ABSTRACT
There are apocryphal tales about the downside of comprehensive redevelopment of British towns and cities in the post-war years. But undoubtedly many municipal tenants of recently constructed high-rise apartments were advised by housing officials to turn up the heating, open the windows and cut down on washing if they wished to reduce the damp and cold conditions which were blighting their lives. This official line now has a tenuous scientific basis in the atmospheric balance model developed by the Building Research Establishment. In their report Tackling Condensation, the BRE describes how three key factors interact to determine ‘home environmental conditions’—the weather, the building and the occupants [Garrat and Nowak, 1991, p.9]. So if the weather is an act of god and it is impossible to change the physical properties of a tower block-as officials in those early days claimed-then it follows that the occupants must be responsible for high levels of moisture production, low temperatures and poor ventilation, all combining to produce condensation. Furthermore, poor health resulting from such cold and damp conditions is in this sense, self-inflicted. Sonia Hunt condemns such casuistry as ‘moral fragmentation occur(ring) when a collective problem is reduced to the characteristics of individuals.’ [Hunt, 1993, p.70].
