Marcus Fairs
- Opinion
Get off the couch and fight this blight
An insidious force is stalking the built environment in an effort to undermine architects
- Opinion
You can’t design away bad schools
Good school design improves results. Really? I put my money on the quality of head teachers
- Opinion
In our borough, planning is for wimps
Once a much vaunted nuclear-free zone, these days Hackney is just a free-for-all
- Opinion
A woman’s home is her sandcastle
An innovative design project is providing mass housing for Cape Town’s urban poor
- Opinion
Just stop stating the bleeding obvious
Clichés, Saul? Tell me about it. I’m literally sick of them.
- Opinion
Time for readers to turn over a new leaf
Interior design has rediscovered nature, so why are architects still so hostile to the joys of floral decoration?
- Opinion
Floored by the council’s street works
We know the built environment is about more than buildings, but councils just don’t get it
- Opinion
Continental drift isn’t working for me
Beware: it’s the architectural version of mad cow disease, and it’s sweeping our built environment
- Opinion
At last – the chance to really play God
The arrival of the architect-designed fake island marks a shift in our power over nature
- Opinion
At last we can brand the Dome a hit
A mobile phone company’s homage to itself has proved the troubled tent’s unlikely saviour
- Opinion
Hands off Noddy, man of the people
Children’s TV programmes are more clued up than architects as to the housing people want
- Opinion
When no architect at all is a better bet
When it comes to home improvements, a sense of perspective is invaluable
- Opinion
Three cheers for nostalgic starchitects
A local vernacular is ousting the Gulf trend for mega- design, and very welcome it is too
- Opinion
Future design: waving or drowning?
The Italians’ trademark hand waving extends to design, but where will it all end?
- Opinion
Who to ask about open source design
Efforts to improve Africa’s housing stock could learn a lot from those on the ground