggers to lurk are horrible. Brutalism sucks. And you can't blame this one on uncaring Tory govts. In 1968, Labour had been in power for 4 years.
Perhaps you should be honest about it as the first tower block was built by a tory government in the 1950's. And Grenfell, and Lacanal House were in Tory boroughs.
Brutalism works when built as a high density neighbourhood, not as one off structures to pack the poors into. Look at commie blocks, the ones that still stand, hold value, are generally liked, and did well are ones that were built as brand new neighbourhoods with schools, shops, public transport and green spaces. The ones that were erected in the middle of cities without any urban planning around them, ended up as vertical slums.
I just stumbled upon this video more or less by accident. Thank you, very interesting!! Here in Germany, we basically did the same mistakes after WWII. A multitude of bombed-out and devasted cities, millions of ethnic German refugees that had to be accomodated after the War, hence the need for many new districts of concrete blocks of flats (housing tens of thousands of people) were built in many cities all across the country. The only difference to the UK might be the fact that most constructions here in Germany were at least (more or less) meticulously built, thanks to our super tediously high construction standarts and laws. Thank heavens we never had any severe building collapses or any other problems of that sort to my knowledge. That said, a lot of these postwar German housing projects, unfortunately, ultimitely failed and have become massive problem zones over the past decades. In the 60s and 70s, many young families (as well as many elderly) moved into these new housing projects. By the 80s though, many people with a formerly low income moved out to other parts of the cities, as soon as their economic situation improved - either relocating to renovated old pre-WWII districts, or into new separate houses or row houses. What was mostly left in these German mass-housing districts was mostly low-income and/or unemployed people, as well as a ton of immigrants (especially during and after the 80s). And thus, alas, the inevitable downfall began. Quite sad actually, as a lot of these national housing programmes were quite often actually well-planned, with well-designed flats, balconies and other good amenities as well as good public transportation access.
A prime example of this mess here in Germany would be the huge Osterholz-Tenever district in the city of Bremen, or the infamous Chorweiler district in the city of Cologne. Both were hailed as a "pinnacle" of modern urban planning in the 60s/70s, both constructed on former farmland at the edges of either city; now both are mostly absolutely terrible. In Bremen for instance, many huge tower blocks at Osterholz-Tenever district have already been torn down since 2000 and replaced with more mixed housing.
I live in one of these hell holes. You can hear every fart of every neighbor. Every turn of a faucet. The heating keeps constantly cracking in the walls. It's a nightmare.
My father was an architect. He designed paper mills, not any well known buildings. In those days architects did much of the work that today would be done by the consulting engineers. He predicted such a collapse would happen, I’m not sure if he meant to that particular block, or to a building using that method of construction in general. I was quite young at the time, but I remember it happening. Father died not long afterwards.
My dad, whos an engineer, once told me that safety regulations are written in blood.
Damn
Blood
Yeah, pretty much.
BloOoOoOd
Honestly, I can’t think of nor find any legislation, regulation, or other documentation without even a microscopic speck of blood attached.
Concrete? Nah don't use that, it's expensive! this copy of the Sunday Times should do the trick!
It's a solid newspaper! If it's good enough for me old dad, surely it's good enough for the walls!
Media doesn‘t only lead to the collapse of society, but also causes the collapse of buildings...
in somecountry old build allow to used newspaper as filler they save some building budget since some build not allow for more than 100 years... as a guy who keep fixing building.. it don't need 100.. and few 10 years.. you lost watertight and it a building.. it take forver to find the leak and plug it like your broken teeth.
Reminds me of how China just built a dam out of watered down concrete
😂😂
"The engineer in charge was inexperienced."
It takes experience to know newspapers are not as strong as cement.
The engineer in charge was some hobo they picked up sleeping in the Tesco parking lot
What's an alternative to cement?
Newspaper, duh! 😂
Well, on the bright side, he now has that experience to his credit
Someone could have snuck it past the engineer. Not everyone is an honest worker.
engineer was probably a scapegoat for the greedy money savers
"Joints that should have been cemented were instead stuffed with newspaper" Wut? O_O
Sums up quite nice most of the things built/done/raised/laid down during that era, be it architecture or culture or whatever. Kinda makes me understand the true origin of OK Boomer. Greetings from a post-soviet country.
@@Kiror0_ solid newspaper sounds as strong as cement, yes.
@@herkerr what that expression has to do with this?
@@Kiror0_ So not even as strong as paper mache lol
Thats even worse than stuffing them with tobacco
Imagine punching your wall out of anger and pulling out a newspaper copy
And the headline is “Tower Block Resident Punches Wall.”
It's useful when you run out of toilet paper
My dad put a news paper from the challenger explosion in our old house wall. Maybe someone will find it some day
Rah imagine punching the wall and the building falls apart, the only thing that remains is the wall around your fist
@@JagoHazzard ** X-files theme **
Then they added flammable cladding to make them look nicer
Dubai * chuckles * “ I’m in danger “
Wonder if anyone responsible will actually go to prison for grenfield
Melbourne is full of combustible cladding.
@@slyfoxie55 so long as the fat catsatthetop make money no one will batter an eye
Jason Green I guess you know the sad answer to that question
She basically saved a lot more lives by her gas stove explosion
a blessing in disguise
A sacrifice
Lol when you realize that some old woman survived the blast, but the building she was in did not :D
It's a comic cartoon level stuff :)
Slark OP, pls nerf
Ironic but probably true; this was a disaster waiting to happen and more than 3 people may have died had it happened later.
I understand that they demolished Ronan Point by having an eight-year-old girl lean against it.
Oh, I'd heard it was a wee Glasgow lass that had sneezed wot dunnit.
@@millomweb I don't know what accent to read this in.
@@georgeullrich9086 Chinese ?
@@millomweb could be Scottish for all I know.
Thanks for the truth, the rumour was it was a new born crying 😁
I love how calmly u said she was suprised when she set of an explosion and she was blown across the room
Funny how that happens...
'she was taken by surprise by an explosion that blew her across the room' yeah I'd be a bit surprised if I got yeeted across the room by a bloody gas explosion
Stiff upper lip! She’d been through WWII, so things blowing up weren’t that unusual, I suppose.
News: Lady blown across the room
Jago Hazzard: Oh no! ... Anyway
Want to like, but need to leave it at 420
myself, being a civil engineer, the moment you mentioned that they used paper instead of concrete literally sent shivers down my spine.
In many cases most or all of the bolts that were supposed to secure the panels were omitted owing to poor quality control at the factory - the holes didn't line up... Consequently much of the structure was simply placed and only remained standing through the loads imposed through self-weight. I'm amazed it didn't collapse during construction.
myself, having basic common sense was also pretty put off by that
bruh I've only done a couple years of theatrical construction and I've never worked with concrete, but I legit had to stop and process that someone actually did that... Like, even toddlers can intuit the difference in structural integrity between newspaper and concrete
@特にありません so how come not all skyscrapers are made of newspaper
@特にありません I've been a site manager on many UK jobs where we've done major renovations to skyscrapers. I can confirm from the wear on core cutting bits, and from having to move the cores that they are not made from paper. Other countries I cannot vouch for.
