Landscape PING!

Birmingham, Birmingham Central Library and what it tells us about the city’s inferiority complex

2012-01-23T09:14:00.000Z

When I’m asked what my favourite building in Birmingham is, I will answer without any hesitation, the Central Library.

Of course the irony of this, is that the library is soon to be demolished, when its replacement, located just a stone throw away, is finally completed. I think this example is illustrative of the general malaise that hangs over the built environment of Birmingham’s centre, and clouds the debate over how it is redeveloped.

I have an entirely unsubstantiated theory that the heart of central Birmingham should really be located somewhere between the Methodist Central Hall, the Children’s Hospital and Aston University. Pretty much, slap bang underneath the A38 flyover. Other than gut feeling, I guess my reasoning is that this area seems to have a built character most fitting a major city. Off the top of my head, I’d suggest that there is a scale and quality of buildings that you typically see in say Manchester or Sheffield, but rarely in the centre of Birmingham.

Of course one reason for this, as I’ve already alluded to, is the network of major roads which crisscross the city centre and displaced many of the city’s historic features when they were built. It’s a story we’re all pretty familiar with, but it continues to influence how much of Birmingham’s built environment is viewed today.

Actually, Birmingham city centre does have a nice selection of historic buildings (if not on the scale of some other cities). However, if there is a dominant style to the city centre, I would suggest that it is a rather apologetic postmodernism; a style that isn’t really modern, but rarely resembles any particular historic design either. This is well illustrated by the hand-carved sandstone plinth which supports a giant tv screen in Victoria Square, and the great variety of bespoke, cast iron bins and benches which “litter” the centre.

Birmingham pomo

Pomo-erotic

Victoria Square

Cast-iron benches in the renowned, Gothi-deco-steampunk style

More bespoke cast iron

Elsewhere, advertising hoardings in plastic Victoriana stylee, sit next to dishevelled 20^th Century buildings, chain shops selling sportswear and more giant tv advertising screens. You sense that the people who have shaped the recent development of the city centre, yearn for a history that Birmingham never actually had and has little to do with the realities of the city today. I suppose the last hurrah of postmodern era Birmingham is probably the blandly pleasant, corporate public realm of Brindley Place, topped by Demitri Porphyrios’ absurd campanile.

Brindley Place by Oosoom

As a pedestrian, Birmingham centre isn’t a particularly nice place to walk around. New Street, the main thoroughfare between the regenerated shopping Mecca’s of the Bullring and the Mailbox is particularly shabby. More widely, it’s often very confusing to find your way around, with little connection or commonality between developments. Navigating Birmingham can sometime feel like you are swimming against an overwhelming urban tide. Nowhere is this better illustrated then when trying to walk from the centre to the Jewellery Quarter, negotiating a precarious, pedestrian bridge, which is accessed through a series of ramps which project through the innards of an adjacent building, before crossing the concrete A38 canyon into the no-man’s land which leads to St Pauls Square. My colleague, Rob Rowlands, has a theory that recent planning in Birmingham has been about individual developments in isolation, rather than any sort of joined up strategy. I think the evidence to support this idea is all over Brum, whilst I also wonder if this is a hangover from the megaplans of the 60’s and 70’s, which are now held up as failures of planning.

Unlike London, where much of the urban infrastructure is hidden underground, in Birmingham it’s there for everyone to see, cutting through major thoroughfares with roads, carparks and other unsightly stuff (I’m going to avoid putting another postmodern metaphor in here). I seem to remember someone telling me, as an example of Birmingham’s entrepreneurial governance, that it was the first city to introduce pavement billboards. It still feels like Birmingham has more advertising, than any other UK city that I care to think of.

My favourite Birmingham carpark, located opposite Harvey Nichols and the Malmaison

More recently a new Birmingham regeneration style has emerged with massive bombastic, look-at-me architectural logos. Examples of this new trend include, Make’s Cube, Beetham Tower, the new library, the Bullring and of course, Future Systerm’s Selfridges. Similarly, the proposed redevelopment of New Street Station, minds me of the sort of thing you see popping up in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. I suspect this is deliberate. You see, while I rather like Selfridges in particular, they all have a character that is entirely unrelated to Birmingham. They represent the physical embodiment of an effort to distance the city from what everybody thinks about it.

The Cube

Beetham Tower

The Bullring’s new Spiceal Street development

Selfridges

The proposed New Street Station redevelopment

Which brings me to the library itself. I guess the first thing to say is that it’s actually pretty difficult to get a really good view of, which is surprising given that it’s bloody massive. Whilst it is a building of rare stature in the centre, from many important vistas, it is hidden behind the smoked-glass and plastic bland of the adjacent Copthorne Hotel.

Hiding behind the Town Hall

Peering out from behind…

…the gorgeous, Copthorne Hotel

The library revealed

I’m not going to try and dissect the architecture of the library, but I will say that it’s absolutely extraordinary. Local architect, John Madin, based the design on an inverted concrete ziggurat, or stepped pyramid, I think the scale and ambition of the building, demonstrate Madin’s love for the city; he wanted the absolute best for Birmingham. There really is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world.

Which brings me to the second thing I really like about the library; Paradise Forum, the public arcade which runs through the heart of it. I just like the idea of building an amazing structure, and then letting everybody use it, however they want. Whilst the selection of amenities could be down-market, they are housed within an absolutely wonderful space, that is accessible to everyone and is well used by an incredibly broad range of people. It’s a genuinely inclusive public realm that is a world away from the sanitised spaces of Brindley Place, the Bullring and in all likelihood, the new library.

The lovely roof

Paradise Forum

I don’t think the new library will be a bad building, but I do think that it is quite an irony that it will be so close, both literally and in content, to the building it replaces. The design, by slightly wacky Dutch architects Mecanoo, is basically a great big box, prettified with some fancy metal attachments and gold cladding panels, which seem to be the latest architectural fad currently sweeping the nation. It’s interesting that for a city that appears a bit ashamed of its monumental concrete structures, is so quick is to respond with a new monumental concrete structure (albeit with some supposed European sophistication). If you thought the old library was ugly, then I’m not sure what you’ll make of the new one other than it being newer and cleaner.

The new library takes shape

The cladding in detail

Whilst taking these photos, I also took the opportunity to explore the bits of the library that I’d not really seen before – round the back and underneath it. It’s an interesting experience, kind of like seeing the remains of a future that never quite happened. The underground bits are also seriously dirty, badly maintained and run-down. However, nowhere is the relationship between the library and the city’s 1960’s concrete collar of roads, more apparent.

I guess there is a school of thinking that if you wipe away the buildings associated with this period in the city’s history, and when all the horrible stuff was built, then you will also get rid of the negative associations of the era. I don’t think it will, and worse I think it will destroy the evidence of what was actually a very important time and optimistic time for Birmingham.

Probably my favourite picture I took that day is from the back entrance to the library. It shows the poor state of repair, the numerous inappropriate architectural additions and a giant advertising billboard. It says so much about how Birmingham centre has been managed. There’s also a mock –Victorian signpost in there too.

It also struck me that the spaces at the periphery of the library, were reminiscent of London’s Barbican or maybe even the bits around the Sydney Opera House. In London and Sydney, these places are celebrated, whereas Birmingham’s most unique building is neglected, unloved and about to be knocked down. I’ve used the term, inferiority complex, in the title of this blog because it sums up Birmingham’s approach to regeneration. In a person this inferiority could be manifested by trying to be like someone else, rather than making the most of what’s good about yourself. I know this sounds a bit “self-help book”, but I really think this is Birmingham’s problem. I think it’s also worth pointing out that while I talk about this inferiority complex pretty generally, I think comes from the people in charge, and not necessarily the ordinary people of the Birmingham.

Anyway, I’ve said a lot about what I don’t like about Birmingham, so it’s probably about time I said what I do like, because actually I like Birmingham a lot.

Birmingham is a city of industrial and engineered heritage, and consequently it is characterised by robust materials: red bricks, blue engineering bricks and concrete – Victorian pubs, railway viaducts and Spaghetti Junction. It may not always be a pretty place, but the hilly topography offers complex, interesting vistas and visual juxtapositions. Nowhere is this more evident than Digbeth, which is also my favourite part of the city.

Digbeth viewed from Selfridges carpark

Digbeth is where the old and new of Birmingham meet, grow and go off in directions you don’t quite expect. Traditional metal-bashing factories sit side-by-side with new media and technology businesses, handsome Victorian pubs sit next to galleries and arts organisations, wildlife emerges from the ruins of industrial works and there is a growing community of independent people, shops and cafes. And it’s still all a bit of a mess.

A typical Dibeth view in all its glory

One of the areas many, handsome Victorian pubs

Grand Union Canal leading to Warwick Bar

Birmingham’s river, the River Rea

The Custard Factory

Looking at how Digbeth has grown from this industrial heritage, what I find so disappointing about the treatment of the library, is that it seeks to impose a new cultural identity on the city and wipe away a significant period of the city’s history. Not only is Birmingham Central Library a uniquely, striking building and an impressive feat of engineering, it is also the embodiment of the Birmingham’s 20^th Century history.

By strange co-incidence I was actually writing this article, when I heard the sad news of architect John Madin’s death. Madin’s work showed a pride in Birmingham that I find lacking in more recent proposals for the city. I would like to think that in the wake of this news, we could have some re-evaluation of the plans to demolish the library. However, I think more realistic that it just serves as a reminder to appreciate this wonderful structure while it’s still here.

Landscape Urbanism as a model for post-industrial regeneration in austerity England

2011-11-16T14:43:00.003Z

It seemed appropriate that in the absence of any recent blog posts, that I should post a little bit about what I’ve been up to instead. Below is the abstract of my recent planning MSc dissertation. If you’d like any further information, please give me a shout, but fingers crossed there will something published from it soon.

“The study investigates whether the emerging theory and practice of Landscape Urbanism, offers a better model for bottom-up regeneration of post-industrial, urban England in the current economic climate of austerity, through the consideration of a Digbeth case study.
Landscape Urbanism offers an alternative approach to development, advocating landscape rather than building as the key organising element within a city. Where early Landscape Urbanism exemplars have arisen from large, top-down developments in North America, it is envisaged by Waldheim (2006) amongst others, that the approach can be applied more widely and as a means to engender bottom-up development.
A Literature Review investigated the practice of Landscape Urbanism, and its place amongst planning theory. In parallel to this, the more recent regeneration initiatives of “Urban Renaissance” were also reviewed, and problems with this approach identified. Further research into Government policy, the economic climate and other emerging issues, were carried out to locate the research within a contemporary, critical context.
The former industrial area of Digbeth in Birmingham is used as a case study for the research, being representative of both the planning and development context of the English city, but sharing the post-industrial context of earlier North American Landscape Urbanism case studies. The study worked alongside the community groups of Digbeth to establish a more appropriate means of regeneration
The study used qualitative data, gleaned from an online survey and one to one interviews, to identify stakeholder aspirations and reactions to a Landscape Urbanism regeneration approach. Whilst, an investigation of the local development context and reviews of established Landscape Urbanism case studies, were used to inform these stakeholder interviews and to establish the feasibility of the approach.
The study finds that there was a strong aspiration amongst stakeholders for a Landscape Urbanism inspired planning approach, however it also identified potential opportunities and barriers for implementing this. By comparison, the more top-down approach offered by BCC’s Big City Plan, was found to be based on a flawed model. It is concluded that there is good evidence to indicate that in the current economic and political climate, Landscape Urbanism does offer a more appropriate means of regenerating, post-industrial urban England.”

Phoenix Park, Wolverhampton

2011-07-13T09:48:00.000+01:00

Phoenix Park, in Wolverhampton, was given a new lease of life by my former colleagues at Pincke’s Leamington Studio. It’s just a really good little scheme and for me strikes a nice balance between traditional park, and some more contemporary features. Definitely worth a visit.

Public Art Corner #1

2011-06-29T10:49:00.000+01:00

This quite outstanding example of public art, is taken from Leicester's "Creative Quarter", and is I'm told, part of a children's art trail.

It's actually pretty difficult to work out what it is, hidden behind it's shield of iron railings. My initial thought was that it was the candle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (see below with his friend the clock).

After a really thorough inspection, I deduced that it's actually a representation of a weighing scales. I love how the artist has taken something really literal, and made it opaque and undecipherable. Top class public art.

Olympic Park, Stratford

2011-06-12T18:36:00.002+01:00

Back in February, I paid a visit to the Olympic site in East London. It was an interesting day out and hence I thought it would be worth sharing my photo’s and thoughts on the experience.

Having caught my usual train to Euston, I wandered over to St Pancras to get the high-speed link to Stratford. It’s been a couple of years since I last visited St Pancras and in that time it’s been given something of an Olympic themed makeover, with gift shops and the Olympic rings hanging from the central arch. From St Pancras I hopped onto the new HS1 link, and after a brief 5 minute whizz through a tunnel (less time than it normally takes you to coast into a station), I arrived blinking at Stratford International Station. I couldn’t believe how quick the journey had been.

The size of the new station is pretty indicative of the scale of stuff happening in the area. As it’s right in the middle of construction, you actually have to hop on a bus and take a surprisingly long ride through to the back of the existing Stratford Station (probably longer than the train ride from St.Pancras). It’s all faintly surreal, as you pass from the mega-construction of the Olympic village to the slightly less mega, east London of Stratford.

The visit proper starts with lunch and a talk on the ‘Legacy’ of the games. Despite my natural scepticism, it’s clear that a lot of effort is going into improving the lot of people living in the area. Of course, whether it will and even can be successful is another matter (it seems likely that there will be displacement and some gentrification). In the Q&A sessions that follows much of the discussion is about the decisions to award the stadium to West Ham, with the guys from the Legacy Company at pains to stress that it was much the best bid.

Getting to the actual Olympic site involves a rather grimy walk down Stratford high street, past some tired looking towerblocks, industrial lock-ups and car showrooms. In the walk I see no reference to the Olympics and just a couple of new apartment developments. I wonder what the overseas tourists will make of it all, or if they’ll want to venture into the areas slightly scary looking pubs.

One of the areas few new developments.

I’m disappointed to discover that not only will we be doing the tour on a bus, but that we won’t get a chance to hop off and get a better look at things. So apologies for the occasional shots of bus interiors and the backs of people’s heads.

As I’ve previously indicated the scale of the place is massive and overwhelmingly impressive, although architecturally it’s not particularly exciting. I think the main stadium rather exemplifies this; surrounded by park, river and a mass of earthworks, the stadium itself is fairly mechanical and utilitarian in appearance. In all honesty, I’m in two minds whether this is a bad thing.

