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King’s Cross John McAslan’s crowning glory Kingston Business School by Hawkins\Brown
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The Architects’ Journal
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: HUFTON + CROW
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40 LEFT & RIGHT: HUFTON + CROW. LEFT TOP: HERZOG & DE MEURON
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Week in pictures Giant’s Causeway centre; Shard laser show Front page Ministers announce new planning reforms UK news Southbank Centre names its eight revamp contenders News feature Industry fears impact of procurement overhaul Competions & wins Rivals slam ‘standard’ seaside victor People & practice Obituary: Michael Neylan, Neylan & Ungless Building study John McAslan + Partners’ King’s Cross Station Building study Kingston Business School by Hawkins\Brown Culture The best of the London Festival of Architecture This week online See photographs, drawings and details for 14 London Olympic venues at AJBuildingsLibrary.co.uk
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From the editor
The government has served up another excrement sandwich to the profession, writes Christine Murray It is notable how this government says one thing and does the opposite with remarkable consistency. This week, the DCLG served up a fresh excrement sandwich to the profession with the announcement of relaxed planning rules, wrapped around a planning fee hike of 15 per cent (see page 9). Ian Martin makes inept policymaking funny on page 58, but I can’t help but sigh at having to write another bad news column, of which there have been far too many of late. The NPPF was supposed to stimulate growth by streamlining the system while assuring design quality, but has since bogged down planning with its emphasis on community consultation. Now, proposed changes to outline planning applications look to further undermine the profession: according to National Planning Forum chair Brian Waters, ‘it certainly means you don’t need an architect to make an outline planning application.’ Where was the RIBA to defend the profession when these changes were being conceived? The procurement overhaul was supposed to tackle the incredible bureaucracy that has mired capital projects and resulted in an excessive cost. Instead, we have a proposed system that squeezes design fees and design time, without harnessing the whole-life value that good design can bring, or tackling the OJEU and PQQ system, which is strangling competition and stymieing young talent. Government sources have intimated to the AJ that architects were not consulted during the procurement overhaul, although they did speak to the RIBA. However, at the launch of the RIBA procurement white paper, Sally Collier, executive director of government procurement policy in the Cabinet Office, admitted she had only skimmed the RIBA’s recommendations on the train to the event. Evidence is also building that Michael Gove’s flagship free school drive is turning out to be a money-wasting fiasco – ironic given his outrageous attack on ‘profligate’ BSF architects. The Suffolk free school scandal featured in the Guardian this week, where millions of pounds are ..
Students enrolling at one of Gove’s flagship free schools will get an iPod Touch – ironic given his attack on ‘profl igate’ BSF architects to be spent on unneeded and unwanted free schools in an area that already has 10,600 empty places. According to Jeremy Rowe, head of Sir John Leman High School, the government is giving £2 million to a free school that has been opposed by 3,000 residents and currently has an enrolment of 37 students – all of whom will receive free uniforms and an iPod Touch upon enrolment. Shockingly, the paper’s Freedom of Information requests regarding free school approvals and consultations have been refused on the grounds that they are not in the public interest. The brightest laser-lit point in all this gloom is the inauguration of Renzo Piano’s Shard. Even if its light show was a brutal disappointment – spectator Alex Wilson (@adjwilson) on Twitter said, ‘Frankly, I could’ve seen a better laser show if I’d smashed up a Sainsbury’s self-service check-out’ – it was heartening to stand among thousands of people gathered on London Bridge to celebrate the arrival of a building. With its plethora of national coverage, the Shard has promoted architecture to the public. Can we expect as much from the RIBA Stirling Prize’s previously hourlong, now six-minute segment, as yet unconfirmed, on the BBC Culture Show?
