More Comment – Page 364
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Opinion
Speed freak
Brian Godfrey attended a Formula One race instead of campaigning for the RIBA presidential elections last month. “I was so close to the action I could have reached out and shaken Michael Schumacher’s hand. The only problem was he was going 500 miles an hour.”Probably not a good idea ...
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Opinion
How modern
Many architects attending the RIBA conference must have thought the UV lighting in the toilets awfully trendy. They were audible gasps then when speaker, and Gillespies partner, Brian Evans told the audience that the lighting is actually a tactic to deter heroin addicts because it prevents them “finding a vein”. ...
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Opinion
SOS at DCMS
The axe was hanging over the Department for Culture Media & Sport this week. But the axe never fell. The immediate net reduction in posts is merely 30, so McIntosh’s band can rest easy for now. But with listing decisions being devolved to English Heritage and Gordon Brown championing ...
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Opinion
Ian Martin
The Irish government’s latest campaign to preserve historic buildings: No Surrender to the PVC
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Opinion
Saving the world is mission impossible
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to save the world — or at least stamp out crime, rehabilitate victims of torture and stop terrorism. Those are just three of the tasks demanded of architects featured in BD in the last fortnight. Take other weeks and you can ...
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Opinion
Highway to hell
It is good to see Richard Rogers and George Ferguson speaking out on the need to have more integration in the education of architects and others working in the built environment (News July 2). And it’s not just planners either.Highway engineers — where do they come from? Most of what ...
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Opinion
Public may catch up
Peter Kellow's letter (July 7) prompts two thoughts about the appeal of so-called modern architecture (or lack of it), and the way students are "inducted". He makes reference to the Plymouth School in particular.It is an article of faith at Plymouth that we avoid pushing stylistic approaches. Our students form ...
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Opinion
Poll positives
Robert Adam chastises Chetwood Associates for misinterpreting the results of the Mori poll we commissioned on attitudes to modern architecture (Letters July 2). He may be right — many architects do produce designs the public does not like, and certain architects are doubtless arrogant.But this is not the whole story. ...
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Opinion
My PCC ordeal
I would like to comment on your coverage of my hearing before the Arb (News July 2). The main charges against me were that I failed to give clear written advice in relation to cost plans and that I failed to draw to attention to the cost of proposed alterations.My ...
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Opinion
Holyrood refund?
Speaking as a non-architect who has come across a copy of your article on the Scottish Parliament (“Design team delays cost Holyrood £166m”), perhaps the design team would be magnanimous in reimbursing the public for the cost of their failings by reducing their fees accordingly?
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Opinion
Glass not dead yet
I would like to clarify the article on cladding “Glazed over” (Solutions June 25). The DTI Partners in Innovation research project does not comment on or make any conclusions about how much glass should be used in buildings. The output of the work is a toolkit to look at ...
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Opinion
A mini adventure
We reluctantly bring you news of a breach of the law by one of the UK’s, nay the world’s, most esteemed architects. No, not Simon Foxell (who crawled in last in the RIBA election, faring even worse than Ian Salisbury). Instead, the spotlight falls on the guilty pate of Norman ...
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Opinion
To sirs, with love
Q: Who does rebel Arb member Ian Salisbury consult on matters of etiquette?A: Lesbian greengrocers in Oxford.An item, "Minorities", on his website tells of his struggle to find the correct greeting for a letter to two female solicitors. "Dear Sirs", the convention, felt inappropriate, but so did "Dear Ladies", "Mesdames" ...
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Opinion
See you later...
Will no animals appreciate London Zoo’s famous Lubetkin pool? First the penguins hop it to another pool and find love, and now it’s the Chinese alligators. The pool was specially converted for the reptiles with a consignment of mud and floating plants to recreate their natural habitat. But sadly ...
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Opinion
Rock the casbah
The late Joe Strummer will lend some posthumous celebrity weight to a derelict Victorian folly in Somerset, lined up as one of the candidates to be saved on BBC2’s Restoration series which starts again this week. Friends of Strummer, who died of a heart attack 18 months ago, are bidding ...
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Opinion
Weighty issues
Stanton Williams’ press office clearly has rather too much time on its hands. The press release for the practice’s recently completed Tower Hill Square project offers some “interesting facts and figures”. Among these Boots spotted: “The weight of a typical granite paving slab is 172kg, the same weight as two ...
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OpinionThe Nimbys need guidance
I have always thought Nimbys may be misunderstood (News June 25). When someone says “not in my back yard”, they may not be saying “not in my back yard because it is mine”, but that they see themselves as its custodian and would say the same if they thought it ...
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Opinion
No bee’s knees
So it’s official: “British people do not like modern architecture.” A Mori poll finds that 67% of the population are not prepared to disagree with the statement “I do not like most modern buildings”.A glance through your jobs pages reveals the highest-paid job on offer for an architect was for ...
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Opinion
What people want
I don’t wish to say “I told you so,” about the public’s negative attitude to modernist architecture, but it is no great surprise. What is interesting, however, is Chetwood Associates’ response.Chetwood Associates put it down to the fact that the public are ill-informed or confused. So, presumably, if they were ...