Make's Handball Arena

The Media Centre

I suspect that Hopkins’ classy looking velodrome, with its slopey roof and timber cladding, will be the showpiece building and backdrop of a thousand studios. I can already picture Gary Lineker and Brendan Foster sitting in front of a giant image of it now.

Wilkinson-Eyre's Basketball Arena

I really hope that when completed the park, or the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park to give it its full name, is a success. It’s comfortably the biggest formal park I’ve seen built in the UK during my lifetime. While it’s all a bit brown and muddy now, you can see the potential and there are some good people involved, including Prof. James Hithmough, my former tutor and prairie planting expert. I actually went to a talk a couple of weeks later by Andrew Harland from LDA Design who is responsible for the design. It does look exciting. However as former colleague did point out, when you look at the plans the park has a very stark edge that indicates that it was probably parcelled up for D&B packages, prior to any actual design work being done. I hope this isn’t too noticeable when complete.

The athlete’s village area probably makes up a good third of the whole Olympic site. There is something faintly eastern-bloc about the massed concrete flats that comprise it, but somehow this seems strangely appropriate to my idea of the Olympics.

There is some pretty tasteful architecture in there too – I rather liked the limestone cladding, chock full of fossils, on one building. Others a bit less so, but I did like the kitsch reliefs of Olympian types on one building (sorry bad photo above).

Anish Kapoor’s orbit-thingy is every bit as wacky as you expect. I’ll be honest that I think it’s going to look like a heap of crap, but it’s quite fun watching it being assembled from giant Technic Lego.

Similarly, while I realise it’s someway from finished, I get the feeling that Zaha’s aquatic centre might not look as good as the renders...

Views back across the site

One of the most prominent buildings is the gold-clad Westfield Shopping Centre. It’s only on my way out that I realise how visitors to the Olympics will have to enter though the shopping centre, and hence will never actually have to venture out into Stratford. It’s seems appropriate that the last hurrah of New Labour’s regeneration policies should have this commercially driven model at it’s very heart.

Despite my occasional snarkiness, I think there’s something remarkably exciting about the whole place. It’s not often in Britain that you see a development with really first-class transport infrastructure, but that’s very much the case here. National pride is something that politicians like to bandy about, but I hope it is something to be proud of. Perhaps more importantly, as a nation we seem to talk down our ability to do anything big (be it the Millennium dome or implementing more sustainable development), but I think the Olympics should be an example of what can be achieved in development, and help to raise expectations generally.

I suppose the counter argument is to suggest what a fraction of the cash spent here could achieve around the regions, particularly given that they’re unlikely to see any sort of public investment for the foreseeable future. But I guess if we’re to be hand-wringing about any sort of public works, we won’t do anything.

I can honestly say that I came home with renewed optimism about the Olympics. So it does seem something of an irony that I’ve subsequently not got a ticket. Arse!

Who wants to be the Mayor of Leicester?

2011-05-04T11:09:00.000+01:00

This post gives me a great excuse to indulge my inner school boy and repost the story of former Mayor of Leicester, Colin Hall, whose trousers fell down whilst giving a talk to a primary school. See below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10465457

For those who don’t follow current goings on in the East Midland’s capital metropolis; on May 5th Leicester residents will be voting for their first elected mayor. Front runner is Labour’s, Sir Peter Soulsby, who recently resigned his position as MP for Leicester South to run for the job. I think this decision rather highlights how much power local government has to influence an areas development, particularly when compared to Members of Parliament. Contrary to popular belief, MP’s often have comparably, very little local input or influence. This is one of the reasons I’m broadly in favour of elected mayors, and believe it will give some much needed accountability to local politics and associated development.

From a planning perspective, the Conservative’s ‘Open Source Planning’ green paper, which forms the foundation of most Coalition Government planning policy, made a big deal about accountability for planning decisions and bemoaned that “...the vast majority of application decisions are made not by elected councillors, but by salaried officers.” I.e. by professional Town Planners and not local councillors. Stepping aside the issue of the legitimacy of decision maker, I would take issue with how accountable local councillors really are. I consider myself to be reasonably interested in politics, and obviously have a professional interest in planning. I’m vaguely aware of who my local councillor is (I’m thinking it’s an old chap in a blazer), but I have no idea who makes up my local planning committee, and these are the people who will actually make the big decisions on planning in my area.

My personal experience of dealing with Councillors on planning committees is hugely variable. Some committee members are knowledgeable, considered and balanced decision makers, a few of them are utterly clueless, whilst the vast majority of councillors will often vary between rational and irrational depending on the perceived, political ramifications. I have seen some absolutely shocking decisions made on several occasions and can therefore understand why the general public are often outraged and resentful about planning.

I do think it’s something of an irony that many of the important decisions which actually apply the planning system, are not made by planning professionals. As a consequence, people often blame the failings of the planning system when things that they don’t like happen, rather than looking at who made the decision, and why it was made (on the whole, I think there is very little understanding of the function of local government). More generally, it seems that local elections are mainly used as a way of displaying dissatisfaction with National Government, and that the performance of local councillors and controlling parties receives very little scrutiny.

My hope is that by appointing an elected Mayor, it gives everyone a point of account for what goes in an area, and leads to better local governance and yes, more accountability for planning.

Muirhead Tower

2011-04-01T10:15:00.007+01:00

The University of Birmingham, where I’m currently studying, has a fine campus with many attractive buildings. But for me, the real star is the recently refurbished, Muirhead Tower.

Considering how many concrete towerblocks you see across the country, it’s remarkable how few of them actually get a decent refurb. When I lived in Sheffield, the trend was to clad blocks of Council flats in muted brown plastic – imagine a kind of beige bathroom look. Another particularly nasty approach is seen in the "Leicester City blue" painted St Georges Tower with it's orange, yellow and red panels (see below). Yes, I’ve picked the most flattering angle...

Muirhead Tower was designed by the architect, Sir Philip Dowson of Arup Associates and completed in 1967. It seems to have followed a similar path to many modernist structures of the time: initially lauded, it received awards from both the RIBA and the Civic trust, but as time went on it became rundown and unpopular, with various myths emerging about its stability and structural integrity. It so could easily have found itself demolished.

Whilst Googling for information about the building, I found the following quotes, which probably summed up many people’s attitudes:

“...the building is now infamous to both students and members of staff, and is regarded as a single most ugly building in the beautiful campus.”

“An Ugly concrete block the university couldn't knock down, because it's listed”

As someone so eruditely points out, the fact that it was listed in 1993, almost certainly saved it from destruction. Hence, when structural problems emerged around 2006, Associated Architects were appointed to carry out the work

Work on sensitive or historic environments, often highlights the importance of being “sympathetic”. I’ve never liked this term, as it seems to imply a simpering deference, or cosseting. Associated Architects scheme isn’t sympathetic, and is all the better for it. The substantial concrete mass of the building, is augmented by contrasting stainless steel blocks, cores and louvres (or are they brise soleil?). Similarly, the new windows really compliment the form of the building, whilst the result is strangely reminiscent of Roger’s Lloyds building. There’s been no attempt to hide the main elements of the building, be they old or new.

I daresay some purists will be horrified by the presence of Starbucks, and the rampant commercialism this implies. However, I really like it and can confirm that the Starbucks is ridiculously popular.

I particularly like howthe interiors contrast the unadorned concrete, with more modern materials and bright colours. It’s funny but I think the result is much more sophisticated than the more contemporary additions to the campus, even with their swathes of glass, lighting and high technology.

More generally, I’m pleased to see that there does seem to be a growing appreciation of 20th Century buildings. It’s just a shame that it’s probably too late for many of the eras finest examples.

Landscape Urbanism

2011-02-02T13:17:00.009Z

The Landscape Urbanism Reader, edited by Charles Waldheim, begins with a short statement:

“Landscape Urbanism describes a disciplinary realignment currently underway in which landscape replaces architecture as the basic building block of contemporary urbanism. For many, across a range of disciplines, landscape has become both the lens through which the contemporary city is represented and the medium through which it is constructed.”

This simple concept encapsulates everything that is interesting and exciting about landscape urbanism. Imagine if we designed our cities around people, pedestrians and the spaces they inhabit, rather than the position of buildings. Starting not with perimeter blocks, but with linked open spaces, parks and pedestrian routes. The fact that this opening sentence is by the far the best bit of the book, should not detract from the brilliance of the original idea.

Having ploughed through the Landscape Urbanism Reader, I do have a few observations to make. I guess my main gripe with landscape urbanism as defined by Waldheim et al, is an underlying implication that landscape is mostly about green stuff. Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted this, but I would argue that landscape is just as much about the hard grey stuff of streets, plazas and walking routes, as it is about plants and vegetation. More generally, I think the separating of landscape architecture from urban design, is a pretty common misconception.

Improving run-down city centres with the introduction of significant new fingers of green space, has great potential. However, I do think the idea is probably more directly applicable to the hollowed out city of North America than post “urban renaissance”, Britain (which is my main frame of reference). That said, I think Britain has more than its fair share of derelict industrial land which is unlikely to see redevelopment for many years in the current economic climate and could benefit from this approach. This also echoes the Landscape Institute’s current campaign to promote the role of “Green Infrastructure” in the UK.

Having researched landscape urbanism more widely, I do think there has been a tendency to jump from these simple principles, to highly complex, ecological city intervention projects, often with profound philosophical justifications. I’m not saying these projects aren’t interesting, but I think that by framing them within such a complex intellectual context (see landscape urbanism bullshit generator), they have alienated many who would otherwise support the approach. Particularly, when more simple and mundane examples would illustrate the concept more effectively. As an aside, I used an image of New York’s “High Line” to begin this post, which is a project that I greatly admire and think illustrates what can be achieved from a landscape urbanism approach. But I guess you could argue that it tries a little too hard to be clever.

I guess I should say now, that I’m not claiming to be an expert on either landscape urbanism or new urbanism, so these are really just the observations of an outside observer, albeit an interested one. It seems to me that they both approaches have a lot of common ground: quality of place, promotion of open space, creating greater opportunities for walking and sustainable development. However, if recent internet media activity is to be believed the two are diametrically opposed, and hence why I decided to write this blog article. I suspect this particular story also tells you something about today’s news sources, with something implied in one, report later repeated as fact, leading to a snowballing of a particular opinion, but I digress. There have been a raft of news stories, all claiming to discuss or critique landscape urbanism, but mostly just making a bunch of unsubstantiated accusations. They all seem to originate from proponents of new urbanism for some reason. I particularly liked the terms, “green sprawl” and “lawn apologists”, but rather than go through them all, I picked out this gem by James Howard Kunstler (link to article here):

“Landscape Urbanism is explicitly against density and vehemently pro-automobile.”

I’m sorry, but where did this come from? I have read nothing to support this statement. He might as well have suggested that landscape urbanism is about putting a bunch of kittens in a bag and throwing them in a river. This isn’t a critique, it’s badmouthing. Incidentally, I’d also suggest that it is quite possible to have high density development and open space too (off the top of my head, I believe that Hamburg’s HafenCity has 40% open space in addition to being very high density). While I realise that Kunstler veers towards the lunatic fringe, having very much enjoyed his book. “The Geography of Nowhere”, I’m disappointed by his comments.

For what it’s worth, I think the landscape urbanism and new urbanism have some quite profound differences (I also suspect that people are confusing landscape urbanism, with the similar but not the same, ecological urbanism – see here for explanation). At its heart, landscape urbanism is still a new and slightly unresolved philosophy. It seems to be most successfully applied at a more strategic level, thinking of how functioning cities are planned, rather than the nitty-gritty of individual developments. I also think it offers a pragmatic approach to retrofitting our existing cities; introducing linked green spaces to facilitate greater walking and cycling, and to make them more pleasant and better able to function.

By contrast, I think that new urbanism is very much an implementation led approach; mixed-use, walkable centres, open space, transport infrastructure (all good stuff too) and a leaning towards traditional architectural styles. It’s also a pretty well establishedi deology, with a lot of theory and exemplars behind it. But it doesseemsto me that it works best when applied to brand new centres of development, creating little utopias (regardless of how you feel about the style, they always look very nice places to live). Where it starts to get a bit more sketchy is when it is applied at a strategic level; particularly when we are talking about trying to retrofit existing cities with very diverse problems and issues. This is intended as an observation and not a criticism.

However, I still don’t understand why we’ve had such a tirade of invective aimed at landscape urbanism, which I think is a promising idea that can be developed in future years. I suspect there are some vested interests here, particularly from those who want to protect the primacy of architecture within the built environment, but I can only think that it comes down to one or two overinflated egos. People to whom it’s more important to be seen to be right, than to have a mature and considered debate about how we plan and design our cities. I honestly don’t care about who wins or who’s most right, and I’d suggest that all involved could find better ways to occupy their time, than mud slinging and petty squabbles.

I’m generally encouraged that, after many years of neglect, there does seem to be a resurgence of interest in the design of our public spaces. However the big challenge, across the globe, is to find better ways to plan and design settlements that are more sustainable and better suited to the way we live our lives in the 21st Century.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park #4

2011-01-26T10:53:00.000Z

This is the last post featuring photographs of my recent visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The majority of pictures show the parkland at YSP, with a few of Sophie Ryder’s sexy rabbits!

Stirling and Gowan's Department of Engineering, Leicester University

2011-01-20T13:17:00.002Z

Stirling and Gowan’s Engineering Building at Leicester University has been a familiar presence in much of my life. As a child, my mother studied at the University and later worked in the library, and I have vivid memories of exploring the campus, riding on lifts and searching the library basement for dusty copies of L. Frank Baum’s books. As a teenager, I studied for my A Levels at the neighbouring Wyggeston & QEI College, and overlooked the building from both my biology labs, which faced onto the “egg box” bit and the design department, which looked onto the red-brick administrative block. It was only when I went on the study architecture at university in Sheffield, that I realised that the building that I had explored in lunch hours and quietly appreciated, was of significance to anyone but myself.

On a whim, I decided to take my camera and amble over to the Leicester University campus yesterday. Strolling across Victoria Park, I took a few snaps of Denys Lasdun’s Charles Wilson Building (see above, another favourite of mine), but struggled to get a decent shot of the Engineering Department (see my rather poor effort below).