1967: Catastrophic structural failure.
1984: Decision to demolish.
Apparently it took a long time to evict those two people who moved back in....
it wasnt a collapse it was a rapid and unscheduled demolition
@@hellblazer275 Rapid unplanned disassembly.
2020: Entire Russia is still filled with such blocks and also building new every year.
And disasters are kind of normal...
www.google.com/search?q=%D0%B2%D0%B7%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%B2%D1%8B+%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2+%D0%B2+%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8&client=ms-unknown&prmd=nvi&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjE1pzzxqPsAhXG-ioKHQbvCEsQ_AUoA3oECBoQAw&biw=412&bih=727&dpr=2.63
@Moon自殺 It's not corruption at play. It's the unwillingness to spend money on demolition.
Safely demolishing a place costs money, and in many cases, money is being spent elsewhere, and in part, because people do not want to pay more in tax to get things done immediately.
The sadder part though, is that money is prioritized over human lives, as we can clearly see with matters such as the Coronavirus.
Brilliant video! Pretty scary especially as there are still similar buildings scattered over London!
Thanks! Yeah, I was in Elephant and Castle a couple of days ago, and there were a few rather rickety-looking blocks.
When I first saw this in my recommendations I thought you'd made it.
@@JagoHazzard which ones - I could probably explain what are OK, and what might not be. Meanwhile there is another YT vid report on the investigation on this, which does cover the reasons for the collapse, if built correctly the system might have worked. Do you think all these towers come from the kids in the 1950s playing with Unifix Cubes at school and Tri-ang Arkitect kits at home ?
I was surprised to see u here,but to think about it,it seems like you would!
@@JagoHazzard I worked at the Elephant & C in the 70's, they looked pretty tatty even then!!!!
"Shoddy workmanship"
When you put newspaper in the wall instead of concrete in the formwork (or nothing at all), and put random screws in...
It's not "shoddy"
It can't even be called "workmanship" and every single person who did this should be fired, a toddler could build a more logically sound structure than that.
If I can do that, get paid and ultimately get away with it then I've found my career no matter how many lives are at risk
it's such an obvious case of poor people dying so the rich can turn a profit
Paper Mache is not a suitable replacement for concrete
No, no it isn't. This objectively isn't the rich turning a profit. This is unskilled, blue-collar workers turning a profit. As stated, they were paid by how much they did, not quality. So they cut corners. Literally everyone wants to make the most money with least effort.
Toddler : *starts building it out of legos*
Builders: "Oh no, this is like the worst case scenario."
Investigators: "What we have witnessed is the best case scenario possible given how they were constructed."
I mean, the walls were basically stuffed with paper. It's amazing that they didn't burn from the inside out, collapsing the whole building.
Well, builders build buildings and investigators investigate disasters, their perspectives are always going to be different. The best case scenario for a builder is that the building lasts until it's decommissioned, the best case scenario for an investigator is that few or even no one is killed or hurt during a disaster.
- "And was surprised by an explosion that took her across the room and blew out her walls"
**half drenched in blood laying on the other side of the room while her arm is dangling from a single joint. She spoke calmly: "well what an inconvenient surprise"
That is just quintessentially British.
stiff upper lip, at least it's better than the Blitz
And here in Sydney, Australia, we have new high-rise "apartments" that have cracked, and another that started sinking. Shoddy work, shoddy inspection practices, and plain corruption still go on today. A few heads on pikes might make these people think twice.
Not just Sydney, I work in commercial and see some toe curling stuff.
I just finished up a re-roof on a high end apartment block (hail damage on a 6 month old roof, $2.8 million apartments)
The day that hail hit was the luckiest day of that builders life,the roofing work was beyond shoddy and would have lead to years of litigation, in the end the insurance company paid me to install correctly and the builders shitty quality assurance gets to live to the next project.
"Heads on pikes" - lovely idea, but tends to be frowned upon, recently . . ?
@thhseeking You think it's bad now, just wait till the Chinese take over.
Never live in or own a home built by middle eastern builders - trust me... Shoddy workmanship to no end.
This shows the presence of the Chinese
Have an Inquiry, mysteriously no one gets the blame, lessons will be learned, yadda yadda & repeat.
Flammable cladding was a conveniant skapegoat though. Grenfell Tower had far more faults than just that, and likely would have still resulted in a catastrophic fire without it.
(many firedoors missing, compromised internal devisions between apartments, only one stairwell, countless undocumented residents... it was a disaster waiting to happen)
Jim Taylor Have to disagree there. The cladding was the pivotal factor in the Grenfell case. While you are correct to say that there were other defects, none of those could have resulted in anything close to the catastrophe that actually occurred. The reason for that is simple - compartmentation. As a purpose built block, it was designed to contain fire within the dwelling of origin for at least 60 minutes. The cladding enabled a small fire to spread back into flats from outside, and the air gaps underneath the panels allowed flames to spread up and around the building incredibly quickly. Without that opportunity for rapid spread, any fire starting would have been largely contained at its point of origin, and you would not have seen anything like what happened.
@@tjfSIM Then I must counter-disagree, for I cited several examples for why the compartmentation on the tower was unfit for purpose, and indeed fatally compromised.
Like the compartmentation on the Titanic, such a scheme doesn't work if there are large gaps in its coverage, such as excessive penetrations between compartments, missing fire doors and irregular residents untrained in fire safety.
The cladding was certainly what allowed the fire to spread Around the building, as so fast, but with such blatent faults with the interior and only one stairwell, the building was a cutprice deathtrap waiting to happen, from the day it was built.
I am a little biased in this topic though, as I had a particularly odious [and now disowned] relation in the structual engineering sector whom used to defend buildings like this, despite knowing their numerous faults and the systematically poor adhesion to standards.
@@jimtaylor294 I think you are spot-on, Sir. If architects, builders, and the people responsible for overseeing and maintaining buildings actually did what they were (supposedly) competent at, then there would be fewer fires, collapses and other structural failures, not to mention heat rays from the walkie-talkie tower. As usual, "lessons will be learned" but they never are.
@@jimtaylor294 Gaps in vertical and horizontal separation internally certainly would result in smoke spread, but we are still talking about a purpose built block with reinforced concrete floors and walls between flats. Even with gaps or defects, you would not get anything like the degree of fire travel that occurred, and certainly nowhere near as quickly. The same goes for fire doors. In the case of Grenfell, it would be elements like excessive gaps between doors and frames, and missing smoke seals, that would be the main issue. I completely agree that this may well have enabled smoke to enter the common areas from the flats, and to enter flats from the common areas, so the stay-put policy was compromised. Lots of people raise the issue of the single escape route, and I have to say that comes from a lack of understanding of the building regulations applying to purpose built blocks, where a minimum 60 minutes separation and 'stay put policy' applies. There are hundreds of buildings in the UK (and abroad) that were built to the same principle. Again, the problem here was not the staircase, it was the rapid breaching of compartmentation. I stand by my point that without the external spread facilitated by the cladding, a disaster of this scale could not have occurred.
'Boy, they had some massive, massive eyebrows in those days.
