What do we ask for and what do we receive from the built environment? Engineer Roma Agrawal explores the ways in which the dreams and ideals of architects and designers are experienced, co-created and changed by the people who occupy their buildings.

Roma explores a vision for post-war social housing that aims to bring lively street life to the air through generous elevated walkways called Streets in the Sky. At Sheffield’s Park Hill estate, we learn how Alison and Peter Smithson’s vision of building bustling communities at height is experienced by residents Dana and Tamara to understand how these spaces can facilitate connection and community among the towering raw concrete. Professor Ben Highmore shares the tenets of new brutalism, the building style that centred the provision of social housing, and brought modest and honest raw materials to the fore.

Stopping over in Singapore where super-high rises are attempting a similar feat with gardens, bridges and terraces in the sky, Roma considers the role of building at height in places where high density social housing is the norm, and we hear from architect Peng Beng Khoo, whose design for the Pinnacle@Duxton housing scheme includes sky gardens and terraces for residents, and the public on the 26th and 50th floor. Urbanist Ming Cheng reflects on whether similar schemes could ever be feasible in the UK.

With Dana Abdulkarim and Tamara Zoe, Park Hill residents; Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex; Ming Cheng, Urbanist and Director of Urban Architecture at the London School of Architecture; and Peng Beng Khoo, architect and Director of ARC Studio.

Presenter: Roma Agrawal
Producer: Mae-Li Evans
Researcher: Nadia Mehdi
Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey
Music and Sound Design by Phil Smith
Mix by Nigel Appleton
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4 Show less