As I wander around the perimeter of the building, I’m struck initially by how dirty and poorly cared for it is. However, what quickly becomes clear is how difficult it is to get a decent view of it. Whilst partly a function of the buildings constrained site and close proximity to other buildings, you get the impression that some effort has actually been made to hide it – see the small trees that have been planted right next to it. If ever there was a building that needs to be explored and examined, it’s this one. Every view is different, and every look reveals new details and projections.

I have a theory, that our perceptions of buildings and built environment are highly influenced by the spaces and context from which we view them. When viewed from a hostile space, such as a busy road pavement, people are more likely dislike something. Conversely, buildings that can be observed in a more pleasant and contemplative environ, are far more likely to be positively received. In the case of Stirling and Gowan’s building, it is mostly viewed from a curtilage of car parks, bin stores and pre-fabricated plant sheds. I’m about to break the habit of a lifetime, but I really think that all the surrounding distractions need to be got rid of: bins, parking and in particular trees, they all need to go. It doesn’t need funky paving, granite balls or public art, it just needs some space.

There’s something of a metaphor for Leicester in here. Whenever I talk to people from Leicester about the Engineering building, they’re usually pretty negative about it. “I don’t really like it.” “It’s badly built.” “It’s falling apart.” “It’s impractical.” “It really ought to be knocked down.” Few people seem to appreciate the interesting things about Leicester, focusing rather on facilities that other provincial cities have. I suspect that the Council would see the back of many historic buildings, a semi-thriving market and every independent shop in the city, if it would get them a Pret a Manger or a Paul Smith. See also the Bowstring Bridge fiasco.

In my opinion, the best views are from the car park by the main building entrance. I generally try to avoid architectural gushing, but as I look up at the building (careful to avoid the bemused secretary reversing her Corsa), it seems to be improbably hanging above me. The strange projections seem to trick the eye; it just doesn’t look possible that the building should be able to support itself, but there it is, seemingly balanced on an all too-small base.

Steeling myself, I venture inside. Almost immediately, my plan to appear like I’m meant to be there, falls apart as I stare in confusion at the stairs. Is that a service stair? Are they doing rebuilding work? And then I get it, and start to climb the steps, sheepishly chuckling like someone who’s tried to drink the contents of a finger bowl at a Chinese restaurant. We’re meant to see all the services, how postmodern!

While I vaguely remember looking around the interior in the past, I’m still a little bit overwhelmed. If anything, the inside is even more quirky and complex than the outside. Compared to more modern buildings the lift and stair core, feels very cramped. Every floor seems to reveal new and interesting architectural incidents, some of which are slightly uncomfortable. I can’t think of the last time I felt waves of vertigo in a contemporary building!

Rather annoyingly, I can’t get really get any decent photo’s looking out, as the glass is too dirty. So I abandon my attempts to get to the top and head back down again. I feel disappointed that I’ve not taken some better pictures of the interior. In particular, a spectacular, glass roofed landing which marks the top of the the smaller half of the tower. It was occupied by group of earnest young men with beards, and not wanting to give myself away as an interloper, I resisted taking a photo. However on further reflection, I’m actually glad that I didn’t. I think the building needs to be experienced first hand, and that if you were to see too much before, it would spoil the experience.

As I trot down the final few flight of stairs, I try to sum up how I feel about the building. Words like ‘challenging’ cross my mind and then are quickly rejected. I’ve seen others describe buildings as ‘thrilling’, but never really understood this before. Lingering on one of the lower landings, I’m minded of something Will Self once said. He complained that modern air travel was too boring (yes I remember how he livened up one plane journey), and that in order to make it more exciting we needed daring pilots in winged helmets and glass bottomed planes. It seems to me that Stirling and Gowan’s building is very much like a glass bottomed aeroplane; for some it will be thrilling and exciting (myself included), whilst for others it is a rather strange experience.

As I exit the building, I’m once more depressed by the sheer crapness of this crucial arrival space. Cluttered with cars, traffic cones and brightly coloured road lines, it all points towards a building that is little loved and criminally, unappreciated. My suspicion is that it is being purposely run down in an attempt to make a case for future redevelopment (an article ran in Building Design in 2008, hinting at a partial demolition). I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I can appreciate that it is rather out of step with more modern university buildings, which are light, airy and immediate, but with a little more imagination, it could be a major feature for the University (and the City).

I do hope that my writing of this piques a few peoples interest. For anyone interested in British architecture of the 20th Century, I can only urge you to visit. It is a building that can only really be understood by experiencing it, rather than looking at it in pictures. I also suspect, that we probably won’t see it in its original form, for much longer.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park #3 - David Nash

2011-01-11T09:58:00.002Z

The most prominent exhibits currently on display at YSP (until February anyway), are the works of David Nash. For those who aren’t familiar, Nash is a sculptor most commonly associated with the “land art” movement, made famous by Andy Goldsworthy. His best known work is probably “wooden boulder”, which is featured in this blog post from Pruned. Whilst I generally find the work of Andy Goldsworthy to be interesting in print (and he does a fine postcard), I’ve often found them to be rather insubstantial in person, if not rather disappointing. By contrast, Nash’s works are much more interesting viewed at first hand. They have a robust presence that is more obviously manmade, but also evocative of the natural elements that they are derived from.

As many of the exhibits requested that photographs weren’t taken, I’ve not posted many pictures. However, if you’d like to see more, the blog below has a more comprehensive range of photo’s:

http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/david-nash-at-ysp/

Or better still, take a visit yourself!

Freeman's Meadow, Leicester

2011-01-04T13:09:00.004Z

I had originally intended to post these pictures at Christmas to give the blog a bit of a seasonal feel. However, the fact that we actually had snow, lying right across the UK for the whole festive period, rather kerbed my enthusiasm.

Freeman’s Meadow is one of those schemes that I’d been seeing in brochures and regeneration publications for some time, but hadn’t got round to visiting, despite being pretty close to my home. Located on a former industrial, brown-field site, close to the centre of Leicester and adjacent to the River Soar, it’s an archetypal regeneration, come “urban renaissance” project. While it’s easy to be sniffy about this kind of thing, in the context of Leicester, I do thing the regeneration of this part of the city has been welcome, in particular opening up access and development to the River Soar which has been hidden and enclosed by crumbling industrial uses. I’ve always felt that Leicester turns it’s back on the River, and am pleased to see this being reversed (albeit fairly slowly).

Hence, having finished work for Christmas 2009, I decided to drop by for a visit on my way home. And that’s when it started snowing...

In truth I was rather underwhelmed, but somewhat typically, didn’t actually get round to writing something caustic, as I had originally intended. Given that some months later the scheme was entered for the East Midlands section of the UK Landscape Awards 2010 (http://www.uklandscapeaward.org/), of which I was a judge, this probably wasn’t a bad thing. Whilst not amongst the winners, it was commended and after further consideration, I think correctly so. I later went on to judge the English entries to the awards and it was noticeable that the great majority of schemes submitted were either strategic, or rural/coastal landscape restoration schemes. Very few were urban based or involved actual implementation of designs, which I found telling.

OK, so I admit that I have rather conflicting feelings about this, but here goes:

Architecturally, I don’t think it’s going to be getting too many people that excited. However, I do think that as a form, the squat apartment blocks set amongst gardens, is a very appropriate treatment for it’s urban location in Leicester. Certainly a lot more so, than the overgrown brick boxes, arranged in cul-de-sacs, that predominate the surrounding Bede Island area. I also think that they are likely to be more appealing to people, than the city centre flats above, car parks, shopping malls and takeaways, that are currently lying unoccupied across the city (and indeed the country).

From a landscape perspective, it’s very positive that so much effort has been expended on the external spaces and this is why the scheme has been recognised with an award. The materials are high quality and frequently bespoke in nature. The design, by my former colleagues at Capita Lovejoy, is both tasteful and very well detailed. However...

... as a designer, a purist, and a pedant, I do think there are issues with the design. Whilst the bleak midwinter is probably not the best time to look at most schemes, my feeling is that the spaces probably won’t be used much. I find them rather disconnected from the surrounding buildings. This really goes to the heart of why I write this blog; my belief that landscape architecture is about more than providing a pretty setting for buildings, that it has actual and tangible function in it’s own right. Unfortunately, I’m just not sure that this scheme really is much more than an attractive setting for the buildings. :(

I think cars and how they are accommodated is a big issue for this kind of housing development. My abiding memory of visiting Freeman’s Meadow, was that there were cars everywhere. It’s something of a paradox, that if you don’t make adequate provision for cars (mainly by providing parking spaces), they end up dominating the street scene. From a design perspective, I think the ideal is underground parking (as seen at Greenwich Millennium Village), but this is often prohibitively expensive for most projects.

Conversely, I think that roads and in particular, the provision of fire and service access, are too often the overriding consideration in the design of external spaces. One of the things I like about shared spaces is that you can have access to buildings for fire and servicing, but you aren’t left with a mean, bisected space adjacent to the buildings, for pedestrians. I think this problem is well illustrated here, as residents have to negotiate a line of car parking, a road and then another line of car parking, if they want to get from their front door to the central space or the playground.

For all it’s faults, my opinions of Freeman’s Meadows and other developments of it’s ilk, are mellowing. I’m unsure what the next few years will bring in terms of urban redevelopments, but I suspect we could end up looking back with wistful affection on this sort of scheme.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park #2

2010-12-10T09:57:00.003Z

Just a few more pictures of a recent visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Artists include Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro, Elizabeth Frink, Jonathan Borofski and Sophie Ryder.

The Localism Bill cometh...

2010-12-07T18:47:00.003Z

I thought that the exciting news that the UK Governments new, “Decentralisation and Localism Bill” is only 2 sleeps away, was worth marking with a blog post.

I think it’s fair to say, that many within the planning profession have been rather alarmed by the Government’s approach to planning. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles (see above), has rather exemplified this; making a series of sweeping, cavalier statements about planning and previous systems, but rather failing to come up implementable policies or with details of how things will actually work (see the court ruling that he wasn’t allowed to scrap Regional Spatial Strategies, and the subsequent court ruling that he wasn’t allowed to say that this didn’t matter). Hence why, the new Bill and some much needed clarity, is so eagerly awaited.

Up until now, we’ve been mainly going on conjecture, and projections arising from of the Conservatives, “Open Source Planning – White Paper”, released prior to the election. We do know of course that regions are out, and that “Localism” is the new big thing (as an aside, I rather liked this assessment from Bentley, Bailey & Shutt, on this proposed move).

For someone currently studying planning, you’ll appreciate that this uncertainty makes things rather difficult. As we’ve not been able to have a lecture on how planning is currently meant to work, we’ve had some interesting class discussions instead.

The weekend papers carried a few nuggets of information about what the bill would actually contain: the big news, as reported here by Building Design, is that neighbourhoods will be allowed to take over powers from their local authority, and effectively make their own development plans. The overwhelming feeling was that this was absurd, frankly came as little surprise. However, I found the relief amongst the course members who are currently working in local authority planning offices, more interesting. Their worry appeared to be that the Government would simply widen permitted development rights, meaning that many public sector planners would lose their jobs. The consensus seemed to be that planners would have an enormous amount of work to do in coming years, initially giving advice to communities on making their plans, before having to stitch together a patchwork of different development plans, and finally to administer this incredibly complicated system. I find this potential increase in the bureaucracy of being a planner pretty depressing.

Having recently written a fairly lengthy essay on the history and theory of planning over the last 60 years; what I found most striking is how planners have generally moved away from a position where they are producing positive proposals for implementation, to a position where their role is more about regulating policy compliances. Despite recent attempts to reverse this trend (see the New Spatial Planning), I’m disappointed that the new legislation is likely to lead more planners regulating, rather than actually planning for development.

Incidentally Eric Pickles made a comment a few weeks back, about how planners needed to get back to making plans (I’m tempted to do a best of Pickles post at some point); that current policy appears to run contrary to this is rather characteristic of both Pickles and the current administration. Despite recent talk of empowering local communities, news arrived this week that Planning Aid, an organisation that gives free planning advice to individuals and communities, has had it’s funding taken away and their staff have been issued notices of potential redundancies. If this isn’t a contradiction, I really don’t know what is.

Amongst the gloom, there have been some positive comments on the localism approach, most notably by Amanda Baillieu (here) and Jonathan Glancey (here). Certainly, greater community participation is to be welcomed (although the complications of actually doing this would span many, many blog posts), but I’m yet to be convinced that the proposed changes will be any improvement on previous approaches. Roll on Thursday...

Edit: I gather that the Bill will now be published on Monday 13th December 2010. Honest.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park #1

2010-12-02T10:29:00.001Z

I’ve been a little worried that my blog is rather dominated by me complaining about stuff I don’t like. So it’s nice to be able to write a blog post about something I thoroughly approve of. When I heard news of Yorkshire Sculpture Park being expanded, I thought it was worthy of a blog post (or 4):

http://www.ysp.co.uk/ysp-media/press-releases/yorkshire-sculpture-park-launches-ambitious-new-landscape-restoration-project

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (or YSP as it tends to style itself) is a contemporary sculpture park, set in over 500 acres of former parkland, close to Wakefield. It contains a mixture of permanent installations and seasonal exhibits, which are a ‘who’s who’s’ of modern sculpture. It’s a fascinating place that even seems to appeal to those who claim not to understand art! It’s so big and there’s so much of everything to see, that every visit seems to lead to explorations of new and undiscovered places. Bretton Hall, which sits in the middle of the park, is a crumbling pile that was once used as a teaching college, and is now being converted into a hotel. In addition to the art works, the grounds are littered with features and follies, once associated with the Hall. The grounds also contain a number of abandoned 70’s education buildings, which themselves make for interesting, but slightly surreal experiences as you make your way through the park.

The recent visitor centre and galleries, are all rather lovely and I can thoroughly recommend the restaurant. Best of all, it’s entirely free to get in, and there’s only a small charge for parking.

From a purely selfish perspective, I’d honestly prefer it people didn’t want to go there. I’ve been many times over the years, and even on an August Bank Holliday, the park has been blissfully quiet. However, it’s such a terrific place that I can only wish it every success.

Rather than overload my blog with hundreds of my pictures, I’ve decided to split my slightly random pictures over 4 posts. This one focussing on the visitor centre and Henry Moores, with a little bit of Andy Goldsworthy thrown in for good measure.

De Montfort University Business School, Leicester

2010-11-12T21:05:00.014Z

I’m currently about half-way through Owen Hatherley’s excellent, “A guide to the new ruins of Great Britain.” At some point, I might write more about it, but given my recent lack of blog activity, it’s perhaps unlikely. The book picks up on a number of issues that have been nagging me about recent regeneration projects; fills them out, gives some historical perspective, adds some critical analysis, and then takes the piss.

