More Comment – Page 353
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Opinion
Tribal gathering is a formidable force
If you join a group called Tribal, you probably want the war drums to beat.
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Opinion
Community begins on your doorstep
I am a passionate believer that architects should be actively engaged with their communities.
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OpinionConcrete Boots
Pearls of wisdomWelcome to the world of Japanese philosophy according to Tadao Ando. Under the philosophy, pearls are inward-looking and introverted while diamonds are extrovert, outward-looking and full of energy. Talking to BD, Ando likened his tempered and considered architecture to a pearl. “There are small, brilliant things and large, ...
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OpinionFred Trousers
Ian Martin is away. Our guest columnist this week is Fred Trousers, president of the Royal Institute for the Protection of British Architects.
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Opinion
A united front on tropical timber
Your report (News October 22) gave the unfortunate impression that the RIBA and English Heritage were at odds over the use of certified timbers. This is untrue. We are as one on the issue of the use of tropical hardwoods. We start with the premise that we strongly support limiting ...
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Opinion
The big squeeze
Cabe has launched its trenchant critique of housing design, but on closer inspection all it does is to reveal the superficiality of architectural ideas about this subject.
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Opinion
Place your bets
Regarding your article, “A fight to the death?” (News Analysis October 15), the image of two fighting dogs is very evocative, so is there anywhere I can put a tenner on the RIBA to win?
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Opinion
Memorial of mud
I wonder if Tony Fretton had visited the Diana memorial lately he would still consider it “a serene and beautiful piece of work” (Letters October 22).I visited it last Wednesday at about 12.30pm. There were some 20 visitors wandering aimlessly within the confines of a temporary fence. Fretton would now ...
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Opinion
Put in the hours
Flipping marvellous. No sooner than I stop charging hourly rates for domestic projects because most people don’t want to pay as much per hour as I pay my car mechanic, than I’m told that all architecture fees may soon have to be based on time.
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Opinion
More, more, more
I had the good fortune to visit Venice recently and took the opportunity to take in the Biennale.
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Opinion
Lost for words
The architectural profession is sexist enough without headlines such as “Backing for man-hour fee scales” (News October 29). This is just lazy ladguage.Peter Morris, London
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Opinion
System that haemorrhages millions
Pointing out problems with the Private Finance Initiative is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but that doesn’t mean we don’t bother.
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Opinion
Queens royal seal a green turning point
It has been a good autumn so far for establishment endorsement of the environmental agenda.
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OpinionConcrete boots
On shaky ground Tony Blair has tried manfully to stay mates with the environmental lobby, but he’s really gone and blown it now, judging by the reaction to his naming a road for the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award last week. Environmentalists are fuming, especially as its construction led ...
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Opinion
Youve had your fee, now fix it
I read with amazement Kathryn Gustafson’s denial that she was in any way to blame for the disaster that is the Diana memorial. Her disingenuous claim — that “the problem was people walking on it. It was never designed for that” — is patently rubbish.
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Opinion
Brutal gesture
I cannot see how Brisac Gonzalez’s brutal museum building got built (Works October 22).
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Opinion
Clear as mud
In “Leading the green pack” (Green paper October 15), you admit that data on the carbon dioxide emissions for the primary production of different materials is less than half the story, but it is an even smaller fraction than this.
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Opinion
Hitting a brick wall
Robert Booth (Editorial October 15) states that it is wasteful that 2.5 billion bricks are destroyed every year in the UK. New bricks cost about 4p each. If he would like to invest in reclaiming bricks and then attempt to sell them, he will find out the reason.James Doran, Herefordshire
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Opinion
Wishful counting?
I suspect that the estimate (£50 million) for Zaha Hadid’s magnificent edifice (News October 15) must have been done by the same person who produced the first estimate for the new Scottish Parliament.Robert Rimell, London