It's like a beard that forgot where the chin is
And the hair straws are pretzel thick wtf
Freaky
@@SebHaarfagre LMAO
Nearly any high-up counselman in the UK
I wonder if the people who “cut these corners” were able to sleep at night after this.
Nothing a bottle of 200 GBP wine, some grade A coke and some paid for company, couldn't relieve, I suspect. These people were and are pure scum.
@Jonathan F they wouldn't care less as they will be sleeping soundly in their beds of cash, while we normal commoners would be sleeping inside coffin boxes as a result of their "mistakes".
Like a baby probably. Sociopaths don't feel anything.
I work in construction and have done for 40 years. I can guarantee that the people involved at every level do not give a shit. All they need is paperwork and they are good to go. Nobody who knows what they are doing is in control of anything in case they expose those above them. You'd be amazed at what I've seen hidden in buildings.
Those kinds of people aren’t bothered by their consciences, we are.
The 60s: a time of unparalleled disgustingly ugly and often dangerous architecture
Personally, I like the giant housing blocks of the 60s.
Ian Builds its the interior that’s a nightmare
In my town here in Sweden it's the 70- and 80s houses that are shit. The economy was good so everyone wanted to build houses and bam whole streets of the plain same looking houses that actually aren't too great actually
Grew up in a tower block, neither ugly nor dangerous. The block houses residents to this day, nobody is complaining. It's just that the surroundings are much more beautiful today than they used to be, more nice trees.
truth be told, most people didn't care what it looked like, as long as they had a roof over their head, to bad they didn't have a wall in front of them.
Out local council has just installed mains powered smoke alarms in nearly every room of our house last week as a result of Grenfell.
But was there ever a third party regulator hired to approve of work on these kinds of buildings?
Hey there! I just realized I wasn't subscribed to you, Larry o_o For the longest time, I thought I was.
Only took them 3 years. Well done
@@nocunoct youtube has removed many of my subs very annoying and not fair to the creators.
OMG this guy!
If the alarms are mains powered, what happens in the event of a general power outage in the area and there's a fire? Battery backup?
Should also be noted that the Nielsen Larson panel system was not properly tested for the number of stories Ronan Point was built to - it was meant for the construction of low rise blocks of flats.
It's original Danish design was limited to under-8 storeys, but with modifications, it was used (though never in Denmark) for blocks up to 17 storeys in Malaysia (Pilot project in Kuala Lumpur, though, the high cost and high level of industrial readiness and transportation requirements made it not be reproduced) and in 19 storey blocks in Puerto Rico. It is hard to find out if these modifications involved any structural changes, though from floor plans they seem to have used the same load bearing span, though thickness of the load bearing panels may have been adjusted.
Reina Takagawa funny it would have been designed by Danes, of LEGO fame, because it does look like it works in a similar fashion. However, such a tall concrete structure without continuous internal reinforcement in the form of rebar, can only be described as sheer engineering insanity.
I’ve seen many structures done with prefabricated pieces, including some buildings in my unabashedly brutalist neighborhood - if not the wall on my own balcony-turned-sunroom, which may have been poured in place but I suspect was intended to be prefabricated in the original plan as it’s very thin - or one of the Torralta hotel towers at Tróia by the Conceição Silva studio where I’ve stayed at for a few days, in which those are stuck onto a regular reinforced concrete frame. Obviously.
As for how this almost literal house of cards got approved in the first place, it really boggles the mind.
@@Mainyehc It is perfectly safe and appropriate, if built and assembled and with the correctly set up joints. The most common set-up, is for rebar to protrude from the panels and these will be welded together with the rebar from the panel below, and these joints would thereafter be concreted.
The UK situation is quite different from much of Europe, in that, as mentioned, the construction industry remained technologically primitive. In Continental Europe, the push towards increased prefabrication and industrialised building, was driven primarily by the fact that wages were increasing so rapidly during the post-war recovery. Britain's early recovery was sluggish, and labour savings were not quite as important, and there was anyhow an ample supply of workers. It was the growing shortage of construction workers as the 1960's progressed that was the primary driver for the implementation of industrialised building in the UK, and several subsequent governments were keen to use it as a means of increasing the technological level of the construction industry. Thus the setting up of the National Building Agency to oversee this, and so on, in the late 1960's.
But, given the lack of expertise that the industry as a whole had, and the very sudden and rapid implementation of it, it is not surprising that the result was at times very problematic; there were problems in many cottage estates too. In most other countries, this development was gradual, and knowledge and expertise was allowed to accumulate. In the UK, the share of industrialised construction methods rose sharply in the late 1960's, and peaked in 1970, after which it basically collapsed. In much of Western Europe, various industrialised methods are still prevalent to a large degree (though in the majority of cases, it is never expressed visually).
The blocks seen in the opening of the video, for example, along with many surviving blocks are traditional in-situ frame with infill buildings, or "conventional" constructions. At the time in 1968, load bearing panel structures usually did not exceed 15 storeys, however (all early Soviet high-rise housing blocks above 9 storeys were frame blocks with non-load bearing panels or block infill, for example). A taller building requires larger and more robust panels--it is not clear to me if this was considered in the case of the Freemason's Road estate--though, regardless, the overall quality of the concrete used in the panels was sub-par and below even what was specified.
Good point, there are some Larsen Nielsens in Prague - Czech republic, however they are mostly built in 8 story version, but also some 12 story versions were built
They should expect the domino effect when they build with dominoes.
As a 'building' student at my local college in the late 80's Ronan point was by then an essential topic of learning !
@M J Probably the same one they showed us at college. I was either doing my OND or HNC in Building Studies at the time. It made an impact though, I'm going back circa 30 years now
"Ivy Hodge was among one of the survivors, so too, astonishingly, was her gas stove."
That caught me way off guard lmao
This shouldve been the gas stoves advertisment
"5 years guarantee, and could withstand explosions that blew you to the other side of the room and took out a whole building"
This guy is drier than a gas explosion himself.
Wtf 🤬. People should have gone to jail for this greed and stupidity.
No, they should of been thrown from THE TOP of that building.. or locked inside of it before it was demolished with explosive charges.
People unfortunately don't go to prison for this kind of stuff since they know their way around laws which helps them escape prison even when ~70 people are killed such as the massive fire in a huge leisure centre on the Isle of Man in the 1970s...
1:47 yes I would imagine an explosion in my house would be surprising
I might even be heard saying "gosh".
“Wow, how did you guys build these so cheaply?”
Is one of the scariest questions in engineering
“Resident Ivy Hodge, a 56 year old cake decorator, lit a match to light her gas stove and was surprised by an explosion which blew her across the room.”
Not that I’ve ever been blown across the room by an explosion, but that certainly does seem like quite the surprise.
Blew out the supporting walls and the whole southeast corner went down like a pack of cards, but the old biddy and her gas cooker were fine lol
Tenant: **slams door** 🚪
Building: **collapses**
Neighbors: “JENGA!”
My chair just got 2 steps closer to hell for laughing at that.
😂🤣🤣🤣
Now that’s funny! By the way, you have nice legs!