Week in pictures
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Heneghan Peng’s £18.5 million Giant’s Causeway visitor centre has opened to the public – almost seven years after the practice first landed the project. The Dublinbased outfit won the competition to design the building, which houses exhibition space, toilets and a shop, in October 2005 1
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The laser and light show marking the external completion of the Shard last week has been widely criticised as an underwhelming flop. The ‘spectacle’ celebrating the inauguration of Renzo Piano’s 309m-high tower was branded a dismal anticlimax by scores of Twitter and Facebook users 2
The government has listed a raft of Modernist homes following a study of postwar houses by English Heritage. As well as the Smithson’s Sugden House in Watford, there were Grade II listings for four houses in Cambridge including this 1965 home designed by Barry Gasson and John Meunier 3
The biennial London Festival of Architecture is to become an annual event. Among this year’s highlights was Roz Barr Architects’ Oculus, a temporary urban park made of sandbags outside the NLA’s Store Street home. Read more from the festival on pages 50-53 4
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Ian McChesney Architects and Atkins have completed the redesign of the public realm outside New Scotland Yard in central London. The scheme includes a new 23 metre long pavilion, clad in blue glass, leading to a basement that has been converted from an Italian restaurant to police use 5
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PICTURE CREDITS: 01 MARIE LOUISE HALPENNY 02 NEWSCAST / BEN FITZPATRICK 03 HENK SNOEK / RIBA LIBRARY & PHOTOGRAPHS COLLECTIONS 04 AGNESE SANVITO 05 PETER COOK
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Paul Finch Murray Fraser Alison Brooks Edwin Heathcote Rory Olcayto plus special guest Joseph Rykwert
An evening of discussion and debate on the awards with The Architect’s Journal and in association with Sapa Building Systems.
Join the and its star panel in a lively debate over the look and feel of contemporary British architecture as they put this year’s award winners – the Stirling Prize longlist – under the microscope. There will be a drinks reception after the minute debate. This event is free to attend but strictly ticketed. Please register your details at TheAJ.co.uk/talk
Tuesday July . - : Jarvis Memorial Hall 66 Portland Place London
Front page
Wonderwood temporary public park (2009) by Amenity Space in Holbeck Urban Village, Leeds
Pop-ups without planning permission and 15 per cent fee hike proposed Government reveals secondary legislation to streamline planning system
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office, institutional and leisure design and access statements buildings would have permitted is also up for review. development rights for temporary Applications for full planning uses for up to two years, with permission would be streamlined clients required only to submit by encouraging local authorities a notification to local councils. to slim down their information Agricultural buildings would requirements while application also be allowed to be converted forms themselves will also be into any use ‘supporting rural simplified. Planning minister growth’ – including hotels, cafés Greg Clark said: ‘The proposals and offices – without the will help streamline burden of submitting for applying for planning planning permission. permission, ensure that Hotels will be planning is properly Increase in planning permitted to become resourced and create application fees houses, while the greater engagement from autumn building size threshold and accountability.’ 2012 for conversions from But National industrial (B2) to businesses Planning Forum chairman and offices (B1) and warehouses Brian Waters raised concerns (B8) would be doubled. over the proposed changes. He A separate consultation will said: ‘It certainly means you don’t look at proposals to cut need an architect for outline requirements for planning planning applications. The big applications, which would see thing that is missing […] is the detailed information one that would boost the housing requirements relating to layout market and help the whole and scale dropped on outline industry – B1 [office] uses going applications. The scope of outline to housing.’ Merlin Fulcher
JOSEPH BURNS
The government has revealed new proposals to allow ‘meanwhile use’ of sites without planning permission and a relaxation of the rules governing farm building conversions. The proposed changes, which are designed to boost growth by streamlining the application process, follow the government’s wide-ranging overhaul of the planning system, which replaced a glut of existing legislation with a 50-page National Planning Policy Framework. Included in the fresh tranche is a ‘one-off ’ 15 per cent hike in planning fees, starting in the autumn, which the government says is needed ‘to resource planning departments properly and ensure local rate payers cease subsidising the service’. A boost for ‘pop-up’ transformations of derelict sites features in the proposed changes to the Use Classes Order. Under the plans, which went out for consultation last week, retail,