As I read the book, it was schemes like the new, De Montfort University Business School, that sprang to mind. Owen describes how many recent buildings have much in common with the “Googie” architecture of 1950’s America; burger joints and giant advertising hoardings, designed to catch the eye of speeding motorists.

With it’s “look at me” turquoise cladding, jauntily angled towards the ring-road vista, this building definitely fits this description. Not wishing to linger too long on the architecture, I find the building slightly tacky and overbearing, particularly given it’s location in Leicester’s historic, Roman heart. While I don’t entirely dislike the plastic-Ikea styling, I resent the way it towers over the nearby Magazine, a solitary vestige of Leicester’s pre ring-road old town.

Naturally, I’m more interested in the landscape treatment and public realm design. Prior to visiting, I’d actually heard some positive comments about the scheme and the quality of finish. Unfortunately, I found it to be a jumbled mess of generic materials, that have little relationship with anything other than the new building. Dark granite pavers, light granite cobbles, buff bound gravel, polished stainless steel, black powder-coated steel, matt grey steel, grass, semi-mature trees, timber, rendered brick, concrete copings, granite blocks and pre-cast concrete, all scattered along a series of unrelated axis and geometries.

I would imagine that there was some sort of design statement which explained how the materials were inspired by the dirty sandstone of the magazine, unfortunately it would be empty post-rationalisation for the use of the same old materials palette and the simplest, polyline-from -the corner-of-the-building, design approach. Yes I’ve seen the same materials used elsewhere, by the same designers and on more than one occasion.

It’s funny, but I think there are clear parallels between recent public realm designs, with overly busy, multi-materialled treatments and much of the post-millennium architecture of Britain. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a provincial arts centre built in the last 5 years that didn’t feature a riot of cladding treatments. However, I’ve not seen anyone comment on how this fad has spread to the world of landscape architecture.

Returning to this particular scheme, I’m also irritated by the half-arsed detailing that is prevalent. Yes, it can be a bugger to get this stuff right, but all you need is someone who cares enough to see that service access’ doesn’t interrupt the design intent.

I REALLY hate the way, granite blocks meet a chamfered precast concrete block. Perhaps I’m being harsh on the designers involved and maybe this detailing is the result of some contractor led, design and build/value engineered approach. I really, really hope so.

Perhaps the most successful element of the scheme, is the area around the old Arts’ School building, leading up to the old Gateway College (yes I went there). The palette of materials seems much more restrained, with a formal lawn and some fine mature trees. However, I was a little dismayed that the treatment ends so abruptly before reaching the Gateway building.

Similarly, the paving doesn’t extend right up to the adjacent Newark House Museum (unsurprisingly the only bit of the area not part of the mighty, De Mont). In fact, for some reason we actually have a guard rail impeding access to this entrance?!?

Finally, the scheme also includes a ubiquitous, courtyard, come-amphitheatre, come performance space, complete with some tasteful planting. It’s quite pleasant.

Okay, okay, have I been too harsh on this scheme? In isolation, it's not so awful. I'm really trying hard not to be the blogging equivalent of Statler & Waldorf. Certainly, it’s much better than what used to be there, and I daresay that students will really use all that space to congregate, drop flyers and enjoy the odd hand rolled cigarette. The materials are at least of good quality, and for a certain sort of person, the scheme does give a certain veneer of urban sophistication. I just wish it was better.

Perhaps, given the inevitable quiet time ahead, it would be a good idea for us all to reflect and what actually makes a good public space and how successful the recent glut of schemes have actually been. Or maybe we should step away from ‘statement’ schemes, be they architecture or landscape architecture, and get back to improving the quality of our streets, homes and public amenities.

Orpheus at Boughton House

2010-10-14T11:21:00.002+01:00

It’s pretty infrequent that a landscape scheme receives recognition beyond the professional press, but Kim Wilkie’s “Orpheus” at Boughton House, did just this. Opened in September 2009 to an assembly of the great and the good, “Orpheus” is a contemporary landscape feature, designed to complement the restoration of the surrounding historic parkland. The scheme was warmly received by many in the national press, including:

Mary Keen in the Telegraph

Anna Pavord in the Independent

I have to confess to being a bit of a sucker for big earthwork features (in fact I’d go as far as to say that no landscape architect’s coffee table is complete without a copy Charles Jencks’ “Garden of Cosmic Speculation”), so would thoroughly recommend that you check out some of the beautiful pictures taken of the scheme:

http://www.kimwilkie.com/pages/projects/uk/uk_bghtpk.html

http://www.boughtonhouse.org.uk/htm/restoration/orpheus.htm

Unfortunately, my photo’s are pretty pants by comparison. Visiting times are rather limited (the house is still in the private ownership of the Buccleauch family), so it almost a year before I was able to arrange a visit on behalf of the Landscape Institute, and by this time summer had well and truly broken. So apologies for the lameness of the accompanying images.

Before looking at Orpheus itself, I think it’s worth setting the scene about Boughton House and the wider parkland. For those that are interested, I’ve put images of the wider park in a separate Castellated blog post.

http://castellated-uk.blogspot.com/2010/10/boughton-house-northamptonshire.html

The original landscape was laid out in the 17th Century, in a series of geometric canals surrounding a larger “Grand Etang”, inspired by the baroque styles of France and Versailles. In the years after this, the Montagu family (owners of the house) found themselves doing rather well and as a result, Boughton was passed on to a minor family member. Consequently, the house wasn’t given a Capability Brown, “naturalistic” makeover, that was common in the 18th Century.

Following many years of neglect, restoration of the original landscape began in the 1970’s and Orpheus is the culmination of this work.

On the face of it, Boughton House is very like your typical National Trust stately home, but the formality and geometry of the surrounding landscape gives it a very different feel. I’ve seen it described on more than one occasion as the English Versailles; while I see where this is coming from, I think you’ll be disappointed if you ever have been to Versailles, as Boughton is on a much, much smaller scale. But it’s definitely worth a visit, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Boughton’s new gardens.

Anyway...

Orpheus is a very big hole in the ground. More accurately, it is a 7m inverted pyramid, with descending terraces that lead to a dark, square pool. Inspired by the Greek myth of Orpheus’ journey into the underworld to rescue Eurydice, the “hole” is a companion piece to the nearby ‘Mount’, a key feature of the original historic landscape. Whilst a very simple idea, there’s no question the “hole” makes for an interesting and unusual space, being so detached from the surrounding landscape. While the term ‘outdoor room’ is hideously overused, the space can only be described as an ‘outdoor room’. I gather that James Turrel’s Skyspaces were an inspiration, and I found Orpheus a similar experience. For the pseuds amongst you (myself included), it’s a great place to think grand thoughts and imagine all sorts of deep meanings!

Despite the great size of said ‘hole’, it is almost imperceptible in it’s surroundings. (see below) I think it’s discovery could be an interesting surprise, if you hadn’t been pre-warned of it’s existence...

You’ll also notice that there’s a steel framed cube and some curvy stone rills, which apparently relate to the Finobacci sequence, and have like, something to do with the dimensions for the, like hole and stuff. I’ll be honest that this bit didn’t really do anything for me. Worse it reminded of a bunch of schools I’ve worked on, where similar sorts of whirly patterns were included to tick a box for outdoor maths. I suppose that they do give the feature some tangible presence in the landscape, which is perhaps the best you can say for this part of the feature.

As a final point, I think it’s worth highlighting the quality of workmanship and finish, which is quite outstanding. While I do wonder how well the scheme would stand up to the hoards of visitors you regularly see at National Trust properties, I think everyone involved with the scheme should be applauded. To me, it demonstrates that it’s entirely possible to do something new and imaginative, whilst also preserving historic places and features. I look forward to the next phase of restoration at Boughton House.

Free Schools, Unnecessary Design and Aesthetics

2010-09-10T14:03:00.005+01:00

My eye was caught this morning by an article in Building Design which quoted renowned education expert, Toby Young, (I believe his “How to lose friends and alienate people” is a standard textbook for all PGCE students) as saying that “design is not necessary.”

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/free-school-pioneer-says-design-not-necessary/5005341.article

While I appreciate that the piece is written in a pretty provocative way (and that the headline didn’t appear to be a direct quote), I found the general gist made me feel profoundly depressed, although initially I wasn’t really able to really articulate why.

Following a frenzied morning of tweeting (thank you, @NemesisRepublic), I think I’ve figured it out.

The last couple of years have been a very tough time for designers across the board, with fee’s being squeezed again and again. As an example my former boss, Don Munro, used to get us to put a time into fee proposals for ‘designing’. This would be the time when we sketched, thought of ideas and just considered the site and project. Increasingly clients started to challenge this. I think this was best summed up by client who said , “I don’t want you to design, I just wasn’t you to draw it up.” As far as I know, Don no longer puts time for ‘designing’ into his fee proposals (but he still designing).

I think this trend has been reflected in much of what has been designed and built recently. Landscape Architecture companies have won work with incredibly low fees, which are only possible by rehashing schemes that they’ve done before – same surfacing, same planting, same furniture, same details and often starling similar arrangements (I’m particularly thinking of some recent public realm schemes). The results are generally mind-numbingly bland and uninteresting. I’m afraid this type of approach is like kryptonite to me. Without wishing to sound like Prince Charles, it’s my fundamental belief that all site design should begin with consideration of context.

Perhaps I’m just being paranoid, but I get the sneaking feeling that there are people in power who do see money spent on professional design advice as unnecessary (yes Michael Gove, I’m thinking of you), and that it can be eliminated. But I think it’s also fair to say that the public perception of designers, and architects in particular, isn’t that great.

I think the problem is that design has become confused with aesthetics in the public consciousness. Like fashion – expensive and frivolous.

But design is also about functionality (for most designers of the built environment I’d say much more so). Time thinking about design, is not just time given to making things look pretty. It’s thinking about how a design will be used – is that space big enough, is that material suitable for this location and how will it be used in the future?

I guess my concern will be that instead of employing architects and landscape architects, there are those who think you can just send some volunteers on a course about how to design stuff, meaning less work for the likes of me. Isn’t this what the Big Society is about?!?

Or maybe I’m being overly concerned. It could be that when the likes of Toby Young say that “design is unnecessary”, what he really means is that they don’t want designs that are too fancy, but that he lacks the understanding of the subject to properly articulate this. Perhaps he could do with some professional advice?

Antony Gormley: 6 Times

2010-09-07T11:27:00.000+01:00

In the far mists of time when I was studying for my art GSCE, a friend and classmate called Jude, made an amazing discovery. Following a suggestion from his Sister, Jude stuck cut-out newspaper headlines (stuff about war and pollution and Africa), around his slightly dodgy, 2B pencil and poster-paint representations of cow bones . What he hadn’t expected was the rapturous response he received from our Art Teacher, Mrs. Warwick, who thought this was the greatest artistical innovation, since middle-class Westerners discovered batik.

Following this success, Jude prepared an artist study, with of a painting of a desert and some droopy clocks(inspired by Salvador Dali), surrounded by newspaper headlines about scandal. He then went on to produce his major project, which featured a gouache seabed, with pencilled fish bones and aquatic skeletons, surrounded by headlines about, oh, oil being bad or something. For his piece de resistance, Jude’s final art exam... actually I can’t remember, but I’m dam sure it had bones and newspaper headlines.

I give this story, because it seems to me that Antony Gormley has followed a similar career path in the grown-up world of art, as my mate Jude did at Judgemeadow Community College. Only instead of bones and newspaper headlines, Gormley has figures. Also like Jude, Gormley seems to enjoy most success, when he sticks most closely to this formula (i.e. figures on Crosby Sands = good, random plinth in Trafalgar Square=bad).

While it may appear that I’m being snide about Antony Gormley’s work, it is with some affection. For me he’s like the Abba of the sculpture world; you know it’s cheesy, but you can’t help liking the Angel of the North (or SOS).

Hence I thought I’d share some recent Guardian photographs of ‘6 times’, Gormley’s new installation of 6 figures leading from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to Edinburgh’s Leith Docks.

Carbuncle Cup 2010 - a landscape architects view

2010-08-13T21:17:00.000+01:00

It was announced yesterday, that Strata Tower at Elephant & Castle was the winner of the 2010 Carbuncle Cup; Building Designs annual award for Britain’s ugliest new building.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/strata-tower-wins-2010-carbuncle-cup/5004110.article

As is often the way these days, I picked up the news from Twitter on my phone. Other items that I found myself prodding my way through included: various wacky Government ideas for saving loot/letting communities build stuff, and an article about the ‘awful’ plans of Rowan Atkinson to knockdown his old 1930’s property and replace it with a new, modern design. Scanning through the articles I began to feel a certain sense of unease...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harrymount/100045027/rowan-atkinsons-dream-home-is-a-nightmare/

Reading through the comments left by readers, what struck me most was the uniform negative views about new development and modern architecture, but also how this resonated with the write up of the Carbuncle Cup decision. It seems to me that any public debate on new architecture is usually pretty unsophisticated. I’d suggest there are basically two architectural news stories (and the Rowan Atkinson article had both of them): 1. Old building has or is going to be knocked down – bad. 2. New building is being proposed or has been built – also bad.

I’m a frankly a little surprised by my concern for the well being of architects. When the Carbuncle Cup first appeared, I thought it was a genius idea. I think landscape architects are a bit like architect’s dowdier friend (the shy one with big, milkbottle glasses and fuzzy hair) ; they spend a lot of time together but LA’s rarely get the same attention and have to make do with the boys/land/budget left over by their more showy friends. So the Carbuncle Cup is a rare opportunity to get one back.

OK, so the Strata Tower is very big and very visible. It’s also garish, ostentatious, far too “look at me” and has all the sophistication of a zebra-print sofa. However, as others have pointed out, the decision to build such a big and vulgar building is made by many people and not just the architects. Hence, I have a degree of sympathy for the architects who have been singled out here. But it also seems to me that the significance of BD’s decision goes a bit deeper. Strata Tower is statement architecture. The thinking being that such an architectural statement will assist the regeneration and economic renewal of the area. By ridiculing this building, will it not discourage other developers from paying out for expensive architectural centrepieces? Is this not biting the hand that feeds architecture? And isn’t it giving further ammunition to those who oppose new or modern buildings?

Again, I’d reiterate that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing for landscape architecture and me personally. Perhaps someone will decide that a more cost effective way to regenerate an area would be to develop a really nice park, which I’d certainly approve of.

