More Comment – Page 135
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Opinion
HOK's high flyer
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.
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Opinion
Sound of pomo
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”.
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Opinion
Critical mass
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”.
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Opinion
Red tape strangles creativity in house design
The construction industry is burdened with an array of regulation and red tape.
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Opinion
Where is this war on red tape?
Despite many fine words, the government has not delivered on its promise to reduce regulation
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Opinion
Success is all in the execution...
The shoddy application of good planning ideas has sold our towns and cities short
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Opinion
Is architecture best taught by practising architects?
Yes, says Gordon Murray, practitioners understand the design process best; but Kevin Rhowbotham feels it may already too late to salvage a sinking discipline
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Opinion
RIBA is right to raise space issue
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).
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Opinion
Give Aberdeen's gardens a chance
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.
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Opinion
Planning reform threatens quality
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.
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Opinion
Pomo’s a no-no
Bets are on as to who should be given the RIBA Gold Medal, and the hot favourite is Joseph Rykwert.
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Opinion
Not your Mann
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.
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Opinion
Rio defensive
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.
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Opinion
Rogue saviour?
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?
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Opinion
Birthday lettuce
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.
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Opinion
Putting it into practice
Alex de Rijke’s appointment at the RCA heralds a welcome shift towards closer links between teaching and practice
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Opinion
RSHP’s One Hyde Park is a credit not a carbuncle
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.”
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Opinion
Give us more info about embassies
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?
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Opinion
Cut paperwork not the policy
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).