Agricultural buildings to receive permitted development rights for conversion to ‘uses supporting rural growth’, including workshops, offices, storage, food processing, cafés, leisure and hotels Building size threshold to increase from 235m² to 470m² for permitted development rights for conversion between B1 (businesses or offices) and B8 (warehouse) and from B2 (industrial) to B1 and B8 Retail, office, institutional and leisure buildings to have permitted development rights for temporary uses for two years Allowance for residential units above shops without planning permission to double from one to two Hotels, boarding houses and guest houses to convert to dwelling houses without planning permission Layout and scale information requirements for outline applications to be removed Content of design and access statements for outline applications to be reviewed Local authorities encouraged to revisit local information requirement lists at least once every two years Standard application form to be simplified by amalgamating agricultural land declarations into ownership certificates Planning application fees to increase by 15 per cent from this autumn
UK news
Southbank reveals shortlist for upgrade The Southbank Centre has announced the names of the eight architectural practices shortlisted to revamp its Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery complex. The finalists for the multimillion pound project are: Bennetts Associates, Eric Parry Architects, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Grimshaw, Heneghan Peng, OMA, van Heyningen and Haward and Allies & Morrison. A lead architect will be appointed in the autumn. The announcement came less than 24 hours after architecture minister John Penrose rejected English Heritage’s advice to list the 1968 London County Council Architects-designed
JOHN DONAT / RIBA LIBRARY PHOTOGRAPHS COLLECTION
Bennetts, Eric Parry, Feilden Clegg Bradley, Grimshaw, Heneghan Peng, OMA, van Heyningen and Haward and Allies & Morrison vie for refurb
Blow the whistle on bad procurement The government has created a hotline where architects can anonymously report public procurement bad practice. The ‘mystery shopper’ service has been set up as an extension of the Cabinet Office’s Supplier Feedback Service to investigate complaints about public sector procurement and influence policy reform. It is understood complaints to the hotline have already resulted in procurement processes being stopped. Government construction procurement guru Philip Heenan said the tip-off service was ‘open to everyone’. Speaking last week at the AJ100 breakfast club, Heenan, ..
that the UK’s interpretation of head of construction policy EU procurement law was too and standards at the Cabinet literal, and added: ‘It’s clear there Office Efficiency and Reform needs to be a more equitable Group, said: ‘Mystery shopper position and better understanding gets calls from across the of what is in the market.’ industry. Cases have already Public procurement come from architects.’ processes cost UK The event, at architectural practices Claridge’s in London, £40 million a year, came in the same Total annual cost to according to a recent UK architects of week the government public procurement survey by the RIBA. published an update processes Heenan said the on its programme to government’s ‘long-term slash 15-20 per cent game plan’ in its negotiations from contract costs over the with the European Commission next three years by rationalising over procurement law reform was procurement (see pages 12-13). a ‘strong drive for simplification’. Asked about PQQ reform, He said: ‘The coalition Heenan acknowledged concerns
m
Brutalist building (pictured). The minister has also granted a certificate of immunity from future listing attempts – a move that the Twentieth Century Society described as ‘bitterly disappointing’. It will allow for potential wide-scale alteration of the Thames-side landmark. The Southbank Centre says it is pursuing a ‘refurbishment and renewal’ scheme to improve the facilities in line with Allies & Morrison’s 2008 overhaul of the neighbouring Royal Festival Hall. Stages, galleries, services and access will be upgraded under the scheme, which is the latest phase in a Rick Mather-designed masterplan for the arts complex. The Southbank Centre has consulted Lambeth Council, English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society on a conservation management plan for unused parts of the complex, which will be completed ahead of finalising the refurbishment plans. Merlin Fulcher TheAJ.co.uk/southbank recognises the need to have a long, hard discussion with the EU Commission to improve the entire structure.’ Heenan went on to emphasise the need for early subcontractor involvement in projects. Urging clients to speak with all potential suppliers needed for a project and ‘not just main contractors’ before launching formal procurement processes, he said: ‘We have got to get better at engaging everyone in the supply chain. Having that early dialogue can influence what proceeds.’ He said: ‘Clients think about what approach will influence their project and want a dialogue. […] It needs more intelligent thought early on to make sure you get the right team in place.’ Merlin Fulcher TheAJ.co.uk/hotline