Of the other building’s on the shortlist, MAKE’s Cube thing, certainly stand's out as pretty hideously gauche. While it definitely deserves derision, the cream of the crap has got to be the Burns Monument Centre...

I’ve posted above a picture of the grandiose, original monument which was sadly damaged in a fire. Below is the new bicycle shed-type arrangement, designed by the local authority to “restore” the monument. It’s so crude and frankly such a laughably mundane use of a particularly flamboyant, historic folly, that I actually don’t know where to start. It’s just wrong.

However, I really think it needs to be seen in context of what was there before, because in a weird way, I suspect it’s utlilitarian, traditional materialled, non-design would not be considered offensive to many members of the general public. Probably less so than more modern styles.

Given the current political climate, with talk of schools in re-used industrial buildings and community led housing initiatives, I think the real threat to architecture is not wanky, ego-driven mega-developments, but buildings that don’t require architects at all.

It’s not for me to say how the architectural profession should present itself in public and maybe my points are irrelevant to the organisers of the Carbuncle Cup. As it happens I’m quite pleased that bad developments are being shown up (I’ve got one or two buildings in mind for nominating next year), but as an interested outsider, I can’t help but think that the coverage of the Carbuncle Cup probably isn’t doing the profession any real favours.

Jubilee Campus, Juxtapositions and Plonk-architecture

2010-08-06T22:29:00.001+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, the East Midlands Branch of the Landscape Institute held their AGM at Nottingham University’s Jubilee Campus. Prior to the main event, where everyone tries to avoid being voted onto the committee (I must have lost again, as I’m still Branch Secretary), we had tour of the Campus itself.

WARNING! The following Blog post contains graphic images of Landscape Architects.

While I’d passed by the campus a few times, and seen plenty of pictures in the architectural press coverage (much of which was highly critical), I was very keen to see it for myself. Contrary to many, I actually thought that the new buildings looked pretty cool.

What I hadn’t really remembered, is that the buildings by MAKE Architects are only a recent addition to the site. The original campus masterplan was produced by Michael Hopkins and Partners, who also designed the first phase of buildings, and opened in 1999. The scheme is based upon sustainable principles and was developed on a brown field site (the former Raleigh bicycle factory). The Djanogly LRC , with it’s single spiralling floor, is the most recognisable building here (and where I took a few rooftop snaps). However, the real focus of the scheme is on the artificial lakes which run through the heart of the campus.

The green credentials are also pretty impressive ; the lakes are used as a giant heatsink, whilst everywhere you look there are ventilation chimneys, swales, photovoltaic cells and green roofs.

Actually, I’m a little unsure about the green roofs – the planting reminds me of the sort of thing you see sprouting from a disused runway.

Ambling along the waterside concourse is a very pleasant thing to do on a sunny, summer evening. Looking over the water to the backdrop of reeds, trees and wildlife – you could almost forget you’re in Nottingham! Whilst timber cladding has become rather passé, the palette of materials used is simple, well balanced and tasteful. You would feel proud to be a student here.

It’s actually some way into the campus before I get my first glimpse of MAKE’s phase 2 buildings, and then rather strangely half hidden behind a building and some car parking. The new buildings are certainly striking.

As you continue south, a new pathway leading to the phase 2 campus, cuts across the main concourse. Where the Hopkins designed campus is all calm and simplicity, this new path is a riot of colours, funky paving, water-features, stone cubes, trees and brightly coloured planting. Someone with a more base mind than I, could draw some sort of significance from the way this path ends in a fountain on the otherwise tranquil lake...

Look it's "Aspire" (it’s a pun, it’s an inspiration, it’s a metaphor, it’s a giant ice cream cone).

Wandering round the campus, I had found myself defending MAKE’s buildings to a former colleague, who was convinced that they represented the worst excesses of “starchitects”. I cited Laver’s Law, that Universities should be about new, and optimistic, and finally that they are just ahead of their time. But as I get closer, I begin to doubt my arguments.

Close up and I can begin to understand why I want to like these buildings. Part of me is still the small child that grew up watching sci-fi films and is desperately disappointed by the modern world. Where are the flying cars? Where are the discos with uninhibited space chicks dancing in silver mini-skirts? And where is the lunar colony? MAKE’s buildings are a business park approximation of how I imagined 2010 should look and kind of wish it did. Unfortunately, for all their sci-fi styling, there are some seriously big problems with these buildings. For a start...

... they face straight onto a car park and the arse-end of other buildings (again I can imagine some might to want to use a crude metaphor for this. Not I, natch). Landscape architecture is all about context and setting, whereas these buildings give no regard to their setting and only seem to interact with what immediately surrounds them (notice how the planting is limited to just the building curtilage). When our guide “explained” the thinking behind MAKE’s design I could actually feel myself getting angry. Apparently, the coloured bands represent the underlying strata, planting is inspired by American studies, whilst the east-west axis extends the site... Rubbish. It’s just empty post rationalisation for doing whatever the hell they like.

Plonk architecture isn’t just confined to this scheme. Was the Gherkin designed especially for Swiss Re, or had it been sitting on Ken Shuttleworth’s (Mr MAKE) drawing board, just waiting for an somewhere to stick it? While architecture can create a new character for a place, I think a design is nearly always more successful when it gives some regard to it’s context and setting. Unfortunately, it seems to me that too many designers, driven by their ego, set out to create their own context. Worse still, I think that there is actually a school of thinking in architecture particularly, that wants to actively go against, subvert or contrast with it’s surroundings, because “Hey, it’s a juxtaposition!”

The Hopkins masterplan gives the campus a clear, simple layout and a calm, elegant environ, which MAKE completely disregard .While I want to love MAKE’s addition to the Jubilee campus for it’s futuristic style, it’s contempt for the surrounding context is everything I detest in the design of our built environment. Some may argue that taken out of context these buildings are terrific, but context is everything when dealing with the world we live in.

Weirdly though, as we trudged back to the car park, I found myself wishing that more buildings were shaped like aerodynamic wedges and clad in exotic metails. A few space chicks in mini skirts wouldn’t go amiss either.

Eulogy to BSF

2010-07-06T01:36:00.004+01:00

For those not familiar with the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme, it’s going to be pretty hard to explain the significance of the decision by education minister Michael Gove to scrap the scheme. I’m not sure what the consequences of this policy will be, but you can be pretty sure that it will be very painful and lead to significant job losses in the wider construction industry.

To confuse matters, I would begin by suggesting that many professionals who would have complained pretty bitterly about the BSF process a few months ago, will now be wailing and thumping the ground with anguish, at it’s demise. Me for one.

I’ve been working on BSF projects since 2004 and could write at length about the problems that I have encountered: driven by financial, rather than practical considerations; a process that precludes smaller companies and favours bigger, more expensive consultancies; endless bidding that leads to wasted efforts and squeezes designers on costs; too influenced by facilities management; key design elements are often lost in ‘value engineering’; problems of design and build model; not enough meaningful input from the schools themselves - all to name just a few of my complaints. Finally, there has often been too much emphasis on creating groundbreaking pieces of architecture, rather producing functional schools. It is a profoundly flawed process (Edit: Charles Holland of Fat architects has written a blog post on just this subject, which outlines the issues much better than I have).

However, I would suggest that right now there are a number of compelling reasons why stopping the programme altogether is a bad thing. Firstly, the state of many of our schools is simply shocking. These schools provide miserable accommodation for pupils and teachers and should have been demolished decades ago . Sub-standard facilities demonstrate the worth (or lack of) that our society attributes to those using them. Poor exterior facilities in particular, are way behind the best international schools. In addition to this, the operating and maintenance costs of dilapidated schools, far exceeds the cost of good quality modern facilities.

Secondly, and this is the one currently occupying my thoughts, that the industry has literally nothing else to do now. Since the recession first began to bite a couple of years ago, private sector has slowed to the mearest trickle. While a few companies are able to get by on long running jobs, schools building is pretty much the last area of significant work about now. Many companies (my own included), have put enormous effort into bringing in BSF work.

Finally, there’s no plan for an alternative.

So while it’s been clear that the Conservatives have had intended to do away with BSF, the implementation of this cut has been shockingly brutal. I can’t think of another single decision that will have had a greater impact on the industry than this one. It had been expected by most people that starting at the Autumn spending review, BSF projects would naturally be phased out. No-one seemed to be expecting that they would simply stop. There must be literally hundreds of projects, all but complete and following massive amounts of work from architects, landscape architects, engineers, teachers, governers and pupils, which will now be lost. Given the abundance of figures that have been waved about today, I would really to know the value of work which will have been wasted by today’s cut? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s billions. I also wonder what the loss of income tax revenue will be from putting whole professions out of work?

I dare say there will be much written about BSF in the coming days and weeks, which will probably look at the issues much more closely than I have. While I can see problems inherant in the BSF programme, it seems to me that it’s demise will have long lasting and profoundly damaging effects on both the education and construction sectors. The sad thing is that whatever replaces BSF probably won’t be much better - it’ll still be a design and build/PFI model. It’s been a long and troubling day, and it will likely be a longer and more troubling week. Right now I should probably be in bed, put my head is buzzing with questions: Where next for schools? Where next for the profession? Where next for me?

Whatever happened to the Earth Centre?

2010-06-29T21:48:00.001+01:00

The Earth Centre was an environmental theme park and model for sustainable development, which opened on a former colliery site near Doncaster in 1999. Just five years later the Centre closed, the operators went bankrupt and it was declared financially unsustainable. Since this time, the site has stood derelict.

I'm not quite sure what made me decide to look up the Earth Centre, perhaps it was planning a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park which was big around the same time. But whatever the reason, I found myself looking at pictures of the site posted on the 'urban exploration' forum, 28dayslater (hence the photo's on this post). For those not familiar with the genre, urban exploration is where people err... (I'm struggling for a euphemism for break-in) visit derelict sites and unusual places, before posting pictures on the internet for people to marvel at. Generally, the weirder/higher/riskier, the better.

A few years a go people were posting some amazing stuff on the site, but more recently the quality of sites seems to have deteriorated to the point where people are probably posting pictures of a former Budgens, which closed last November. However, some of the Earth Centre photo's are terrific and I'd strongly urge anyone with an interest to check them out at the link below:

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=42627

At the time of closing no one seemed too surprised that the whole thing went pear shaped, but looking through the photo's now it seems a bit of a shame.

The Centre was funded by an initial grant of over £40million from the Millennium Commission to "establish a world centre for sustainable development promoting the best environmental and sustainable practice", whilst further funding enabled later phases of the development. Initial reviews, including the one below from Jonathan Glancey, were favourable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/earth-centre-awakens-revival-1619883.html

Respected architects, Jan Kaplicky and Amanda Levete of Future Systems, designed the buildings, whilst Will Alsop was lined up to develop an innovative new bridge to the site.

Elements of the Earth Centre are weirdly reminiscent of other schemes of the time, in particular the Eden Project. If there is such a thing as, "eco-millenium project vernacular", I'd suggest that this is perfectly embodied by a friendly sculpture man, fashioned from recycled materials.

It's is perhaps telling that while I was studying landscape architecture in Sheffield at the time, I never made the short journey across to Doncaster to see what my lecturers described as "the 20th Century's biggest work of landscape architecture in the UK". If someone with an intrinsic interest in the subject couldn't be arsed to go, then you can be pretty sure Joe Public won't bother either. I think it's location was a big problem, for those looking for visitor attractions there's not much else to draw you to Doncaster. I also think it was a little ahead of it's time - sustainability issues are much more mainstream now, but back then 'eco' was a little bit mung beans and bicycle clips. But I'd say it's biggest failing was a lack of a big draw. I hate to say it (in fact people who say this are actually a real pet hate of mine), but where was the 'wow factor'?!? Eden had the big plastic 'biomes', but I wasn't really clear what the big feature of the Earth Centre was.

Since closing, the site has been used infrequently for paintballing and the fiming of the TV series 'Survivors', which was set in a deserted future where everyone's died of flu (except for the bloke from Hotel Babylon). The current proposal is that the facilities will be demolished and the site redeveloped for housing; you get the impression that the local council are keen to get shot of the site, and put the embarrassment of the projects failure behind them.

More positively, local groups have started a campaign to bring the Centre back into community use (see link below). Given the facilities still present, the interesting design features and the public money invested, you can only hope that they are successful.

http://welovetheearthcentre.blogspot.com/

City Lounge, St. Gallen

2010-06-15T20:32:00.000+01:00

City Lounge is an outdoor living space in the centre of St. Gallen, Switzerland, created by artist, Pipilotti Rist and architect Carlos Martinez. Originally intended as a temporary installation to celebrate the pedestrianisation of the city's business district, it was so popular, it became a permanent feature.

I first spotted it in Llorenc Bonec's excellent, Urban Landscape Architecture, which is full of interesting schemes to brighten up your coffee table or reception area!

I've managed to scrounge together a few images from across the interweb (see below), but if you like the look of it, I'd recommend you visit the website of photographer, Thomas Mayer.

http://thomasmayerarchive.de/categories.php?cat_id=1025&l=english

Prince Charles and the Architecture of Happiness

2010-06-02T21:22:00.004+01:00

I've been tempted to write something about Prince Charles for quite some time, but never really found a sufficiently interesting topic to expand upon. As it happens, David Mitchell has saved me a job with an amusing and surprisingly perceptive article for the Observer. I'd strongly urge anyone with an interest in the subject to read it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/23/david-mitchell-prince-charles-quatar

While I find myself in agreement with pretty much all of the article, I would add that I don't necessarily have a problem with recreations of traditional architecture and can see that it probably has it's place. However, I disagree that it is intrinsically worthier than more modern styles. I'd also argue that all too often the results are poor imitations of the original buildings they mimic (and this comes from someone who is something of an historic building nerd).

Poundbury is generally acknowledged as the Prince's crowning architectural achievement and the built embodiment of his principles. While I acknowledge that it has many positive aspects (the promotion of shared spaces for a start), I don't believe these are down to the traditional design, but rather the value of considered and person-centred design, as opposed the standardised boxes and road-centric, fit-as-many-units-as-possible approach that predominates most residential developments. I'm sure many people love it and I think it's fair enough for the Prince to act as an advocate for this kind of design.

While Charles appears basically well meaning, I personally don't think that his criticism of modern architecture is helpful. Stepping aside the argument that many people agree with his stylistic views, the justification (as used at Chelsea Barracks) that he is speaking out against bad design on behalf of the people, is undermined by his oft demonstrated dislike of modern architecture and his predilection for columns, plinths and pediments. Similarly, while I am happy for the Princes Trust to promote traditionally styled projects and elements of best practice , I am profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of them being a more general arbiter of good design (as recently put forward in the Conservative 'Open Source Planning' paper). As sure as Hugh Hefner wouldn't choose the girl who speaks six languages and does a lot of work for charity as Miss World, you can guarantee that the Prince's Trust would endorse the building with the vernacular, stone portico and the giant double cupola.

