Designed To Live In (Routledge Revivals)

Originally published in 1962, this book traces the main influences behind modern design in domestic architecture. It does so against the context of the effect each new dwelling has on its environment and the effect its design has on those in the surrounding (and often older, historic) housing stock. Diverse influences such as the bye-law street and Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse are discussed, while the ideas bearing on the individual private house range from those of the early nineteenth century villa builders to Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie houses and the work of Mies van der Rohe. The book closes with a detailed discussion of the problems and possibilities of domestic design in house-building in the late 20th Century

Elizabeth Beazley was born in the Wirral and served in the WRNS in World War II. She qualified as an architect and worked for Lionel Brett in Oxfordshire, where her work included involvement with Hatfield new town. She subsequently freelanced and made several extended visits to Turkey and Iran in the late fifties and sixties to work on archaeological digs with some of the leading experts of the period. She became a specialist on the vernacular buildings of the Iranian plateau. She combined a career as an author with freelance work as a landscape architect, particularly in the field of visitor access at a time when car ownership was becoming universal. She undertook a significant amount of work for the National Trust, serving on its Architectural Panel for many years. Erddig in North Wales and Culzean in Ayrshire are but two properties that strongly show her influence