Homeworld
©The Times
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Homeworld ’81 was the first of three international housing exhibitions held in Milton Keynes. The others were EnergyWorld in 1986 and FutureWorld in 1994. It was organised by Milton Keynes Development Corporation – the Government agency responsible for developing the New City between 1967-92.
Developers were invited to take a serviced plot and build an innovative design. Various sizes of plot were available and the innovations included not just energy saving but more efficient build techniques than were generally in use and ways to make homes cheaper to buy by using less land.
The exhibits could either be demolished or sold after the exhibition – none were demolished.
During the month of May more than 150,000 people paid to come and “see what’s happening to houses”. Posters advertised special rail and entrance deals – some aimed at attracting commuters to come and live in Milton Keynes.
The posters promised “The Pyramid house, The Glass house, The House with no nails, The House where the roof is also the walls, The Flexible house, The Clipper house, The Computerised house and many more”.
We are going to walk around the exhibition site and see what we can now see of the thirty six homes which were part of the exhibition. There are a number of other homes on the site which were built after the exhibition – some are mentioned on our walk, others are not.
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