© Copyright Kevin Hale and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

More recently, I found myself reflecting again on Prince Charles and the supporters of traditional design as I read through Alain de Botton's "The Architecture of Happiness." It's not a book that I've found particularly easy to read; being rather verbose and imbued with a knowing irony, that I found vaguely irritating. That said, it contains some remarkably interesting ideas, that although relatively obvious, did have me considering the role of our built environment and what is behind our preference for certain styles.

What I took from the book is the idea that our built environment is a reflection of our aspirations, beliefs and values. While certain forms can have particular characters or intonation, and there is always the 'good design' factor, our reaction to a design is dependent on whether it fits in with our own belief system. This was best demonstrated to me, by the examples of the modernist architects whose designs reflected their beliefs that society would be bettered by advances in science, politics and industrialisation, and a rejection of the old values of western societies.

Similarly, it gives me some understanding of why the heir to a constitutional monarchy, that seems increasingly out of step with modern life, would take such an interest in promoting the building of monuments to tradition, and resist the advances of the modern world demonstrated by all this new-fangled architecture.

I suppose my final thought on the subject, is that while I believe in design guidance and the promotion of good design principles, I don't think that this can be achieved through 'rules' (such as the Poundbury ban on shop signage and satellite dishes). It seems to me that design rules, be it 'secured by design' or the Prince's Foundation's "Build Beautifully", are an attempt to impose the proposers values onto the schemes end users. Sometimes these values are worthwhile, such as a greater sense of community often engendered by good quality spaces. However, I believe that the designers role is to promote, encourage and engender these values and behaviors, rather than to force or impose them.

War Memorial Park, Coventry

2010-05-12T22:07:00.004+01:00

One of the main reasons for my lack of recent blog activity has been War Memorial Park. More specifically, I've been putting together tender and construction proposals for the renewal and restoration of the park.

Quite aside from any work that I'm involved in, I think it's worth drawing to people's attention to. I'd guess that outside of Coventry (maybe even within Coventry), not many people will be familiar with either the Park or the Memorial. Built in 1927 and designed by local architect, T.F. Tinker, the Memorial comemorates the 2,587 local men who died during the First World War and is set in a mature parkland of sombre, copper beaches and formal gardens. The photo's below were taken on a bright, March morning as I popped down to take a few measurements. While I always enjoy spending time in the Park, I thought the Memorial looked particularly stunning in the harsh winter light. Standing 27m high, the Memorial is most obviously influenced by the deco style of the time, but it also has elements of more gothic architecture, with it's prominant, buttressed corners - in short it's a real one off. I have to confess to being fascinated by it, and would recommend that anyone with an architectural interest, check's it out. I hope my snaps do it justice.

Architects discover Public Realm

2010-04-21T21:59:00.004+01:00

The news that Architects Stanton Williams have won the competition to design the new King's Cross Square, was met with a resounding, "Meh!", at my house.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3162081&channel=783&c=1

While I'm generally pleased to see public realm projects enjoying a higher public profile, I'm less impressed that so many of them are going to architectural practices. Just off the top of my head, some other notable examples of this would be the Dover seafront which went to Tonkin Liu, and the Maidstone Public Realm that went to Letts Wheeler - both Architects and both pretty high profile competitions.

While I'm not necessarily suggesting that Architects are incapable of designing public realm (I think most good designers can probably turn their hand to anything). It does beg the question that if Architects are designing our public spaces, then what do Landscape Architects do? Having spent 5 years at University, followed by another 2 years studying in practice how to design external spaces, I'm a little concerned by this development. I guess that if this were to become the norm, then that's the point when I pack up my clicky pencils and do something else. Masterchef perhaps?!?

A big part of my dislike of the term 'landscaping', derives from the perception that Landscape Architects are only there to specify areas of grass and shrubs. I'm still haunted by the experienced developer who told me that he didn't need a Landscape Architect, as he had some guys who could put down grass and plant hedges. Weirdly this perception seems to be on the increase, perhaps due to the spread of the term 'urban design'. Until fairly recently urban design was generally agreed to be part of the Landscape Architect's remit (the pedant in me wants to say that urban design is a process, but I think that this particular battle has been lost), but with the rise of professionals who call themselves "urban designers", urban and hard landscape work seems to be be moving away from landscape architects.

In my experience, most Architects like to have a bit of a crack at designing the externals, but very rarely do they seem to understand either the fundamentals or the technicalities of designing landscape. The typical approach is to draw up the bits of the site they want for the important stuff like buildings and roads first, before filling the remaining landscape with some fancy shapes and squiggles. After which they'll usually try and post-rationalise what the landscape will be used for. If you're really unlucky, they may just want you to detail and specify their designs...

I guess you have to look at what the Architects that are getting this work are doing, that Landscape Architects aren't. Looking at the websites of the ones I've just mentioned, what struck me (other than how few public realm projects they've actually put on the ground) was the quality of the cgi's and renders they've used to illustrate the projects. To be honest, I've not seen many Landscape Architects, producing images of this quality. I think that Architects also have a little more cache with clients, and suspect that the higher turnovers of buildings also gives them a bit of an advantage on PQQ's.

It's another example of why Landscape Architects need to work harder at marketing themselves, and illustrating what they can do.

Meh!

Landscape Architecture for Dummies #1

2010-03-12T21:43:00.004Z

I've written pretty extensively in the past about why I don't like the term, 'landscaping', applied to the fields of design and landscape architecture.

Despite my often indignant writing, I understand that for the majority of the population, landscape architecture is not really something they're familiar with and that many lack the vocabulary to discuss it. As it happens my default response when, 'landscaping', crops up in conversation is generally to smile my most patient, parish vicar smile and explain what the correct terms would be. You see, I actually think that using the correct terminology is helpful to all involved. Here's an example:

I was recently (but to protect the guilty, not that recently) asked by an architect to review a design and access statement that he had prepared for a new building, for 'landscaping' content. Apparently it had not gone down that well with the local authority. In his summary of 'landscaping' he described the area to north of his building as 'landscaped', the area around the building as 'to be landscaped' and similarly, the area south of the building, also as 'to be landscaped'. In actual fact, the area north was existing woodland, the area around the building was to be planted as gardens and the area south of the buildings was to be hard paved. Do you see the problem? This kind of sums up why using 'landscaping' as a catch all for our work is such a problem, because it doesn't really explain what is actually being done.

So in a benevolent effort to spread the gospel of landscape architecture, I thought I'd produce a brief glossary of landscape terms:

landscape - the stuff all around us from when we step out of our, houses, offices and generic buildings, and look around. A particularly handy term to use, when you're not referring to buildings.

soft landscape - the stuff that grow; trees, shrubs, grass and all things green.

hard landscape - the stuff in the landscape that isn't green; think surfacing, furniture and other man-made features.

existing vegetation - trees and shrubs that are already there. In fact they're free - how cool is that?!?

landscaping - mowing the lawn, tarmac-ing and general maintenance done by men with pick-ups and overalls.

For more a more thorough, if rather USA-centric list of terms, see ASLA's Landscape Architecture Glossary:

http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/publicrelations/glossary.htm

If that left you felling a little overwhelmed, my advice is to just try to memorise the top two or three. Or maybe just the top one - 'landscape'.

Imagine, and I'm looking at you Mr Architect, how much time you'll save over the course of your life by referring to 'landscape', as opposed to 'landscape-Ping!'. Think of every 'Ping!' as a second you won't spend with your children or designing your masterwork (perhaps future man will consider your sargasso blue, clad distribution shed in a similar light to the works of Palladio). And what is the carbon footprint of every superfluous 'Ping!' Not only will you help to preserve the sanity of pedantic landscape architects, but you'll also help to save the planet too!

Ray Mears sets the world to right

2010-02-16T21:46:00.004Z

Having read that Anglers are currently working on a petition calling for canoeing and kayaking to be banned from Britain's rivers, I thought now would be a good time to publish this quote from paragon of right, Ray Mears.

"Greg: It’s interesting to hear you say that. What is your impression of fishing in this country?

Ray: I get really irritated because they’re constantly having a pop at canoeists and that really irritates me because I’m a keen canoeist. I can’t understand it because everywhere else you go in the world canoeists are fishermen and fishermen are canoeists. What is the problem here? A canoe is a great way for a fisherman to access the waterways. For some reason anglers are up in arms. Canoes are very quiet, they’re silent the people who paddle them are incredibly sensitive to the environment and I would have thought that there was more in common between us, but for some reason we’ve got this silly situation which is largely due to financing access but I think we have to learn to be more tolerant of each other. I hope fishermen will come to have a better understanding of canoeists because it’s so suited to what we do it would be nice to think that these two different activities could learn to learn from each other."

Read the full article here:
http://www.gofishing.co.uk/Angling-Times/Section/News--Catches/General-News/October-2008/Read-the-full-interview-with-Ray-Mears/

Shared Space update

2009-12-19T00:04:00.002Z

As anyone who's followed my blog, or indeed had a work related conversation with me in the last few years will realise, 'Shared Space' is a bit of a pet subject of mine.

See my previous post on Shared Space.

I was thus interested to see that the most recent isssue of the Landscape Journal had gone for a bit of shared space special. While I was pleased to see the topic being discussed, my feeling is that it's probably bit late as the tide seems to already have turned against the whole shared space concept. This view was rather confirmed by the recent article in Building Design entitled, "Is opposition to shared space kerbing councils' enthusiasm?". See below:

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3155013&c=1

From personal experience it feels like resistance has been steadily building to schemes which include elements of shared space. Whereas, a couple of years ago they'd have been positively received (such as North Arran Way - image above), recent proposals have been rejected early on in favour of traditional bitmac and kerbs. The reasons for this are, I believe, twofold; firstly I think that there is a natural inclination against doing anything new. This is particularly true of the risk driven world of the highway engineer, where the safety of new approaches needs to carefully considered, but also where the lazy officer can easily use safety as an excuse for carrying on with whatever makes their life easier (remember that shared spaces are always bespoke). The second reason is the work that Guide Dogs for the Blind has done to oppose shared spaces. While I'm still a little confused by why they've taken such a hard line on the matter, there's no question that they've done a very thorough job of tarnishing shared spaces in many peoples minds.

As it happens, I went through the concerns of Guide Dogs for the Blind a couple of years back in some detail, when I worked on the North Arran Way Village Centre. The aim of the scheme was to provide a pedestrian focussed centre with local shops and facilities, that also included some car access. The solution we settled upon was to go for a shared space approach with 'cranking roads' and visual narrowing (trees, bollards and paving patterns) to reduce vehicle speed, and using the placement of buildings to create well-defined public spaces. Prior to the planning application we had to go through a user group audit, which inlcuded a variety of members of the local community, including a number of groups representing disabled people. The scheme was also 'challenged' by an experienced access officer from outside the area. Hence, I read up on all the available guidance!

I was surprised by how very positive the experince was. While there was some initial opposition (particularly from a number of blind and partially sighted users, and the organisations that represented them), we were able to adapt the design then and there and include measures to address their very well considered concerns. These included the use of contrasting colours for street furniture and kerbs, introducing definable navigation routes for the visually empaired, as well as many, many other measures which made the scheme far richer than the one we started with. Everyone involved went away happy and I felt that I had designed something that would really benefit the community. With hindsight, I think it was this excercise, which made me realise how well shared space can work for everybody.

If the scheme sounds interesting, it's all on the internet. I've also dropped a link to one of the key plans below:

http://www.solihull.gov.uk/akssolihull/images/att14322.pdf

Ironically, kerbs were actually used throughout the scheme. The only place they were removed was at crossing points, in response to a request from users with limited mobility. I also suspect that had this scheme progressed in the current climate, I would have been met by users with placards, and we wouldn't have been able to have the positive debates that we did.

Guide Dogs for the Blind's opposition to shared space stems from the problems the removal of kerbs causes to blind and partially sighted users. Guide dogs are trained to recognise and stop at kerbs, whilst for many partially sighted users a kerb is visible marker of the road edge. Some people have also pounced on suggestion that pedestrians make eye contact with motorists (this actually dates back to Hans Monderman, but is in my opinion unnecessary - all you need is for the motorist to see you and understand that he doesn't have right of way). Guide Dogs for the Blind repeatedly make the point that blind and partially sighted people don't 'feel' included for by shared spaces schemes.

So is the removal kerbs a fundamental part of shared spaces? In my opinion yes and no. As it happens, I think the removal of all kerbs has been used too much on certain schemes. I would personally only remove kerbs altogether on very low trafficked areas, or areas where pedestrians enjoy a clear priority. However, if you are proscriptive about having to include conventional 80mm kerbs everywhere as some are suggesting (including our friends at Guide Dogs), then I think you lose what shared space is trying to achieve.

So in summary, why are shared spaces so important, and why am I so dismayed by it's detractors?

At it's heart, shared space isn't about kerbs of paving or even cars, it's about designing for people. By understanding how people behave in certain situations, we can use the built environment to positively influence their actions. Shared space is also about taking the priority for our streets back from cars - at the moment road design is all about turning circles and visibility splays, when it should be about the people that use them. What sort of people use the space and what are their needs? Where do people want to cross the road? Is the road a comfortable place for people?

It seems to me that there is a very real danger that the shared space 'furore', will serve only to maintain the status quo of cars first, people second. I sincerely hope I am proved wrong and that a satisfactory solution for is found.

Cabe Space: What we'd like to see in the next 10 years

2009-12-19T00:02:00.000Z

Also featured in the recent Landscape Journal, was Cabe Space Director, Sarah Gaventa's wishllist for public spaces over the next 10 years. I think she makes some excellent points. Unfortunately I've not seen this online, so have reproduced it below:

The green spaces in social housing projects to be of the same quality as a Green Flag or Green Pennant Park.

Every new housing development of more than 50 houses to have some public space designed into it. A car park doesn't count.

Solve the problem in urban streets of how people who are visually impaired can navigate well, without throwing out the whole shared space agenda. Cabe Space has sponsored a research fellow at the RCA to look at product design: blister paving is 20 years old and we believe design innovation needs to keep evolving in our public spaces.