Now I picture a bunch of old grandmas drinking vodka in a circle of chairs playing cards when someone above their floor slams their door, “Jenga, blyat! Hehehe. Mixalkova, pass me the cane”
_"It seems that as long as there is neglect from those in charge the cost will always be paid in human lives"_ Wise words
Better off living in an 'old school' slum than these chicken coops. Grew up in very poor conditions but always had a cat and dog to let outside and cuddle with.
Debatable. Some genuinely good housing - that simply lacked features like an indoor toilet - were flattened to build many of these monolithic grey deathtraps.
My grandmother lived for nearly a quarter-century in a house that had been thrown up in the 1800's for railway workers; in original configuration it would be deemed a practical cave dwelling by modern eyes, yet by the period she had it, all mod con's had been long since installed, making it a very comfortable place to live.
Also debatable, blocks of panels or how call them in Czech republic / Slovakia - "panelák" are mostly considered as decent and affordable housing where unless neighbours and owners council are douchebags, then it is also calm place to live and without needs to care about whole infrastructure which is mostly shared.
Maintenance Renegade so basically regulations made cheap vertical housing impossibly inefficient and undesirable?
^ No; physics & human nature did. People like to have living space, not to feel like sardines in a tin... especially a poorly noise insulated, mould prone & questionably built tin.
@Maintenance Renegade
Aspirational pictures of the future in newspaper colour supplements of the 1960s often featured skyscrapers separated by acres of grassland and linked by monorails or overhead walkways (and sprinkled with helicopters or flying cars).
I never saw how that was better than having lots of two or three-storey houses on the ground, as most cities did at that time, but our urban planners obviously felt differently.
No corporate responsibility. Fancy that
You spelled government wrong.
It wasn't the government that built them!
It wasn't the government that decided to design them that way, build them poorly and employ badly trained workers for a quick profit.
The government sure has some responsibility but not as much as the company that did the crime.
The likes of Tony Hayward, Goldman Sachs, Fred Goodwin, Elizabeth Holmes et al would agree strongly with you though!
@@robertely686 evil corporations because corporation = evil
@@danielsteger8456 because someone who questions a corporation = dangerous
@@robertely686 no, because no prior research is required to start pointing fingers if corporations are involved
Being a Swedish anglophile, I'm loving your channel.
I've visit England a few times over the years and it seems that tragic events coexist with my journeys to the green island. First time it was in 1982 and while in London the IRA terrorist bombed Hyde park and Regents park. Second time I visited was in 1987 and just after I left London there was the Kings Cross station fire. In 2005 I went to London on a business trip. Stayed at a small hotell just by the, you guessed right, Kings Cross station. I went home only a week before the terrorist attack in that station.
I've also visited England without major disaster so I'm not totally cursed....
Got to the fact that this happened in a country that still has castles, built so long ago, still standing strong.
There's a castle in Carlow that was built on a bog so that no one could tunnel in from below. After a while they realised that it was sinking.
At some point after the wars, architecture and structural integrity were abandoned in favour of fitting as many people into homes in as short a space as possible. Really bloody disappointing (and quite scary to live in when you see what happens to similar buildings)
Almost the exact same thing happened in ancient Rome. To prevent slums, large apartment complexes called "islands" were built. Usually these were very unstable and the ground floor was the most expensive because it actually provided any shelter to the elements and a place for a shop. These buildings could collapse and catch fire very quickly, but they were also built extremely fast (there might be a link there) and thus they were seen as a solution to the influx of immigrants which was preferrable to slums. Weird that in 2000 years we made hardly any progress.
Yah, the ground floors of those Roman _insulae_ often had 1½- or 2-story-tall arches that could be used as shophouses, with a living/sleeping area in a loft above the shop. While the top floor units were smaller and had 5 stories' worth of stairs to climb to get to them.
And it wasn't just Rome where ground floors were more expensive. In general, before elevators/lifts, the lower floors of buildings were more desirable, because you could _get_ to them more easily. Which was partly why starving artists so often lived in attic apartments -- as did Victor Frankenstein (as a poor medical student) in the original book. 🙂
3:01
when I grow up, I want to be his eyebrows
What magnificent creatures
This got me 😂
The lesson is: Big companies and the Government do not care about housing for poor people. The same then as it is now.
Funny how the same types of apartments in the communist block are considered the best built and safest type of housing in the area. One thing you can't criticize them for, they were damn good builders.
@@GlamStacheessnostalgialounge Have you ever stayed in a Soviet built apartment block?
I have and it was grim.
@@baldieman64 I have and I still do. No idea where you lived but apart of the slightly nasty elevator I have no complaints.
@@GlamStacheessnostalgialounge Budapest.
@@GlamStacheessnostalgialounge Yugoslavia too. My city was destroyed in 1963 by a devastating earthquake and many Soviet/Yugoslav style tower blocks were constructed and none of them have ever collapsed or had any major problems so far. I currently live in a new apartment building that I think looks bad compare to the old ones. Greetings from Macedonia.
There is a great documentary from 1984 on UA-cam that discusses in detail everything that went wrong in the construction of these tower blocks. Search for "Inquiry. The Great British Housing Disaster". The one problem was that the large panel systems (LPS) used were not designed to be used in such large buildings, and those systems also were not designed to be used in a cold and humid climate, so there were moisture and mould problems in many of these LPS built blocks. The other problem were the unskilled workers paid a piece rate for each panel they assembled. So naturally they just wanted to get as many panels in place as they could, and being unskilled they did not understand the importance of the bolts and the cement. The documentary features interviews with former workers who were clueless, openly saying that if the bolts did not fall into place on the first try of putting in the panel, they just cut them off.
In contrast, in the GDR (former socialist state in Eastern Germany), they built countless LPS based blocks, and most of those are still standing to this day, and have no problems at all thanks to two main differences: The LPS systems didn't use bolts. The steel rebar was extended out from the panels, so that the panels could be welded together. The welds were filled in with concrete. And the people who assembled the blocks were skilled workers. In the GDR, building LPS blocks was a profession that required several years of training.
Don’t even have an interest in things like this but that documentary is very interesting, has some very passionate people talking on it
@@gregoryspatisserie9858 ditto - from the other side of the world. New Zealand!
The GDR thing you can apply to pretty much all the countries behind the Iron Curtain. I mean just look at bloody Pripyat. Those blocks are still standing three decades after being abandoned.
the soviets used prefab slabs made of a mix of concrete and slag, but only in the immidiate "oh shit we need houses NOW" post war periods, mostly the 1950's and 60's. then they just used regular concrete. surprisingly, almost all of those old blocs are still standing and used.
The new houses look really ugly to me as well.
No gardens, no green, no trees, just parking spaces for cars.
In Scotland we call tower blocks 'multis' as in multi-storey housing. Most have been retrofitted with a concierge these days with guards who will buzz you into the building, so the entrances to them are fairly nice looking and well maintained.
However up until the 90's anyone could walk straight in the front door and so the lifts would always have broken buttons and that hard-to-forget smell of urine-on-aluminium. Though the piss smelling lift was still preferable to using one of the stairwells where you would occasionally find a gentleman passed out with a syringe sticking out of his arm, leg or groin.
