Bringing Transforming Homes to life

Author: Professor Jo Patterson, Director of Transforming Homes, Cardiff University

A quarter of all housing in the UK was built more than 100 years ago. Our lives were very different then – open fires heated our rooms and water and electric lighting and cars were only just becoming commonplace for the general population. Televisions, mobile phones and computers were the technologies of the future. World War One had just ended and everything was in short supply.

As time has gone by the homes built more than 100 years ago have been lived in by different generations, all with different needs and from different backgrounds and cultures. The houses that once were similar, now vary due to the way they have been looked after and modified over time – sometimes for the better, but sometimes not.

Our Transforming Homes Illustrated Storybook aims, through attractive and colourful visuals combined with simple and informative text, to explain the opportunities and challenges of transforming homes built by Councils between 1920-1940 inspired by the research we have been conducting over the past two and a half years.

It presents what the homes and lives were like 100 years ago, how the home and its environment have changed over the last 100 years, what the homes are like today and the opportunities and challenges that have to be faced are. The book covers how the Transforming Homes team have engaged with residents, showcasing opportunities for transformation and how these fit with the future direction of housing.

Dr Lucy McFadzean, one of our researchers, has led the production of our Transforming Homes Illustrated Storybook working with all members of the consortium to convey our work in a way that we trust will reach a wider audience. The Storybook has been illustrated by Rebecca Davies and Kidda Kinsey.

We hope this Illustrated Storybook helps you to understand why the transformation of housing stock is so important to provide healthy, safe, affordable, comfortable and happy homes for the future, whilst minimising impact on the environment. We hope it inspires you to engage further with our researchers and transform our housing stock for future generations.

View the Transforming Homes illustrated storybook.