Concrete Boots

Catch ’em young

The Manchester school that provided the RIBA with children for its “alternative No 10 Downing Street” exhibition at the Labour Party Conference, revealed that students were given a prepared list of questions to ask VIP guest Cherie Blair.

While journalists were told sternly to stand back before Mrs Blair arrived, the children were given front-row seats.

RIBA staff later insisted pupils were given a “script” only so they would ask appropriate questions, but it seems that New Labour’s determination to stage-manage every event is catching.

Last year’s man

Talking of New Labour, rising ministerial star David Miliband made clear his somewhat tenuous grasp of architectural issues during a conversation with RIBA president Jack Pringle.

Due at the RIBA’s exhibition at 11.30am on the Tuesday, the former ODPM minister rolled up around 5.30pm and after the usual platitudes, received a Stirling Prize book from Pringle.

“Who won in the end? Because the Brighton Library is in for it, isn’t it?” he asked Jack.

There was a slight pause before Pringle tactfully informed Miliband that that was last year’s award.

“Well I’m sure the Brighton Library is up for something...” the minister trailed off.

Lammy whammy

At least Miliband had something to say, which is more than can be said for architecture minister David Lammy.

Asked about Richard Rogers’ call for positive discrimination in architecture, Lammy gave a long and pointless reply during which he sat firmly on the proverbial fence. “It is not for me, as architecture minister, to tell Britain’s architects how to [tackle this issue] but I’m glad the debate has begun,” he concluded. So he’s all for talking then — what a radical notion.

Dense idea

It seems that the development community is finally tiring of the Richard Rogers and Ricky Burdett’s high density approach to development. Indeed, some wag has even developed a new term for it. Given the pair’s shared Italian background, the in-vogue way of referring to their ideas is now, apparently, “densissimo”.

New for old

Anyone strolling around London Wall might wonder why a Seifert building is in the throes of being demolished (pictured in background), while a new building — a dead ringer for the architect’s mid-sixties oeuvre — is going up in front of it. Strange but true

Keeping Cool

Featherstone Associates managed to scoop the BD Cool Wall cup again last weekend having won it in the summer for its orchid house. This time the audience at 100% Design thought its Rape & Incest centre in Essex was cooler than Alsop’s Paletstra, which came a close second. But there were thumbs down for the Telegraph’s new HQ by Comprehensive Design, where a vast news room known as “the Hub” is laid out as a panopticon. All the better to observe the diminishing number of Telegraph hacks.