Interesting stuff! I didn't expect that the UK had this kind of thing. In the US we call them "Projects" as in the "Housing Project"
The US ones are the same as your description tho lol
@@Camdavis11 In the US they generally refer to public housing though. And they're often not even high rises. Depends on where you go. Basically a failure anywhere they're implemented either way. Always turns areas into high crime areas.
@@Camdavis11 I'm aware of the US variety. One of my favourite movies is Candyman and it is centred around a bunch of now-demolished tower blocks in Chicago that were known as Cabrini-Green. Supposedly the most violent place in the US for many years.
I also remember the short-lived Eddie Murphy cartoon called The PJ's ;)
But yeah, pee in the elevators, graffiti everywhere, a drug dealer on every floor and not somewhere you want to bring up kids.
@@krashd That's what happens when you have people who need to be in managed care running around left to their own devices. They pee/poop on stuff and themselves.
Lol as a kid I used to pee on those elevators
Another great vid Jago! My mum and dad were living in a block just behind Ronan Point at the time of the explosion and showed her this vid. Brought back some memories for her that's for sure. One in particular that she remembers the bang from the explosion as being in 'stereo' - as it were as the sound from the explosion itself and a another bang from their own fire place (also gas) because of the sudden pressure difference.
"Frankly, I think the central pillar system might need strengthening a bit."
"Is that going to put the cost up?"
"I'm afraid so."
"I don't know that we need to worry about strengthening that much. After all, they're not meant to be luxury flats."
"Absolutely. If we make sure the tenants are of light build, relatively sedentary, and we have a spot of good weather, I think we have a winner here."
It's really disturbing that similar conversations probably do take place in construction companies and such all the time, even now.
@@princecharon That was actually a quote from the Monty Python architect sketch.
@@dx1450 That's part of what makes it disturbing. It helps that the Python teams were and are quite well-educated.
@@princecharon heh, "Mysterio and Janet"
So this disaster probably inspired the Architect Sketch by Monty Python: ua-cam.com/video/QfArEGCm7yM/v-deo.html
‘Surprised by an explosion which blew her across the room’. That would certainly do it, I guess.
I imagine it caused her to raise an eyebrow at the situation as well
Having travelled to China, I've witnessed many such buildings being erected in a jiffy. Most of the time peeps already moved in before the thing's even half done. So yeah, it's quick and efficient, and people don't look the gift horse in the mouth when many have nowhere else to go. Yet I can't help but feel for these folks as tragedy is unquestionably pending upon them. These quickly but not steadily built low cost blocks will kill many.
Yes I have seen the building techniques used in China too. I witnessed a tower block collapse while I was there.
Yeah quite a few towers have collapsed in China within no time of completion, wouldn't want be anywhere near their buildings
@@VeyronBD I don't know if he was telling the truth but a colleague told me they were using bamboo as concrete reinforcement, I know the scaffolding was bamboo.
@@chickenpommes19 I think the nick-name for them is 'tofu buildings' because the materials they are using have the structural integrity of tofu.
Don't worry about 30 years from now. They're falling apart now. They'll be lucky if any last that long.
@@chickenpommes19 They'll become high rise slums while the wealthy move to new ones built somewhere else.
We had similar buildings built here in Melbourne. They are called 'vertical slums'.
Don't worry, Sydney has some too... Opal Tower anyone? Only difference is it's 'luxury' apartments in dense areas neighboring other high-rises, rather than standalone and public housing.
Canberra too. They finally pulled them down when they expanded the city centre. They were considered pretty sketchy by the general community. I guess it depended on what you were used to. I don’t know where they relocated everyone to, I’ll have to ask what happened when i next visit..
@@creatrixZBD Happen to be Canberran myself - the residents have been relocated to newer, freestanding properties all over - they don't get dumped in one suburb anymore.
@@TommyTom21 yeah i feel like most housing projects here are prefab buildings from the 50s-70s that were only intended to be temporary solutions. but it seems like they'll stick around for a while longer, since we love to create a spectacle out of poverty. god forbid public housing actually looks nice--how will the poor be motivated to stop being poor if they're not miserable?
Aiden Howlett thanks. Yeah i lived in the CBR for a couple years in the late 80s, but mostly i was down the snowfields, so not exactly a local :) so i kinda know stuff but not really, if that makes sense 🤷🏽♀️ I vaguely remember there being some public discussion about the social ramifications of concentrating everyone in one space versus seeding everyone out amongst the wider community. Canberra is a weird place, I love it and side-eye it at the same time. I’m glad I have family there to give me a reason to visit. 🖤
“An investigation was carried out, led by Lord Eyebrows”
this made me fucking lose it lmao they could've used that man's brow hairs for added structural integrity
Wow, no shit!!!
QC
That guy had some dandies.
He must comb them and wax them before work
@@minjaarsic3327 eyebrow fiber, stronger than concrete
“It seems that as long as there is neglect from those in charge, the cost will always be paid in human life,”
This will always be true as long as politicians are, effectively, pre-pardoned for such failures and never forced to take responsibility or pay the consequences of their neglect in cases like these.
“It seems that as long as there is neglect from those in charge, the cost will always be paid in human life,” undoubtedly true.
Teaching my Year 13s about crimes of the powerful tomorrow, the timing of this post couldn't be better. Thank you.
Also, love the posts on London streets, districts, rails and characters...
I wonder how many tower blocks across Britain are just about to give in at human cost. One every decade so far.
I dont think "Load bearing walls"
And "newspaper or unreinforced"
Should be in the same sentence
I was due to go there that day to read the electric meters for the London Electricity Board. Missed a bullet there.
Thanks for posting this. We heard it go, though we didn't know what it was at the time - we lived in Plaistow in Newham, and mum said there had been "a hell of a bang" - we talked about it at school, and some said they'd actually seen it, though that might have been just kids trying to one-up others.
And they wondered how it was built so cheaply ... they cut so many corners they ended up with a circle.
ps reports soon after said that it could have been a lot worse: had it happened a few hours later a lot more people would have been in their kitchens, and would have been caught in the collapse.
Ah Yes,
The joy of Human Filing Cabinets, as my dear wife so aptly calls them...
Apart from being so often shodily built (here in Australia too), they were invariably the last style of accommodation appropriate for the needs of their tenants... 😵
I'll have to remember that one XD.
Excellent put! Clever wife!
So much ignorance and lack of empathy in this comment section. I just don't understand why some people don't believe everyone should be able to have a steady roof above their heads despite their socio-economic standing
This. In the 1960s, almost 400,000 houses were deemed to be unfit for habitation. Those people needed housing, and they needed it quick. I'm not defending the shoddy workmanship by any means but tower blocks like this (when built and maintained properly) were an efficient way of lifting people out of horrible living situations.
@City17.76 What's your point?
City17.76 it’s in your best interest when the people around you are doing well. By being a selfish prick, you have get opposite effect that you want.
City is able to say such things because there is always an employer out there giving him money because the world moved on due to the fact that smarter people existed n allowed his bloodline to procreate by thinking of the other people.
Someone needs to be visited by 3 spirits this Christmas
In conclusion: the old woman is stronger than the tower, hence she survived.
