More Comment – Page 364
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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 ...
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Opinion
Game on
The 3D real-time interactive technology reviewed in your article, “Game plans” (Business & IT June 18) is not new, but rather it is the increasing awareness of its benefits that is making it more acceptable. As a registered architect, I have used it within architecture since working in the computer ...
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Opinion
Common purpose
Andrew Matthews (In Practice June 18) bemoans the increasing influence of other consultants in developing design proposals, but he might consider the reasons behind such a large design team. As long as architects find other specialisms confusing we will continue to need those who have an expert understanding of the ...
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Opinion
Take bold steps
In 1982, an Architectural Association student proposed a grand entrance staircase for the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. It was considered too freakish an idea and rejected.In “Dixon Jones proposes grand entrance” (News June 18), we see that loftier concepts may prevail again. However, judging by its design of the ...
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Opinion
Captain Cabe man
You have got the wrong end of the stick about Cabe’s design review committee (News June 25), as your editorial did the week before when it described me as Cabe’s chairman (I am deputy chairman). I did not tell your reporter that DRC would be the subject of a big ...
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Opinion
Cross dressing up
Is the reporter on Alsop’s designs for The Public in West Bromwich (Solutions June 25) ashamed to write about corrugated cladding, and instead has to dress it up as sinusoidal cladding? It’s this kind of pretentiousness that distances the profession from the public.
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Opinion
Ferguson’s challenge: lead a revolution
We should welcome the stirrings of revolution around the professional status of architects.
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Opinion
Move over Glasto
If architecture is frozen music, God only knows what the buildings designed by Fat Midget look like. After the duo’s appearance at last weekend’s Architecture Rocks gig (pictured below) you’d have to cross a giant cornbarn from the Deep South with Daniel Libeskind after 15 espressos and armed with a ...
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Opinion
Blockheads hit
More hedonism at a Chetwood Associates party and a clear sign the firm must be doing all right. Laurie Chetwood appeared to have swallowed the party planner’s handbook whole and deluged his guests with treats from frogs’ legs canapés to a fountain of liquid chocolate, waitresses dressed in RAF uniforms ...