Regeneratings as Contested Contact in Post-war Estates

Abstract

This paper explores retrofitting post-war estates as a form of contested contact, interrogating how materially-driven interventions act not just as technical, environmental improvements, but as aesthetic strategies of erasure, suppression, and social displacement (c.f. Conway et al., 2011). Using example cases such as Fatima Gardens, Aylesbury, Woodberry Down and, significantly, Grenfell Tower—the latter wherein residents explicitly described the retrofit as merely "[putting] lipstick on a pig" to aesthetically appease wealthier neighbours (Short, 2019)—I argue these transformations reveal uncomfortable truths about contact between classes, residents, planners, and policymakers. Drawing on Rossi's (1966) notion of architecture as deliberate recollection and suppression, informed by Coleman’s (1985) controversial critique of post-war design as causative in social malaise, and Goffman’s (1963) theory of social devaluation legitimising demolition (c.f. Pain, 2019; Watt, 2021), this research highlights the pervasive controversy of aesthetic-driven retrofit strategies. These practices are often motivated by market palatability rather than resident welfare in high land-value areas, and disrupt embodied forms of memory and communal attachment, enacting a subtler form of social cleansing yet to be fully expounded by the academic literature (Lees & Ferreri, 2016). Unlike previous studies that primarily focus on displacement through estate demolition and large-scale regeneration (Watt, 2022; Lees & White, 2020), this research examines how the act of retrofitting itself—often perceived as beneficial—is implicated in processes of symbolic and material erasure. Drawing upon the concept of "slow violence" (Lees & White, 2020), I examine resident resistance as a critical assertion of agency from disempowered communities, not only through neglect and demolition, but now sometimes by interventions often perceived by residents’ as being done to them and not with them (Watt, 2013). In critically unpacking how retrofit can become a tool for soft erasure under neoliberal, urban agendas (c.f. Ferreri & Glucksberg, 2016; Woodcraft, 2020), this paper underscores the urgency of rethinking urban contact in post-war estates through frameworks attentive to and collective, place-anchored memory and belonging (Halbwachs, 1925).