What about her stove?
@@mirzaahmed6589 they don't make stoves like they used to. If a stove can't survive an entire building collapsing don't bother trying to sell it to me.
@@Blue.. LOL!!!!! Brilliant!
@@Blue.. That stove was probably 15% steel, 5% ceramic and 80% cast iron. Those things were monsters and most likely had higher load bearing capacity than any of the walls around them.
“ Surprised by an explosion “ is so funny.
“ Oh, sorry, what was I saying? I was just interrupted by a surprise explosion. “
The Grenfell Tower incident was one of the few news stories I ever saw that legitimately made me really sad and angry
And worried too. As a Brit who at the time about to move out of my parents. I saw so many buildings modified after the diaster. It's scary to think how many had that dangerous cladding, or how many corners were cut all across the country. I'm angry at Grenfell, but I'm enraged at the thousands more put at risk.
What sickened me about Grenfell was the amount of British army helicopters that could have been used to rescue people. Then a friend pointed out that that sort of effort only happens to rich homes in California. How many people cheered for air displays and they couldn't even fly them in to save lives? Those buildings are too high for fire brigades to deal with.
@@Stettafire I live in a London council flat, and (while I'm relatively sure we don't have the same cladding on our building) I still freak out whenever I hear a neighbour's fire alarm. My mum's the same, but she was working nearby at the time and saw the fire so naturally it hits her worse.
I remember this... one thing that was noted also... the design was used and developed for housing in the Middle East - the first blocks where built in Saudi Arabia but they limited the height no more than 4 levels... in the UK they went as high as 24 levels but after 4 levels ie concrete panels and bolts would start not to line up etc so at the top you could only bolt 2 of 4 bolts together
That chimes with what my dad said who worked for Newham council. Apparently the remaining bolts had their heads cut off and were glued over the holes to cover it up.
@@dans2425 That's what I heard, the reason given that the builders were on piece rate - so much per bolt - so they weren't going to waste time forcing things through.
It is originally a Danish panel system, it was used for terrace and slab blocks, approved for heights up 8 storeys. The problem with the bolts not lining up is not a product of this, but of several other issues, relating to the expertise of the work force producing both the panels and doing the assembly, the quality of oversight, and of training. In the British case, the post-war construction industry remained relatively conservative and primitive and basic methods remained dominant, whereas this was not the case in continental Europe.
@@dans2425
I can't believe I'm reading this......
Human life not worth a lot, obviously.
If you look on the intro to BBC/Pathe's "Look at Life" you can see the damage to the concrete slabs caused by poor handling and a rush to get the job done with piecemeal labour.
This is also a very interesting video on the problems with post war housing.
ua-cam.com/video/Ch5VorymiL4/v-deo.html
@@marvintpandroid2213 Adam Curtis is a fantastic investigative documentary journalist. Hypernormalistion is my favourite.
@@EdgyNumber1 He does have a great style ( but a bit marmite for some). I would recommend all of his work. Thankfully it's on UA-cam somewhere.
Poor workmanship is often held to be the reason for the failure of system-built tower blocks like Ronan Point, but that was not accidental. A major part of Henry Ford-type industrialisation was DE-SKILLING the workers.
Instead of years of apprenticeship as a coach builder, car factories aimed to quickly train people to do simple repetitive tasks at high speed. Overseers were there to maintain speed, not quality. Staff were easily replaced, and had no incentive to take pride in their work.
This deskilling (under the name of "New Ways of Working") is making its way into health and social services. Tasks are broken down into components, and wherever possible delegated to less qualified people working for lower pay.
Hence things once done by doctors are done by nurses, registered nurses' work is done by care workers, and whole classes of patients are outsourced from hospitals to nursing homes, care homes and eventually "the community." Care homes do without experienced staff because minimum wage levels are lower for the very young.
The new hospitals in Scotland are falling apart even before they can be opened, and much the same must be happening inside.
"surprised by an explosion that sent her half way across the room" yes I would be surprised to, the way you remarked that so calmly was brilliant
That's a crazy amount of damage for something so new.. Shows how desperate they were
I knew someone who owned a heavy construction company, and his was one of the responding teams to the L'Ambience Plaza collapse in Connecticut in 1987. - Afterward, he was a much quieter person, who didn't sleep so well.
I didn't see that kind of rapid personality change until late fall in 2001 when a number of EMT friends returned from their weeks of volunteer search & rescue work at the World Trade Center in NYC.
I remember this event happening, I was eleven at the time.My Uncle (now sadly deceased)had been the chief engineer on the bridge that crosses the railway in Cambridge (Hills Road to be precise).He explained at the time to me about the dominoe effect.
While we are on the subject of homes can I once again implore of you Jago to make a video about the homeless who sleep on night buses.I am a night bus driver and it really is a disgrace that in the 21st century vast numbers of homeless people have to live this way.
You've got homeless people sleeping on night buses or wherever they can, while you have a family of parasites living life large in a huge mansion(Buckingham Palace)! In this 21st century, royalty is a useless anachronism.
@@neilforbes416 Britain is hundreds of millions of pounds better off because of the Royals. You might not like 'em personally, and you may hate the idea of a monarchy, but you can't say they cost any taxpayer money, because they DON'T. We make a BIG PROFIT out of the fact the country has an ancient monarchy.
Check it out here:-
ua-cam.com/video/bhyYgnhhKFw/v-deo.html
@@effyleven ua-cam.com/video/yiE2DLqJB8U/v-deo.html
:)
@@effyleven Ever been to Versailles palace in France? Sans Souci in Germany? BOTH Royal Palaces, BOTH attract millions of visitors, BOTH do not have a monarchy in residence so you can walk around and treat Royalty the way they should be treated: An historical subject that has no place in the 21st century. That "The Royals bring in the Tourists" BS has been long since disproved. #RepublicNow
While we are all bickering about wether we should have a monarchy or not and since it's highly unlikely that the Queen will be packing a shopping trolley and venturing out of Buckingham Palace to sleep on my night bus it seems to me this argument is irrelevant.
People, such as Jago,for instance exposing the extent of the rough sleeping, not only on public transport but in general would be much more to the point rather than wether we have a monarchy or not.
i remember the grenfell tower fire. the air in front of my house was smokey that day. later saw it in the news. it was burning for days. i would never live in a tower after that.
the amount of safety neglect in these buildings seems inhuman.
after seeing the picture i was very relieved to find out only 3 people died
antsolja Still, most horrible thing to happen to those three people.
@@yvellebradley2502 of course
"....architecturally uninspiring, but needs must when the devil drives, as they say." I'm loving this narration
"It seems like as long as there is neglect from those in charge, the cost will always be paid in human life."
You're really one sorry builder when you try to reinforce a house with newspapers. Wouldof been more suitable for a house of cards.
The problem was the people who put together these towers were not trained builders, they were unskilled workers paid a piece rate for each panel they assembled. So naturally they just wanted to get as many panels in place as they could, and being unskilled they did not understand the importance of the bolts and the cement. On UA-cam there is a really good documentary called "Inquiry. The Great British Housing Disaster" that also features interviews with former workers who were clueless, openly saying that if the bolts did not fall into place on the first try of putting in the panel, they just cut them off. Work supervisors did not help either, telling workers that even panels that were clearly defective had to be put in.
