All Opinion articles – Page 345
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Opinion
Politicking won’t get Bath Spa built
When it comes to the world’s worst adverts, the Bath Spa project must rank pretty high for the damage it continues to do to the construction industry’s image and two of its bigger players — the architect Grimshaw and the contractor Mowlem.
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Opinion
No more architects
Never mind the campaign for more women in architecture, I’m right behind the campaign for fewer architects in architecture.
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Opinion
Arbs blinkers
Deon du Plessis’s fury cannot be uncommon for foreign architecture students seeking qualification in the UK (News February 4).
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Opinion
Totally absorbing
Long & Kentish is a partnership with one male and one female partner. At times, the female partner has been the only female architect in the office. During other (and, as it happens, longer) periods, the male partner was the only man.
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Opinion
Teaching trade-off
Perhaps the architectural and teaching professions should do a trade-off. At our local primary school of eight teachers, all are female. Teachers do the necessary long hours, the environment could only improve, and our
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Opinion
Planners could yet be the solution
Here’s a test for the planners. The new national planning policy, unveiled on Tuesday, demands right at the beginning that “design which fails to take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area should not be accepted”.
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Opinion
Perfect professor
The sudden death of Professor Ross Jamieson is a very sad loss. I am indebted to him for teaching me and setting me up in my career. He always had a kind word, patient ear and extensive knowledge. A perfect teacher.
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Opinion
Wheres the love?
Graham Towers is right to point out that Wells Coates’s Embassy Court is a bad neighbour to Brighton’s Regency architecture (Letters January 28). But it’s there now, it’s listed, and poor old Wells Coates only really did about three buildings, so may be Towers could try to love it a ...
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Opinion
Ian Martin
Text from R peeps in: ‘Any1 mention Thames G8way yet? NB must put qual design @ LOVE of procURment process’
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Opinion
Empathy myth
Malcolm Fraser’s article (News Analysis January 21), though interesting, is flawed. You only have to look at the work of Zaha Hadid, Kathryn Findlay and Amanda Levete to know that the myth of the “empathetic” female architect is just that, a myth. Also, his analysis of Corb’s theory is oversimplistic: ...
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Opinion
We want to design
The debate about women in architecture has to move away from spatial ability. Not all women are empathetic and not all men can read maps: 50% of female architects leaving the profession is not due to a sudden recognition of spatial inferiority.We did not study for so long to introduce ...
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Opinion
Fixing costs
It was intriguing to read your article, “Housing’s quick fix” (News Analysis January 28), regarding the viability of a £60,000 house and PRP’s “affordable house” designs (pictured left), not least because it is possible to build a straightforward family home for that cost. The crux of the situation is the ...
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Opinion
Commercial story gets in the way
The Houston in Euston piece (Works January 28) contained an entirely predictable comment by your reviewer. He was clearly rather troubled by the Wellcome Trust building as it has a very straightforward, client-friendly, rectangular plan-form clothed in a relentlessly logical elegant exterior — in short an immensely satisfying piece ...
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Opinion
Live by the code
I understand there is scepticism about the need for design codes (News January 28). We hear that they “stifle” creativity, but this argument originates from two camps — those architects whose work far exceeds any design code aspiration, and those who think only in terms of objects and not of ...
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Opinion
Narcissists who cant take criticism
Will Alsop’s anger last month that anyone dare criticise his work illuminated a widening rift in architectural culture.
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OpinionConcrete Boots
Car crimeWriter and English Heritage commissioner Bill Bryson has warned that Britain is in danger of becoming as reliant on cars as the US. As an illustration, he told a story about his neighbours when he lived in New England. They used to drive to his house from two doors ...
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Opinion
Dont blubber
Congratulations to BD’s Ellis Woodman for having produced two balanced and thoughtfully critical reviews of buildings by high-profile architects (Works January 7 and 14). We need critics who are not afraid to reveal the flaws in the buildings they review and question their architectural qualities beyond the reputations of their ...
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Opinion
Ancient heroes
I was delighted that Malcolm Fraser’s article drew attention to Ancient Egypt. It is to Egyptian civilisation that we may look as an example of Fraser’s empathetic approach, with its high status and appreciation of women, property and marriage rights protected in law. This set the context for many achievements, ...
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Opinion
Which weather?
Bill Gething issues a weather warning (Solutions January 21), exhorting architects to take a lead in response to climate change.
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Opinion
Space and time
With acknowledgments to the principles explained in Sir Banister Fletcher’s book, The History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, I suggest architecture of all ages is: space, with a face, for a race, in a place, built with grace. So, see to it you modern version of the great ...