All our street furniture to be designed by furniture and product desgners and not by engineers so we get seats you can actually sit on, not the same ubiquitous designs in every city. We want to see furniture that is distinctive and of the place.

Reverse the loss of democracy in privately managed public spaces. I have sat on grass in new urban squares and been asked to move within five minutes because it's not really a 'public' space.

Kids to be allowed urban play spaces close to their homes, schools and shopping centres and reverse the attitude from some local authorities that play isn't a priority.

Fallow urban development sites to be used as nomadic allotments full of grow bags.

The importance and value of green infrastructure to be understood and embraced at regional, county and local levels and fully integrated within planning policies and frameworks.

To be able to walk or cycle through every city on some sort of green route.

Vocal, innovative landscape architects to lead projects, with architects being part of their team.

Manual for Streets Volumes 2, 3 and 4 to be published for high streets, commercial streets and arterial roads so that the balance between people and cars is redressed throughout our towns and cities.

For a landscape architect to win the Stirling Prize.

For professionals to stop talking about public space as 'the space between buildings' but as the places that make cities work.

CAD Monkey

2009-12-17T18:25:00.001Z

This has been around for a few years, but I still think it's absolutely spot on.

I still use the old, 'issue drawings at the end of the day, so clients can't ask you to change them' trick.

Castellated

2009-12-10T18:49:00.001Z

cas·tel·lat·ed

(kst-ltd)

adj.

1. Furnished with turrets and battlements in the style of a castle.

2. Having a castle.

The sharp eyed may have spotted that there's another blog next to my name in my Blogger profile. For the last couple of months I've been quietly adding a whole heap of photographs, together with a few pithy quotes, to a new blog called 'Castellated'.

You see when I'm not eating, sleeping, watching TV or being a landscape architect, I quite like to visit old places; houses, gardens and in particular castles, and take photographs. I didn't have any particular purpose in doing this, until it occurred to me that I could put them into a blog, and hence 'Castellated' was born.

Like the blog, 'castellated' is a word that generally applies to castles, but it's also a word that I really like the sound of and would like to use in coversation more frequently (I'm also quite partial to the words tartiflette and caribou). Being a rather uncommon word, I had intended to start the blog with dictionary definition of it, but then something intersting happened. Googling 'castellated' not only came up with definition's of the word, but it also showed me a number of quotes from literature that featured the word. They all seemed to be by terrific authors and offered interesting little vignettes from their work. The first I read was from 'The Masque of the Red Death' by Edgar Allen Poe, and as I had just spent the day exploring a 'castellated abbey', I felt compelled to post it with my pictures.

When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.

Since then I've posted lots more photographs, but also more 'castellated' quotes that I've found and been amused by. The result is a quirky, but admitedly fairly ideosyncratic blog, that I've really enjoyed putting together. If any of this sounds interesting, please feel free to click on the link below.

http://castellated-uk.blogspot.com/

Leicester's Bowstring Bridge Saga

2009-11-25T19:03:00.004Z

I was interested to see that ongoing saga of Leicester's Bowstring Bridge, has finally made it into the national media.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3153631&channel=783&c=2&encCode=0000000001a7fecf

Sadly it appears that Jonathan Glancey's article is an attempt to close the stable door after the horse has bolted, as when I drove past yesterday, the steelwork was all but gone.

I'm not really enough of an expert to tell you how significant the loss of the bridge is. I've seen similar bridges in other parts of the country, and couldn't tell you what would make a Victorian bridge particularly worthy of preservation. I guess that's why I've not commented on the issue before. However, I do recognise that the Bowstring Bridge is an important Leicester landmark, and I'm amazed that the Council are going to such trouble to get rid of it.

The more I've read about this, the more ridiculous the situation appears. As I understand, the Council is spending just under £500,000 of it's own money removing the bridge, before selling the land to De Montfort University for just £1. Apparently DMU have plans to build a new swimming pool on the site, but this is currently all we know, as they haven't released any further information about it (no drawings, no plans, zip!). However, they have repeatedly said that it is 'vital' that they have the Bridge land for the project to be feasible.

Considerable local opposition has been met by a very hard line from Leicester City Council , who's attitude seems to be 'we're knocking it down and that's that'.The wider story of this has been covered in pretty exhaustive detail by Leicester Mercury Editor, Keith Perch, on his blog. For those interested in the matter, I've put the links in below:

http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009/08/it-may-be-policy-but-is-it-legal.html

http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009/08/mercury-issues-legal-challenge-to.html

http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009/08/predictable-reaction-to-calls-for-open.html

http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009/08/council-issues-thinly-veiled-threat-in.html

http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009/08/council-letter-filed-in-drawer-marked.html

http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009/08/dismissed-with-wave-of-hand.html

Personally, I'm less interested in the aleged underhand actions of a local authority (although I'm more than happy to open this up to a wider audience), than why they have chosen to treat an important feature of Leicesters heritage, as a problem. Someone must have pointed out that the bridge was a valuable heritage feature, but the decision was made to ignore this. I suspect this sort of treatment of heritage features happens every day, up and down the country, if perhaps not quite so blatantly.

Jonathan Glancy isn't the first person to suggest alternative uses for the bridge, but those who hold the power have been adamant they're knocking it down. I would have liked to seen it developed as a linear park, similar to New York's, High Line, as I think the photo below hints at this potential.

I also think it would be wrong to finish this article without also mentioning the loss of the Pump and Tap, which is due to be demolished as part of this development. It may not be the finest Victorian building in England, but it is a good old-fashioned pub, of the sort that is fast disappearing from our cities. I suspect if it was a village pub being demolished there would be more sympathy (loss to the community etc), but people often forget that urban areas have communities that can be damaged by the loss of facilities too.

The whole thing is a sorry story, and everyone involved from Leicester City Council to De Montfort University, should be ashamed.

Power Station Landscape

2009-11-17T21:11:00.006Z

Waiting for a train at East Midlands Parkway a couple of weeks back, I found myself reflecting on the beauty of Ratliffe Power Station. I guess this isn't something you would normally expect to hear from someone with an interest in the landscape or our environment. But somehow the manmade, somewhat brutal form of the cooling towers made an interesting counterpoint* to a bright, fresh morning.

Apologies for the lack of blog updates recently. With any luck normal service will be resumed shortly!

*Please note that I have deliberately avoided the use of the word 'juxtaposition', for reasons that I may one day elaborate on.

The Private Realm

2009-10-22T18:42:00.003+01:00

Will Wiles' review of 'Ground Control' by Anna Minton, and his recent blog post on the subject (see links below), got me thinking about public realm in a way that I hadn't necessarily considered before.

http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?view=article&catid=1%3Alatest-news&layout=news&id=4130%3Areview-ground-control&option=com_content&Itemid=18

http://willwiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/zone-of-ones-own.html

The abiding theme of both articles is how new areas of 'public realm' are springing up in Britain's cities under the auspices of regeneration, but are in fact privately owned and managed. Many of these have restrictions for individuals, such as a ban on leafletting, which would not be possible in public owned space. The articles make a good case for how this is eroding our basic civil liberties.

You see, up until this point, I'd been thinking that public space that was not managed by a local authority was an entirely good thing...

Designing public realm is the thing that get's me out of bed in the morning - parks, plazas, streets, squares and shared space is what really interests me. I'm also passionate about regeneration; and if you ask me the way to get regeneration happening from the bottom up, then I'd suggest you start with our public spaces. Buildings by their very nature are never as inclusive as our civic spaces. The public realm is for everyone, and improvements to it demonstrate investment in a community, and that you value the people within it.

However, there has traditionally been a lack of recognition for the importance of public space. Most people I speak to seem surprised to hear that any design is involved in the built environment, outside of buildings or gardens and I suspect many more regard it's design in similar terms to their daily bin collection - it just happens (I could quite happily start off on another 'landscaping' rant here). However, things are improving, and it seems to me that private developers in particular, have cottoned onto the value that a well designed public space can bring to their developments.

Sadly, it seems to me that there are a lot of people working for local authorities who aren't as enlightened, which brings me onto the absolute bane of my working life - 'adoption'. Not unreasonably, if you want a local authority to maintain a space, you have to agree certain standards. However, in practice if you are proposing anything more than grass and tarmac, you are often in for a difficult ride. I expect to get some stick from local authority officers, but I have simply lost count of schemes that I have seen diminished by adoption issues (I'm not going to go into commuted sums). There are many excellent and forward thinking people working for local authorities, but it often only takes one saying 'no' to scupper a proposal. While I think certain departments have a culture of saying no, the real problem is that many officers will constrain proposals by what is current in terms of maintenance. This makes it nigh on impossible to do anything new or make significant improvements to an environment.

As something of an aside, whilst reading the original book review, I was wrestling with something of a lighting adoption issue. While I have a good relationship with the local authority in question, they have one of those new-fangled PFI lighting contracts, where you have to ask a particular supplier to design your street lighting. The quality of the actual lights is piss poor, and it is nigh-on impossible to get them to adjust the design to co-ordinate with the rest of the scheme. Interestingly, there are also moves to have street lighting turn off at a certain time, as research has apparently shown that it can reduce anti-social behaviour (and saves stacks of cash too ,I'd imagine). I bet the muggers and rapists are rubbing their hands in anticipation...

Back on topic, once you have a scheme adopted, the other big problem of public spaces is maintenance. There is simply never enough cash devoted by local authorities for adequately maintaining public spaces. I noted this in a recent blog post about Port Marine in Bristol, but this is by no means an especially bad example. As I said in that post, on the back of showing a client around this scheme, they decided to not to put their regeneration scheme up for public adoption. In order to ensure the long term maintenance, the intention is to set up a Community Interest Company (CIC) which will look after all parks, footpaths, public squares and spaces. While I believe the developers intentions are basically good (they just want to ensure their investment is maintained), it is clearly the beginning of gated communities.

In conclusion, while I am troubled by public spaces being removed from public ownership, it seems a logical response to the current situation. Although I don't believe wseeing any significant curbs on civil liberties at the moment, it would not require a great change of direction for that to happen (for example, banning groups of young people congregating). However, my abiding feeling is that until there is wider acknowledgement of the value of our public spaces, they will continue to fall into private ownership. I think we'll miss them when they're gone.

The Alnwick Garden

2009-10-14T21:01:00.004+01:00

It’s a couple of months since I visited The Alnwick Garden, but I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it.

I suppose I should start by saying that I had absolutely no preconceptions about the Garden, and if we’d had better weather for our week in Northumberland, I might not have bothered going to see it. However, while the rest of the country was sweltering in 30 degree heat, the north-east was sitting under a thick layer of clouds and steady rain, and I was steadily working my way round the regions tourist attractions. As I love castles, one of the first places I visited was Alnwick Castle and as I had nothing better to do, took them up on their offer of a joint ticket to the Castle and Garden.

The first thing you see as you come into the garden is the gigantic, wibbly-wobbly cascade fountain, that appears to have been inspired by a jelly mould. I found it generally displeasing to the eye, and I was also slightly puzzled by what the frenzy of activity around the base of it was. On closer inspection, I realised that these were kids riding around in mini John Deere tractors (I didn’t take any pictures on account of not wanting to be arrested as a paedo). For the life of me, I can’t work out what these two things have to do with each other, and I think this sums up the whole Garden. It’s a series of wacky, “wouldn’t it be fun to have one of those”, that have absolutely no connection or relevance to each other. The Eden Project was obviously the role model for the Alnwick Garden, but whereas the Eden Project has an overarching philosophy of sustainability, hugging trees and generally appreciating the natural world , the Alnwick Garden is just a bunch of unrelated stuff.

Some of that stuff is actually very fun and inventive, other bits less so. As a landscape architect, and something of a pseud, I have a bit of a problem with the whole design. It feels rather alien, as if somehow it’s been beamed into place, with rows of immaculate, specimen grown trees and topiary - it‘s not awful, but it’s all rather contrived. There is no sense of Northumberland about the Garden, and little of the British Isles. The giveaway is the surfacing, which is a side-laid clay paver that I’ve only ever seen used before in Belgium (yes I know I‘m being spoddy). No surprise then that the designers, Jacques and Peter Wirtz, are Belgian. I can’t help wonder how the garden would have turned out, had it been designed by someone with more understanding of the areas landscape and gardens.

That said, if the brief was to create the most flamboyant garden possible, then the Wirtz boys have had a fair crack. It is without doubt the campest garden I’ve ever visited. You want examples? Well apart from all the fountains and other froo-froo, the backdrop to the main cascade is provided by what I can only be describe as giant, topiary birdcages!

Which kind of brings me onto my second major gripe with the gardens - cost. According to the bumf you get with your ticket, the cost of the garden was £42 million and I can well believe this. Everything looks seriously expensive, from the very tasteful Sir Michael Hopkins visitor centre, to the stacks and stacks of specially grown trees. The worst offender by far though, is the aforementioned topiary birdgcages, which must have been astronomically expensive. They’ve been formed by training hundreds and hundreds of specially grown hornbeam trees (minimum cost £200 each I’d suggest) over a giant pergola, to create… actually I don’t know what they were meant to create. There’s not an awful lot going on inside them at all, as I think my photo’s show. My point is that if you’re going to spunk a shed-load of cash on something, I think that it really ought to have some sort of purpose (as it happens I found them reminiscent of the Hiroshima dome). Similarly, someone should have reminded the person that ‘designed’ the Cherry Orchard, that simply specifying hundreds of the most expensive trees you can find, won’t necessarily give you the best result.

Ok ok, I’m being really critical and in fairness most of the punters I saw seemed to be really enjoying themselves. There is lots that good…

The liberal use of water features is pretty cool. I know it’s easy for designers to get a bit sniffy about this, but the public loves a good fountain, and the Alnwick Garden certainly delivers them. There are big water features, like the main cascade, but the little riffling channels that run through the gardens are a really nice touch. I particularly liked the circular pools, which sit behind my favourite giant topiary things.

The visitor centre is very pleasant, and serves nice sandwiches in a setting that’s reminiscent of the Eden Project. Oh and the loos are amusing too, with different coloured led’s for you to aim at.

The Poison Garden is a fun idea (yes a garden full of mildly to moderately poisonous plants, located behind big gates marked with a skull and cross bones), if only one suicidal teenager away from disaster! I can see the Daily Mail headline already.

The formal gardens located in an old walled area, are nicely laid out around a structure of fountains and channels. At present the perennial planting is a bit disappointing, but hopefully they can develop this with time.(p.s. The rose gardens are a bit dull)

In particular, I thought the Bamboo Labyrinth was inspired. Mazes are fun anyway, but the use of bamboo made for a really dense and atmospheric screen.

