Battle lines drawn as architects join in the house-building debate

Architects have got themselves into a hole. It’s true that planning is a mess but architects are best equipped to navigate themselves and others through the quagmire.

Baylight, Solid Space and Urban Splash — all with architects as a part of their core — have rolled their sleeves up and got well-designed schemes delivered.

Architects need to start looking at the wider issues that surround housing provision, including funding, and engage with the process rather than whingeing on about how difficult it is. It’s a bit pathetic!

Jonathan Ellis-Miller
via bdonline

All for Allford

I am with Simon Allford on the subject of housing (Debate May 3). In the time it took us to get permissions and construct 10 apartments in Vassall Road, London, for Crispin Kelly (Crispin, “cappuccino urbanism”: what are you thinking!) we realised just under 200 apartments in Amsterdam, where there is proper land assembly and city planning.

So Dickon, with respect, you are wrong about this and just about everything else you say in your article, and to blame architects for the housing shortage is like the government blaming poor and disabled people for the banking crisis.

Tony Fretton
via bdonline