More Comment – Page 373
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Opinion
Hey good looking
Congratulations on dragging BD’s layout into the 21st century. It hadn’t changed much in the 30 years since it first appeared as a tabloid (which I guess says quite a lot for the original concept) – but you have made the most of the use of colour, big pictures ...
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Opinion
Adult-only Egan
Architects are shuddering again at the thought of John Egan returning to the fray with his skills report this week. Memories of wrestling with his obsession with supply chain management came flooding back to designers at the Building Awards on Tuesday. Egan, it seems, is for adults only. “I wouldn’t ...
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Opinion
Growing pains
Ken Shuttleworth knows a thing or two about office space, having designed half of the landmark schemes in London lately. But even in the name of research, isn’t moving his own office four times in just three-and-a-half months pushing it a bit? His new office, Make, will shortly be ...
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Opinion
Root of a problem
South Bank Centre chief executive Michael Lynch’s prediction that the revamp of the South Bank Centre will be complete by 2010 is surely a hostage to fortune. The Royal Festival Hall project has a green light, but problems still run deep – a couple of inches deep – on ...
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Opinion
Wembley detour
Remember walking down Wembley Way to a big match? The palpable sense of procession towards a national icon. Let's hope things don't change. Boots hears whispers that Quintain, the developer of the new "pedway" from Wembley Park tube station to the stadium, is keen for its competing architects to lead ...
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Opinion
The art of Zen
How architecture happens: Malcolm Fraser was enjoying a contented afternoon in his Edinburgh office, listening to four second-hand Rod Stewart albums he had just bought for £2.50 when the phone started ringing and ringing… a local paper had unveiled Fraser's scheme for 150 Tibetan-style flagpoles on Edinburgh's Carlton Hill, with ...
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Opinion
Stand firm against PFI trophy hunters
Is it commercially astute or cynically manipulative to hire good architects to improve your PFI bid and then drop their services once you’ve won?
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Opinion
The celebrity racket
“I am summoned to the RIPBA. The president, Fred Trousers, has ‘writer’s skid’”
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Opinion
Angela Brady
Building the Dream is a new reality game show with the biggest prize ever given away on daytime TV – a £500,000 house designed by architect Brady Mallalieu. Here Brady talks to Karen Glaser about being broadcast to the nation
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Opinion
Design falls into the wrong hands
One can’t fault the intention behind the amendment of planning law to improve building design standards, but providing local planning authorities with the power to determine the design merits of an application will not necessarily end happily.Having recently won two planning appeals; the grounds in part being based on PPG1 ...
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OpinionUnlucky winner
I refer to the front-page story, "Client shows 'contempt' for RIBA contest" (News April 8).First, the Middlesbrough town hall competition was not an RIBA contest. Second, the RIBA did not run a design competition for the Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds. The basis of selection was competitive interview with ...
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OpinionLessons in prefab
What is wrong with prefabricated schools? Clearly, it is justifiable to condemn the development of a building’s detail design proceeding without the full involvement of its architect. However, “Schools face ‘dumbing down’” (News April 2) did not primarily address this. It appeared to focus more on the suggestion that prefabrication ...
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Opinion
Cost versus ego
Victor Stellyes, project manager for contractor Costain on Daniel Libeskind's London Metropolitan University building, revealed the high level of cost-cutting at a recent BD conference.His illustrations showed the scheme had not altogether changed, but the project lost its stellar appeal because the closer details, finishes and specification lacked the careful ...
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Opinion
Quality in quantity
Further to the article "RIBA plots credentials crackdown" (News April 2), I would like to clarify the issues discussed.My quotes relate to outline proposals for a higher standard of chartered practice. Out of this may come some changes to the RIBA registered practice system, but there are no firm plans ...
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Opinion
Regional fairness
I was at first shocked when I read that the RIBA was to get strict on those that do not comply in terms of membership, professional indemnity insurance and CPD, but then I realised it would rid me of the unfair competition and I thought it an excellent move. However, ...
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Opinion
Ban the bad
RIBA president George Ferguson is urging architects to “practise intolerance” on bad architecture with a rallying call on the profession to be “as intolerant of bad and mediocre architecture and planning as we should be of bad food”. So next time you walk past a building, you don’t like you ...
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Opinion
Wright stuff
Americans love Frank Lloyd Wright almost as much as they love anything even vaguely historical. So when the two come together the dollars flow, as demonstrated by the $400,000 preservation of a small prefabricated house designed by the master architect in Illinois. The 1957 home is being taken apart and ...
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Opinion
Clissold cacophony
A series of bizarre faults with the Clissold Leisure Centre are listed in Hackney council’s latest report on the troubled north London building. One item on the list reads: “Inadequate privacy to female changing rooms.” Another states: “Blocked symphonic drainage outlets”. The last one perplexed BD. Isn’t the word “symphonic” ...
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Opinion
The wrath of EH
The Audit Commission has run the rule over Runnymede District Council, which gave Beadle consent to demolish the Wentworth house by Connell Ward & Lucas. The council, whose planning committee sanctioned the demolition subject to John Prescott’s approval, has been designated an “excellent” local authority with particular reference to making ...
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Opinion
Dictating demands
Romanian architect Anca Petrescu is looking for work having just completed her first job. The 54-year-old is available after completing the world’s second largest building, the 3,700-room Parliament Palace in Bucharest. She can call on experience of a demanding client (the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu), the interruption of a palace ...