Finally, I probably ought to mention the water features again, because if you’re under the age of 12 you’re going to love them. The Serpent Garden has a whole bunch of fountains, and the excitement levels of the children is something I’ve not seen since they took the tartrazine out of orange squash.

You see there’s so much that’s fun and positive in the Garden, that I could almost forgive it. And then…

I see the Treehouse.

What in God’s name made them build this monstrosity? Not in Walt Disney’s wildest dreams could he have come up with this. It’s beyond kitsch, beyond fairy’s down the bottom of the garden with Harry Potter - it’s quite unbelievably tacky, twee and hideous. Who is it for? No really, it may look like something that you’d use to decorate a particularly saccharine, 6 year old girls bedroom, but it actually contains a ‘fine dining restaurant’. Who in there right mind thought these two things could go together? I suspect there’s a reason why Gordon Ramsey hasn’t installed an adventure playground at Claridges.

Well there you go, that’s my take on the Alnwick Garden. It saddens me to be so critical, because the idea of building a new contemporary Garden is one I’d support. You certainly can’t criticise the investment, but the taste, or lack of, is at times rather obvious. There's lots that's good about the Garden and it is in many ways so nearly right, but certain elements seemed to be something of vanity project. Whether this was from the designers or the Duchess patron I don’t know, but someone should have said that certain things just aren‘t right - like putting a classy restaurant in a Disneyfied, treehouse is never going to work. I’ll be really interested to see how the Garden develops, but my advice is that if you want to visit a brilliant, contemporary garden in Britain - go to the Eden Project first.

Ashford Ring Road, Shared Space

2009-10-06T22:53:00.001+01:00

Whenever we hear about the rights and wrongs of shared space being debated in the media, one scheme seems to be mentioned more than others – the Ashford ring road. Jeremy Clarkson hates it, I suspect Guide Dogs for the Blind aren’t too keen and local residents have complained that someone will surely be killed! I thought it was worth checking out…

Geek that I am, I actually arranged to spend the night in Ashford before I headed off to France for my hols the following day. Unfortunately, traffic and the British weather conspired against me and I ended up arriving in Ashford at about half past nine, on a dark and rainy night. As a result I didn’t get any decent photo’s (and hence why I’ve included a few from around the interweb) and I probably missed a few of the schemes intricacies.

It’s an interesting design, and perhaps not quite as radical as I’d imagined it to be. The thought of making a ring road a shared space, conjured up images of pedestrians trying to get across a dual carriageway. In reality it’s not quite as dramatic as this, and it’s pretty much a standard stretch of urban road that’s been given the shared space treatment. That said, Ashford have gone for the full shared space package – no kerbs and some big spaces where cars and pedestrians can intermingle. Personally, I think you can achieve a lot whilst still having some small kerbs and I’m not convinced that big spaces with cars and pedestrians mixing, are necessarily the best idea.

However, I’d imagine that on a nice day it’s an attractive scheme with lots of new street trees, and I particularly liked the look of some of the hard detailing. However the biggest surprise for me is the abundance of some seriously wacky public art. One of the key concepts of shared space is that by making drivers feel unsure and even uncomfortable, you reduce their speed and ensure that they behave with more consideration for other road users. Hence, I can understand the rationale for incorporating some art features. However, I think that there is also a danger that you will also make pedestrians also feel uncomfortable, by including so many seemingly incomprehensible features. I’m just not sure that the combination of rather frivolous art, and a pretty serious change in road safety policy, is a great idea. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence and I’m not particularly surprised that so many local users have been baffled by the whole thing. I would also imagine that it rather reinforces the idea that the Council have ‘gone mad’.

The worst offender by far, is the ‘Notaroundabout’ installation (not a round about, how clever). The image below was emailed to me with just two accompanying words. Utter tosh. It looks to me like someone’s buried a rusting, miniature observatory in a giant, patio recreation of a Moorish garden.

Despite all of I’ve said, I’d still be interested to visit the scheme again – ideally in daylight. It’s a bit of an ongoing experiment really; some things have worked, others haven’t. But for anyone interested in public realm and shared space, it is fascinating. I’d also really like to hear from other people who’ve visited and experienced the scheme.

Derby College - Roundhouse Campus

2009-09-20T19:58:00.003+01:00

The press releases for the redevelopment of the Roundhouse in Derby have recently gone out, with features on the scheme in both Building Design and the AJ.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=453&storycode=3148345&channel=783&c=2

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/derby-college-campus-by-maber-architects/5207783.article

While I'm happy to acknowledge that Maber Architects have done a terrific job with the restoration, the lack of coverage of the schemes exterior spaces has been disappointing. I should point out that for the best part of the last year my colleagueLee Sycamore, with able assistance from Michael Samuels, have been working their arses off to give the buildings an exciting setting!

For those not in the know, a 'roundhouse' is a large circular building, where trains are turned around and worked on. The Roundhouse at Derby is generally considered to be the first of it's type (built in 1839). Until the development began, the whole site was in ruin, but it has been listed as an exemplar scheme including listed buildings, by English Heritage. Original features and nods to the sites former use have been left all over the site, like the rails running up to the site entrance in the top image.

Last month, I was lucky enough to have a bit of a preview of the scheme, ahead of it’s grand opening in October. The exterior spaces look terrific and I am fully expecting it to have more coverage in the future, and probably some awards. I actually took loads of photo’s, but for the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’ve only posted a select few below.

A new plaza at the entrance to the College.

A view from the front plaza to the new link building (note the fancy pants, colour-changing glass).

View to link building from main avenue.

Another of the link building from the lumpy-bumpy College lawns.

View across College lawns.

Engine shed from College Lawns.

College lawns into Plaza.

View back to the Clock Tower from planted area.

Link block from another angle (note the different colour of the glazing).

Another original building.

A bit more context.

View across main public realm area from the new College building.

Note how the patterns of interior and exterior surfacing match.

More chequed paving (which again matches the interiors.

A nicely detailed wall/informal seat on the edge of the College lawn.

Nicely paving!

A view back to the new College building.

Love the glazing , although I realise this probably makes me a bit like the little girl who loves anything glittery.

The 'Roundhouse' interior is worth a look - it's a really extraordinary space.

The roof is an absolute wonder of engineering.

Edit: I see the consistently excellent, Bad British Architecture blog has picked up on the main college building:

http://badbritisharchitecture.blogspot.com/2009/09/derby-college-campus-derby-by-maber.html

...no comment!

The Best Brochure Ever!

2009-09-13T15:30:00.002+01:00

It’s a rare day at work when another product brochure isn’t added to the ever growing pile on the edge of my desk. So you’ll appreciate that it takes something pretty special to catch my attention. Well the new Townscape brochure is certainly special…

You’ll see from the snapshot above that they’ve attempted to give their range of concrete benches, bollards and bins some international glamour, with flashy background images of spectacular locations. They’ve also, and how can I put this, decided to turn the graphics up to 11... Yes it’s busy, it‘s very colourful too, but I just get the impression that it’s not been put together by someone who earns their living as a graphic designer. More on this later, but I think that the indications are, that their photoshopping wasn’t done by the same people that gave Kate Winslett the figure of Karen Carpenter for her Vanity Fair cover. In my mind, I’m imagining that the Townscape sales team have perhaps not had a great deal to do over recent months. At some point someone had the bright idea that instead of just sitting around playing solitaire and enjoying the occasional nip of the cooking sherry, they should make their product brochure ‘a bit more exciting’.

I should probably give you a bit of background about Townscape and where they fit into my world. Townscape are the masters of exposed aggregate concrete, which was incredibly popular for benches and bins in the 70’s and 80’s (see above). They even produced a ‘bomb-proof’ bin, for councils that were a bit worried about all the Irish people hanging round their town centres. However, it strikes me that Townscape are like the Englebert Humperdink of the street furniture world - successful in one era, but forever associated with it and their more contemporary work hasn‘t really matched their previous success. None of Townscapes newer products really work for me, and I’d offer the ‘golf’ related products below, as an illustration of this (see also Enge’s “Lesbian Seagull”).

However, I still regularly specify their products and I have enough interest in them to actually open the brochure and not just chuck it away. You see like Englebert has the classic ‘Please Release Me’, Townscape have the Citizen Jet bench. The image shown below is from Poole Arts Centre (thanks to Dave Prosser and Roger Griffiths Associates), and highlights what I think is so good about it. It’s an incredibly simple and chic concrete product, that really works in a wide range of settings. I literally specify it all the time.

Anyway, back to the brochure. As I leafed through I found myself feeling at first a little bemused, then incredulous, before finally bursting into laughter. I’ve put a few selected pages from the brochure in for people to enjoy. They reminded me a little bit of watching one of those old Jason and the Argonauts films, or maybe the first time you saw Frankie Howard in his little mauve, wig…

I can only surmise that either the graphics department of Townscape are all visually dyslexic, or that they’ve got a really great sense of humour. I really hope it’s the latter. Well done guys, your brochure cheered me up no end!

Nicholson Street Mall, Melbourne

2009-08-31T22:16:00.004+01:00

I first spotted this scheme in the recent edition of Topos, the funky european design magazine, and wasn't entirely sure if I liked it. Since then it seems to have grown on me. So much so that I've been happily putting images of it into a presentation, and promising clients that I'll make their prison look just like it!

Yes it's brash (it is in Australia), but I also think it's colourful, fun and the perfect response to a dowdy, tired looking part of town. While it makes a bold statement, with the jagged yellow paving slashing through it, it's clear that the individual spaces within it are well thought out and have a nice human scale, which is unusual in such a highly stylised design. I also like the fact that no two elements within the scheme are entirely alike.

The designers of the scheme were landscape architects from Hassell, and in 2008 it recieved an AILA award.

Inspiration - Charles Rennie Mackintosh Watercolours

2009-08-20T17:09:00.001+01:00

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was one of my earliest inspirations as a designer, and I was pleased when I read that his design for Glasgow School of Art had been voted the "Stirling of Stirling's" (or best building of all the buildings voted best building):

http://www.hughpearman.com/2009/12.html

However, it seems to me that while his buildings are admired and people now have pencil cases and coffee mugs with his designs on (what is it with stained glass too?), his painting is overlooked. I absolutely love the watercolours he produced later in his life, so thought I should post a few on here.

Blowing my own trumpet - On a Lagoon Garden

2009-08-18T16:03:00.000+01:00

For some reason, I thought it would be fun to post some old images of my University work. I designed a garden based on Paul Klee's painting, "City on a Lagoon" and subsequently posted a few images up on a hastily put together website.

http://www.zap.to/landscape_architecure

It's all a little bit amateurish, but I should point out that the 3D renders were very cutting edge for 1997. Enjoy!

Cycle Stands

2009-08-15T19:29:00.000+01:00

Cycle stands are invariably pretty boring. The Sheffield stand (see above) is pretty universally used, and while there are other designs for cycle stands, they're not particularly exciting either. Hence, I was interested to see that David Byrne (yes, him out of the Talking Heads) has produced some arty, cycle stands to try and get people riiding their bikes in New York. I think they're pretty cool.

I like the way he's themed them according to where they are. Hence the dollar sign is on Wall Street, the shoe is on a shopping street and rather unsurprisingly, the coffee mug is outside a coffee shop. It's quite an interesting idea and has had me wondering how you could do something similar in the UK: Crown shaped stands outside Buckingham Palace. A pint glass outside a pub. A cycle stand shaped like a small child outside a school...

Billy Bollard

2009-08-12T20:18:00.000+01:00

I’ve been mildly obsessed with ‘Billy Bollard’, ever since I heard that Marshall's had produced an impact-resistant, plastic post, shaped like a small child. We actually tried to order one as a sample in our office, and I was bitterly disappointed when it never turned up (did they think we were taking the piss?). Suffice to say that I've been hoping to come across one on my travels.

Hence it was pleasant surprise, when I spotted some on a detour to work last week. A whole bunch of Billy and Belinda Bollards have been installed outside Avenue Road School in Clarendon Park, Leicester. In reality, they're even more bizarre than I expected. Being so much smaller than real children is a little bit jarring - I found myself wondering if I'd accidentally eaten some sort of psychotropic plant!

The idea (and I can nearly see what they're getting at), is that drivers see the "school children" and unconsciously slow down and drive more carefully. Supposedly thinking, "I'd better watch out for those children at the edge of the road." Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that drivers will think think they've inadvertently fallen asleep at the wheel, and are now having a macabre nightmare.

Don't look in the eyes! They'll turn you into Ferrocast, imitation cast-iron!!!

They just look sinister to me. I found myself imaging an evil partnership between the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dr. Gunther Von Hagens; enticing under-sized orphans off the street and into their caravan with offers of Sunny Delight and Haribo's, before whisking them off to their factory to turn them into shrunken, plasticised half-child/half-bollard hybrids.

"My friend Gunther will give you all the candy you ever need! Ha ha ha!!!"

Or maybe it's like an episode of Doctor Who; the Billy Bollards are quietly positioning themselves around our cities, before they eventually rise up and conquor the world!

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?"

I like how they've done an asian version of Billy Bollard, seeing as how we're in Leicester (Billy being the original boy and Belinder the girl that followed). How about Billvinder?!?

I'd be interested to hear what other people think of Billy Bollard.

Northumberlandia

2009-07-31T17:40:00.006+01:00

I was excited to see details of the latest work by Charles Jencks. ‘Northumberlandia’ - a giant sculpture in the form of a reclining woman, unsurprisingly located in Northumblerland and constructed from waste material arising from local mining operations.

I’ve been meaning to write about Jencks past work for some time, but had never quite got round to it. For the few that aren’t aware, Jencks is an architectural academic, writer of rather wordy, but interesting books and with his late wife Maggie, the creator of some extraordinary gardens. “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” is his best known work, and in my opinion, it is one of the most astonishing works of art and design in the modern era. Below are images of Jencks recreation of the garden at the Scottish National Gallery.

I’m not sure they really do the garden justice (the design intent is rooted in some pretty mind-bending ideas of the universe), but hopefully they show how Jencks created a whole new design vocabulary, with chiselled and sculpted earth mounding.

Having been widely imitated, it’s interesting to see Jencks returning to earth shaping. For me this looks like a terrific project – taking something mundane and typically unattractive (how many restored mining landscapes really look good?!?) and turning it into something exciting, beautiful and unique. I’m really enthusiastic about works of art that become landmarks, so will look forward to seeing how this project works out. In the meantime I’m posting all the images of the project that I can readily put my hands on!