More Comment – Page 135

  • Boots
    Opinion

    HOK's high flyer

    2011-09-30T00:00:00Z

    HOK managed to borrow a walk-through metal detector from its client Gatwick for its “aviation” party last week, but Boots was mystified why that theme had been chosen.

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Sound of pomo

    2011-09-30T00:00:00Z

    Guests at the V&A’s suitably styled postmodernism opening party were entertained by Annie Lennox, who even persuaded some of them into a sing-a-long of her old Eurythmics standard “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This”.

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Critical mass

    2011-09-30T00:00:00Z

    Reactions to the V&A’s show among the pomo old guard have been mixed. Charles Jencks stood up at the opening dinner to call for “two cheers for the exhibition”.

  • House built for Habinteg Housing Association to meet Lifetime Homes standards.
    Opinion

    Red tape strangles creativity in house design

    2011-09-23T10:58:00Z

    The construction industry is burdened with an array of regulation and red tape.

  • Amanda Baillieu - Editorial director
    Opinion

    Where is this war on red tape?

    2011-09-23T08:59:00Z

    Despite many fine words, the government has not delivered on its promise to reduce regulation

  • Owen Hatherley
    Opinion

    Success is all in the execution...

    2011-09-23T08:51:00Z

    The shoddy application of good planning ideas has sold our towns and cities short

  • Architect Peter Salter (left) tutoring at the AA in the 1980s.
    Opinion

    Is architecture best taught by practising architects?

    2011-09-23T08:51:00Z

    Yes, says Gordon Murray, practitioners understand the design process best; but Kevin Rhowbotham feels it may already too late to salvage a sinking discipline

  • Opinion

    RIBA is right to raise space issue

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    It’s good that the RIBA has raised the issue of space standards - such an important subject in housing and yet almost completely neglected by the mainstream press (which I think must be fearful of losing the advertising custom of the volume housebuilders who flood their property pages).

  • Union Gardens
    Opinion

    Give Aberdeen's gardens a chance

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    It was really disappointing to read, at the end of Owen Hatherley’s otherwise perceptive article on Aberdeen (Urban Trawl September 16), the uninformed judgment on Union Terrace Gardens.

  • Opinion

    Planning reform threatens quality

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    I fear that Anne Power is absolutely right (“Planning policy risks creating city ghettos” News September 16): the only reason most developers seek real architectural talent is when they need to get a tricky scheme through the planning system.

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Pomo’s a no-no

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    Bets are on as to who should be given the RIBA Gold Medal, and the hot favourite is Joseph Rykwert.

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Not your Mann

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    British Council architecture and design supremo Vicky Richardson has decided that, in a break from tradition, the curator of next year’s British pavilion at the Venice Biennale will be chosen by open competition, with no predetermined theme imposed.

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Rio defensive

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    Country house architect John Pardey played down reports this week that he is designing a £3.5 million mansion in the Cotswolds for Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand.

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Rogue saviour?

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    UBS’s £1.3 billion loss generated by rogue trader Kweku Adoboli will affect staff bonuses, but will it also have an impact on the Swiss bank’s new London HQ, Boots wonders?

  • Boots
    Opinion

    Birthday lettuce

    2011-09-23T00:00:00Z

    Paying tribute to Terence Conran at the designer’s 80th birthday celebrations at Tate Modern this week, Stephen Bayley noted that Frank Gehry recently marked his own 80th with a cake resembling his Walt Disney concert hall.

  • Ellis Woodman - editor
    Opinion

    Putting it into practice

    2011-09-16T08:51:00Z

    Alex de Rijke’s appointment at the RCA heralds a welcome shift towards closer links between teaching and practice

  • One Hyde Park, London. Archtiect: Rogers Stirk Harbour
    Opinion

    RSHP’s One Hyde Park is a credit not a carbuncle

    2011-09-16T00:00:00Z

    You’ve got it wrong again. In your report on One Hyde Park’s candidacy for the 2011 Carbuncle Cup, you write that “The mayor’s planners, headed by Giles Dolphin, must carry particular blame.”

  • British Embassy in Sana’a
    Opinion

    Give us more info about embassies

    2011-09-16T00:00:00Z

    All very sad for those that failed to make the Foreign Office’s new framework agreement (“Embassy architects axed from Foreign Office work” News September 9), but there are lots of “award-winning” practices out there? Do we know who did make it?

  • RIBA president Angela Brady
    Opinion

    Proof of life on other planets

    2011-09-16T00:00:00Z

    I have often wondered if there was life on other planets.

  • Communities secretary Eric Pickles
    Opinion

    Cut paperwork not the policy

    2011-09-16T00:00:00Z

    Current planning policy is certainly over-verbose but appropriate in many ways (“Osborne and Pickles pledge to press on with planning changes” bdonline September 5).