I remember a few years ago watching a documentary about a block of high rise flats in India which had collapsed and an investigation found that rogue builders, instead of filling foundation cavities with concrete, had used empty oil drums. I remember thinking 'Well at least that sort of thing could never happen here.....'
Living in a House of Cards is no big deal. Many hands put their hearts and spades into the contract.
The foreman Jack Diamond, had once worked on the Trump tower and was not for playing games and was known to have many connectors. He always came to the build suited and he had under him, four of a kind who were the floormen. I suppose you could say we always had a full-house, and I lived with gypsy, who claimed to be a bit of a stud, black Jack and Kitty. There was also the one-eyed old maid who always had what one would describe as a poker face and who had a reputation for being shorthanded. She was a bit of a railbird who claimed that she knew all the royals but I bet she was bluffing.
Upstairs was flash with wet-board and window cards and there lived a straight and one pair who were queens and for tea we always ate stakes which we all agreed were ace.
@@johno4521 In India and many far east countries, everyone who is involved in a build project that falls down and is found to be corrupt face prison time. That is the one aspect of foreigners policy that would never happen here.
KebabMusicLtd Well, no, because it penalizes the wrong people - deliberately and with malice. In India an airline pilot can (if he survives) be imprisoned for an accident, even if the cause of the crash was executive meddling or ATC failures. Luckily a hefty bribe will usually smooth out things (but woe to you if you're poor!)
A colleague told me that the parents of a school friend of hers had lived there at the time. Anecdote as that the father got up and opened the bathroom door, he then paused and realise that there was no bathroom beyond the door.
I'm slightly sceptical about this as it would mean that the noise of the collapse hadn't woken them. As neither the colleague, nor the friend whose parents this was had actually been born at the time it was only ever a second hand story.
I can't speak for anyone else. But I've slept through earthquakes, explosions and the collapse of a brick wall in our house (my parents walked into the room to check on me, but I was still asleep). Some people just are extremely heavy sleepers.
@@Stettafire I could see my dad sleeping through something like that, if it happened at the right (wrong?) point in his sleep cycle. Add in the noise of his CPAP machine and have his good ear buried in the pillow, and he'll be even less likely to be disturbed -- as long as the power doesn't go out.
"it seems that as long as there is neglect from those in charge, the cost will always be paid in human lives" wow that's actually a very good line and true
I was scrolling down my recommended during this video, and I saw someone post on community tab. It was a meme saying
When your house collapsed but you’re in the living room. Crazy dude
"As long as there is neglect from those in-charge, the cost will always be paid in human lives"
Well said.
There's always a perverse incentive to cut corners on buildings, even market-rate single-family residences (which makes me wonder why there aren't more round buildings like the Gherkin), whenever it's thought that the flaws won't become apparent until the builders are long gone. The bigger the building, the more the effect of any particular problem--whether it's structural or social (like noise insulation)--gets magnified, and the greater the disaster when something does go wrong.
I believe gas heating/cooking was banned from hi-rise buildings after this event.
Yes, it was. They then installed electric stoves and heaters, only to find out that the electrical system in some of these blocks could not cope with the additional load and would catch on fire...
Nope. I live in a tower block, and have a gas cooker.
@@IainGalli But do you live in a tower block that is based on a large panel system? Are the walls based on big concrete panels, or are they traditional brick walls? The ban on gas was only for LPS based tower blocks.
yes gas was removed from all system built blocks in Great Britain as a result of Ronan Point, however in many cases it has been reinstated, it seems safety is often least concern of officials, it is only a matter of time before the same happens again
@@Satters My flat is very low rise, only two stories, but the council were quite adamant in the rental agreement that no gas appliances of any kind were allowed in any of their flats at all... Ever... Under any circumstances.
And then they fitted gas central heating :-)
Brilliant summary. Profits before human life when building the social housing we already have a shortage of in the UK. Appalling but true.
it isnt a shortage of houses, it's too many people, the country is not sustainable with this level of overpopulation
Yep. Have a flat in an ex-soviet tower block I use when I meet my relatives. Even the soviets got social housing not completely wrong, and to think some of the best architects such as Zaha Hadid Architects are in the country and we still stubbornly put money in our pockets over safety.
It's not so much profits as it's often necessity. If you were to follow the regulations properly it'd probably be so expensive that you would never do it in the first place, which means rather than bad houses you get no houses, which can then lead to even worse methods of housing being necessary causing a higher loss of life in the end. Unsafe things exist mainly because of necessity more than negligence, everyone likes to complain when someone gets hurt but no one considers how much it would have cost to do it right initially. Safety costs money, if you don't want the victims to pay, you take their place and pay for them - Something very few of us are willing to do.
The people that run building companies are humans too, not much unlike the rest of us. Before we can complain retrospectively, we have to understand that we are just as bad.
Pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug Though the problem of necessity begets the question, is it really necessary to go the lowest prices? Often it was the companies that bid lowest that got the job to make these tower blocks. Just a few extra million and these councils could’ve made sure these buildings had proper cladding, had proper construction.
Hell you want a good example of social housing? Look no further than Singapore, a then poor country that built great social housing. Yes, unsafe things can exist out of necessity, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t improve on it once the situation gets better(ie; our economy’s gotten much better than the 60s). Lest we still have the cars of the 60s that had no crumple zones, no 3 point seatbelts and often lacked air bags.
A Quill and Scroll: yes you can improve on it when things get better, but you also have to remember to reduce the restrictions if/when things inevitably get worse again, or better still the government should give avenues to save money because otherwise companies will do whatever they can to circumvent the rules which is what leads to so many of these problems. Things can only be as good as we can afford, and often we ask for much more than what we can afford, because no one wants to come to terms with reality.
One of your best videos ever! Please keep them coming. And the humour too👍!
I love finding videos on really obscure topics like this one. Great video!
Yet they're building more and more tower blocks, much closer together than they would allow in the 60s. We went to a local skate park last week only to did the council sold the site for three tower blocks. "Just pack 'em in and reap the council tax rewards for generations..."
poor you can't ride your little board anymore. Some people will find a place to live. Horrible news.
@@pedroSilesia you mean some investors will find a place to make more mony
@@pedroSilesia You short sighted prick. Taking your head out your arse and looking at the bigger picture you would see they're building unnafordable apartments all over the London whilst not installing any infrastructure. There are a lack of school places for a start and a year or two ago around 500 youth clubs were closed in the UK. This combined with building over things like skate parks will leave the youth with nothing to do. Dont come crying to me when they take their boredom and frustration out on society in other ways -- graffitti, robbings and other crime
the idea is that people in cities are happy to live at higher densities. In fact it is land theft of the same as the highland clearences and enclosure acts.
@@highpath4776 That's an idea based on greed -- actually, scrap that -- it's an agenda of the nefarious United Nations
Tower Blocks: In England, a stacked, self-clearing slum.
Yup. Eventually get demolished, residents displaced, area gentrified, and wealthy residents move in instead.
