More Comment – Page 356
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Opinion
Making no sense
Your front page (News October 1) tells us that 85% of respondents to RIBA’s survey wanted to retain protection of title and not abolish Arb; 70% said the RIBA should control entry to the profession; and 80% that the RIBA alone should control the profession’s knowledge base, which, presumably includes ...
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OpinionThe beautiful game
Behold. Peter Cook and HOK have kickstarted the long-overdue transfer system in the world of architecture (News September 17). Be honest, in any office not all architects have the same skills. There are goalkeepers, those wizened characters who know how not to get sued; defenders, who can meet any ...
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Opinion
Memorial misery
In your editorial on the Holyrood competition (September 17), you quote Lord Fraser, who investigated and reported on the numerous problems surrounding this project, in one of his conclusions “that all but one of the competing architects blithely ignored both the brief and the budget”. Something similar happened to the ...
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OpinionStrained design
Your exasperating article, “Well-brewed designs” (News September 24), describing how “22 of the world’s best-known architects” have designed coffee and teapots, demonstrates an almost total ignorance of tea and coffee. Master Li said during a t’ai chi lesson, “straining to look beautiful or original is like having the idea of ...
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Opinion
Beyond the trees
Amid the generation of hot air over timber supplies and Forestry Stewardship Council standards, I wonder if the protagonists eat out-of-season strawberries or mange tout from Zimbabwe.The construction industry’s spend may well be large and its effects far-reaching, but surely more people spend at supermarkets and can, collectively, moderate worldwide ...
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Opinion
Political vibes
You’ve heard the critics’ verdicts about Holyrood, but what you really want to know is what the vibe is like. The feng shui vibe, that is.The Scotsman sent a geomancer into the new building to find out. Delivering his verdict, Chi Wing, founder of the Feng Shui Research Centre, said: ...
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Opinion
Nimby Blair?
If the Blairs were seeking a quiet life at their £3.6 million town house in Connaught Square they may be disappointed. Landscape specialist Lovejoy is proposing to pedestrianise the nearby Marble Arch area. Tony and Cherie will wave goodbye to the 1960s gyratory system, and the labyrinth of underpasses would ...
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Opinion
Starck contrasts
The poor have a new hero in Phillipe Starck, who has rebranded himself the Robin Hood of design. In New York magazine last week, he said in architecture or product design “the goal is the same: how I make life better for my tribe”. So how does he do that? ...
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Opinion
Gaud gaffe
Legendary Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí has finally made it to north London. Former movie special-effects man Chris Ostwald has converted a shopfront in Muswell Hill in the style of the great designer. But the council has asked him to either apply for retrospective planning permission, or tear it down. It ...
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Opinion
Fashion revealed
Wearing something from H&M or Zara to work today? Feeling pretty groovy with change in your pocket for lunch? Not for long. The fashion stakes just got higher with architect Sally Mackereth and Karen Wong, David Adjaye’s right-hand women, modelling a few thousand pounds worth of clothes in the FT’s ...
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Opinion
Ian Martin
I tell her that unless she’s cycled here all the way from the town hall she has no moral authority whatsoever
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Opinion
RIBA must kiss and make up with Arb
The RIBA’s latest challenge to the Arb marks yet another battle in a futile war.
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Opinion
DDA is a learning curve worth taking
Until now it was easy to say that everyone should be aware of issues that affect how disabled people use the built environment.
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OpinionConcrete Boots
No tears shedEdinburgh-based architect Moray Royles is still waiting for a public inquiry verdict on whether a shed in his garden complies with strict local planning regulations and will be able to remain. But Royles is not bothered by the delay. “The longer the verdict takes the better, because I ...
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Opinion
Ian Martin
Monday My old friend Nick Bugglesrings. The opening toga party’s off, yet again, for his Roman Spa Experience at Cheltenham.The scheme has now officially taken longer than Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain. I caution him, in Latin, to watch out for backstabbing.Tuesday To the Labour Party’s wonkfest, where the buzzword ...
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Opinion
Scouse strife
Your September 10 issue presents us with some interesting insights into what’s currently happening in Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008.
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OpinionNarrow the goals
Ellis Woodman’s article “Too many cooks” about the Venice Biennale (BD September 17) is the best thing that I’ve read in the architectural press for a very long time.
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Opinion
York scratching
I cannot let Cabe take all the credit for the “victory” in the fight against the Coppergate II scheme in York, which resulted in the total rejection of the Land Securities/Chapman Taylor scheme by the secretary of state (News Analysis September 17).
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Opinion
Educating RIBA
I was surprised to read that architectural education was plunged into crisis after what is, even in the terms of your article “Arb and RIBA clash over school reports” (News, September 24), common ground between Arb and the RIBA, ie, that there is room for improvement in the quality and ...
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Opinion
Refreshing request
I was interested to read Nigel Turner’s letter about returning to architecture after spending 13 years as a church pastor (September 10). His letter was timely.