School's Out! #60 with Holly Smith and Alva Gotby

The politics of housing and homeliness

For the last School’s Out! before the summer holiday, we are doing something special! Together with Verso Books - the independent radical publishing house that has given us so many of our favourite books - we are organising a double feature on the politics of housing and homeliness, in the form of a book presentation and a conversation with two authors: Holly Smith and Alva Gotby

Holly and Alva have both recently published beautiful and incredibly timely books that explore domesticity as an experience that is both political and personal. 

Up in the Air: a History of High Rise Britain

Holly Smith’s Up in the Air: a History of High Rise Britain (2025), explores the slabs and towers of post war Britain, from the inside out. Through the experiences of the people who lived there, she traces how these new forms of housing reshaped everyday life, forcing residents to rethink family, community, and neighbourliness. But just as drastically as the public housing model was rolled out, it was also folded up again, with the abandonment of welfare state ideology and the physical crumbling of many estates. ‘Up in the Air’ is the history of an idea of housing, but even more so a history of communities struggling for dignity and self-determination in where and how they live. It really is not about high-rise versus low, or modernist versus traditional, it’s about the people’s right to housing and to community. 

Feeling at Home: transforming the politics of housing

Alva Gotby, who has background in social work and activism, takes her scalpel to the entire notion of ‘home’ - whether it is in high places or tucked away in the suburbs. In Feeling at Home: transforming the politics of housing (2026) she talks about the construction not so much of houses, but of the domestic ideal. Is your home really your castle if you’re a woman, if you don’t own but rent, if you’re not well? Or does your castle also protect you from dangers from inside the home? In her book, Alva uncovers an enormous amount of ideology, assumptions and mechanics of oppression and inequality hidden under the carpets and the flowery wallpaper of the ideal home. She does not allow us the illusion that if everyone is housed, then all will be well. The struggle does not stop at the front door, we shall also have to reimagine how we live together and apart, what is work and what is family.

We are excited that both Holly and Alva will join us on Friday the 26^th of June to talk about their books. Combining powerful storytelling and sharp political analysis, their work offers not only insight into the realities of housing and domestic life, but also a call to action — one that we believe will strongly resonate with the audience of the Independent School for the City. As always, we come at this not politically neutral but with an agenda, that everybody has an equal right to home, to community and to the city. Let’s make sure that we go into the summer not just enlightened by our comrades from the UK, but galvanized.

Programme 26 June 2026

19:30 Doors open

22:00 Drinks at the bar

20:00 - 20:45 Welcome and short presentations by Holly Smith and Alva Gotby.

20:45 - 21:30 Conversation with Holly Smith, Alva Gotby and the audience, moderated by Nuria Ribas Costa.

21:30 Drinks and aftertalk

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About Holly Smith

Holly Smith is a historian of architecture and protest. She is a Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge. Her research has been awarded the Duncan Tanner Prize by Oxford University Press and the Hawksmoor Medal by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. She holds a PhD from University College London.

About Alva Gotby 

Alva Gotby is a writer and organiser living in London. Her first book, They Call It Love, was published in 2023, and her second book Feeling at Home came out in 2025. She holds a PhD from the University of West London and writes about feminist theory, social reproduction, housing, emotions, and family. She is active in struggles for better homes for all.

Nuria Ribas Costa

Nuria Ribas Costa is a Spanish journalist and jurist who works as an independent researcher and policy analyst in the fields of urbanism and culture, with projects ranging from music resilience policy-making to collective governance of the city.