Establishing other facts about Red Road was a central part of the discussion that night. But in the course of the meeting the question of whether Red Road itself – its material fabric – was worth saving stubbornly persisted. The building itself, along with the professionals and amateur ‘experts’ who offered translations of it, remained a forceful actor and, consequently, continued to foreground the complex socio-technical character of the event. This is usefully illustrated by one woman’s intervention from the floor and the responses it generated. Prefacing her comments with the warning that ‘you might not like what I have to say’, and contesting a claim from another resident about the structural soundness of the highrises, the woman told the meeting a story. [video_2]

Rather than recruiting this woman as an ally to the Campaign cause, and transforming her into a housing activist, the meeting served as a forum for her to ‘question’ the building’s structural integrity and support the case for building failure. Here are two chosen instances of how speakers at the table tried to repair the situation. [video_3]

In order to keep the idea of a Campaign valid, and the emergent collective tied together, the speakers at the table, in turn, transformed themselves into legal advisers and structural engineers. They try and repair the buildings by repairing what is known about the buildings. In so doing they place this woman, her cracked wall and her doubts, outside of the emerging Campaign collective. Suddenly it appears that the activists – most of whom do not reside at Red Road – care more about Red Road than she does. In the next clip we can see how she challenges this arrangement. [video_4]

This resident gives perfect expression to the ‘uncertain fact’ that it at the heart of the meeting that evening, and of the controversy of Red Road [5].