A new academic project will explore whether post-war high-rise public housing in London and Birmingham still has a role to play in providing homes, amid a growing shortage of housing and a trend to replace the architecture of the period.

Tim Lewis, a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University, will look into the raft of tower blocks built in urban areas between the 1950s and 1970s and reassess the reasons for their construction, the problems they encountered and their viability as homes today. In Birmingham alone more than 400 tower blocks were constructed, around 200 have since been demolished.

Tim said, “High-rise is an iconic form of housing that has divided opinion since its inception and has become a symbol of social housing and the welfare state, whether good or bad it deserves a re-evaluation to inform its continued viability as housing.”