Leaving the displaced residents, on the street, waiting to be rehoused in council houses that no longer belong to the council.
What a brilliant job the government has done with housing over the years.
@@TheMijman Ronan Point was built under a Labour government.
thats true
So basically it’s about the management and not the building style itself? I guess it’s just inherently more easy to abuse and take advantage of by builders and public bodies
The fascinating thing is how a partial building failure is still remembered in detail and talked about after half a century. There's a BBC special, I think called "The Great British Housing Disaster" or similar, here on UA-cam where you can see how horrible the construction methods were for literally everything in the 60s. But I suspect most brits know the story already. Some of those estates were demolished after just 14 years! What I don't get however, is how current building methods (such as the use of TIMBER FRAME on huge, 6-floor apartment buildings housing 300+ units) are just as terrible in different ways, but are unquestioned. There have been deadly fires with these wooden apartment blocks, but no outrage. In NJ a few years ago, a fire killed two people in one of these buildings- not only that, but the ENTIRE COMPLEX burned to the ground- literally to ash- in a few hours. There was nothing left. You brits actually give a care about your built environment, while stateside we're given utter garbage and nobody notices or cares; the only commentary is just ads by real estate agents hamming up how "luxurious!" and hip and "great value" they are. Ugh
I can’t believe I’m defending 5-over-1s but: it’s true that they can be extremely flammable *during construction* but they tend to be non-flammable once sprinklers and drywall are installed since drywall actually is pretty good at protecting timber framing from heat. So they *can* burn at very high temperatures, but for that to be possible or likely they kind of have to be unoccupied.
“She was surprised by an explosion that blew her across the room”
I don’t know why but “surprised” doesn’t seem to fully grasp the severity of the situation there. 🧐
These videos are fascinating - thank you.
I think its safe to say now that building standards are poor enough not to trust any newbuild multi-storey homes. Yet there's still demand for them and they still get built. Welcome to modern London!
They don't get built like that any more. They may look the same but the external walls of modern construction are just there to keep the weather out and are not load baring
Still wouldn't live in one though... for many reasons. I'd rather live in a yurt XD.
What else are people going to do? The only solution would be to develop other smaller cities into having more job opportunities but no one would willingly agree to that. Not the small cities that would change nor the large cities that would loose resources
You have heard of the postwar town building boom... right?.
Entire towns were created and urban 'Metroland' expanded, precisely for the purpose of bleeding off excess population from places like London, Birmingham & Glasgow.
@@jimtaylor294 metroland was mostly inter-War and was mostly urban growth along public transport routes rather than new towns in the classic Post war model.
New tows like Welwyn Garden City was part of metroland but most of the new town growth was post war and associated with private transport. That gave us towns like Basingstoke, Harlow and Milton Keynes.
What we need now are very dense, high quality housing in both new rural development areas and urban regeneration that does not require the use of private transport.
One couple moved back in, when asked why, they replied, "Our only regret is we didn't die in the first collapse."
Lmao , gold
The real life equivalent of a dirt house on the first night.
wow. thank you for this. it's crazy how such terrible things can happen to people simply trying to live
God ., I lived in a tower block in Kennington, on the 18th floor for four years, and I loved it, massive views over the River, pros n cons for sure, but when Grenfell tragedy happened I felt awkward .. and slightly apprehensive.
Whoa Whoa, newspapers not being strong enough??? I really think that depends on whether it's Sunday's paper or not!!!
Can you imagine watching tv and then your entire living room disappears
Now.. imagine the disaster if that house had been fully packed with tenants during the great storm,
a full collapse of the Ronan Point with people in it..
Agreed! Many Tower Blocks in Liverpool have been demolished since I moved here nearly 30 years ago. Some were even converted to student accomodation, but when students started taking the Lift Shafts instead of the lifts or stairs and getting themselves killed in the process. They too were demolished.
The delivery of the message in the end was well done.
I feel like this video is foreshadowing..
How are they controversial? Everyone hates them. I've not heard anyone take the other side of the argument. Towers like the Shard for the superrich, with a hotel and concierge controlling the building are fine, but sink estates for the poor with broken lifts and places for muggers to lurk are horrible. Brutalism sucks. And you can't blame this one on uncaring Tory govts. In 1968, Labour had been in power for 4 years.
Nah, I like them because you get a city view
Perhaps you should be honest about it as the first tower block was built by a tory government in the 1950's. And Grenfell, and Lacanal House were in Tory boroughs.
Bad brutalism sucks
Chris WinsLow if they’re Tory boroughs, then they aren’t labour voters you dumb fuck.
Brutalism works when built as a high density neighbourhood, not as one off structures to pack the poors into. Look at commie blocks, the ones that still stand, hold value, are generally liked, and did well are ones that were built as brand new neighbourhoods with schools, shops, public transport and green spaces. The ones that were erected in the middle of cities without any urban planning around them, ended up as vertical slums.
I just stumbled upon this video more or less by accident. Thank you, very interesting!!
Here in Germany, we basically did the same mistakes after WWII. A multitude of bombed-out and devasted cities, millions of ethnic German refugees that had to be accomodated after the War, hence the need for many new districts of concrete blocks of flats (housing tens of thousands of people) were built in many cities all across the country. The only difference to the UK might be the fact that most constructions here in Germany were at least (more or less) meticulously built, thanks to our super tediously high construction standarts and laws. Thank heavens we never had any severe building collapses or any other problems of that sort to my knowledge. That said, a lot of these postwar German housing projects, unfortunately, ultimitely failed and have become massive problem zones over the past decades.
In the 60s and 70s, many young families (as well as many elderly) moved into these new housing projects. By the 80s though, many people with a formerly low income moved out to other parts of the cities, as soon as their economic situation improved - either relocating to renovated old pre-WWII districts, or into new separate houses or row houses. What was mostly left in these German mass-housing districts was mostly low-income and/or unemployed people, as well as a ton of immigrants (especially during and after the 80s). And thus, alas, the inevitable downfall began. Quite sad actually, as a lot of these national housing programmes were quite often actually well-planned, with well-designed flats, balconies and other good amenities as well as good public transportation access.
A prime example of this mess here in Germany would be the huge Osterholz-Tenever district in the city of Bremen, or the infamous Chorweiler district in the city of Cologne. Both were hailed as a "pinnacle" of modern urban planning in the 60s/70s, both constructed on former farmland at the edges of either city; now both are mostly absolutely terrible. In Bremen for instance, many huge tower blocks at Osterholz-Tenever district have already been torn down since 2000 and replaced with more mixed housing.
ua-cam.com/video/5lCqnuZbeI0/v-deo.html
I live in one of these hell holes. You can hear every fart of every neighbor. Every turn of a faucet. The heating keeps constantly cracking in the walls. It's a nightmare.
My father was an architect. He designed paper mills, not any well known buildings. In those days architects did much of the work that today would be done by the consulting engineers. He predicted such a collapse would happen, I’m not sure if he meant to that particular block, or to a building using that method of construction in general. I was quite young at the time, but I remember it happening. Father died not long afterwards.
"So too, astonishingly, was her gas stove" Brilliant
The people below were lucky it blew back instead of falling on them.