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09/09/2011 14:25
News feature
Profession fears procurement overhaul Architects divided over effect government plans to shave 15-20% off construction costs will have on design quality, writes Mark Smulian Ryder Architecture’s ‘epod’ modular building system for primary schools
When a government report on construction procurement expresses with confidence that ‘dramatic benefits and value for money’ are at hand, and a cabinet minister tells the industry he wants 15-20 per cent cost savings by 2015, architects should start worrying about their fees. The government is serious about driving down the cost of public construction projects and has now spelled out several ways to slash its outlay in a slew of new documents. And while Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude told last week’s Government Construction Summit that the anticipated £1.2 billion in savings would be re-invested in ‘other government projects’ (implying without actually specifying other construction schemes) some savings will undoubtedly come from shortcuts on design quality. Commissioned by Maude, the report by the Procurement: Lean Client Task Group, sets out the development of three potential new procurement models ..
a single answer that has been developed without your input’. Indeed, he admitted to faults in past government procurement practice, noting these were ‘notoriously bureaucratic, timeconsuming and at times eyewateringly expensive’, and had shut out small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a sector where, he said, ‘the potential for much of the innovation that we are seeking lies’. There was also a promise of wider use of project bank (see column, far right) that are being accounts and a ‘pay on time’ policy stretching down the supply chain tested on a range of live projects. since ‘no business can be at its best Common to all three methods when it isn’t being paid properly’. is early contractor involvement, Another of Maude’s high levels of supply chain publications showed just how deep integration and transparency. the savings sought are. There was Under each, clients must an updated version of detailed provide a clear definition of Construction Cost Benchmarks, what outcome they want, set a whose already steep reductions ‘considered yet challenging’ cost the industry was invited to ‘beat’. ceiling that is ‘somewhere below’ Meanwhile, the Cabinet current costs and expect to see Office’s One Year this ceiling fall further On report on with continuous the government improvements over construction strategy a number of projects, Government identified £72 aiming at a 20 per target for £1.2bn million of savings cent overall cut. cost savings in its first year and Maude called a further £207 million for ‘a relentless of whole-project life focus on waste, greater savings on some £2.6 billion of transparency on costs, making schemes awarded in 2011/12. smarter use of technology – and The profession faces a mixed introducing new models of bag. Lower cost construction, procurement designed to foster but also more collaborative collaboration and innovation.’ procurement, openness to He said the government needed innovation and the publication both to better understand what it of a must-read ‘pipeline’ of paid for buildings, and why, and imminent public projects. be ‘less prescriptive in what we However there is no explicit ask for’, allowing the industry to mention of how problems with innovate ‘rather than just pricing
the PPQ process will be tackled and there is the obvious danger of falling fees and the perhaps less obvious risk that highquality design will be treated as a ‘nice to have’ addition that can be jettisoned to save money at the procurement stage – even if that increases lifetime costs. HOK director Andrew Barraclough is concerned. He said: ‘Early supply chain engagement, lean procurement, shorter procurement processes – all that is terrific and can be supported, especially as architects end up doing a lot of nugatory work for unsuccessful bids, which is just wasteful’. ‘My concern is the focus on functionality and costled procurement, as it risks an emphasising cost to the detriment of design.’ He pointed out that the government rarely mentions design and put little emphasis on its quality. Barraclough added: ‘The way this is put forward, there will be this emphasis on 15-20 per cent savings, not on good quality design.’ Former RIBA president Jack Pringle was more optimistic: ‘The downward pressure should be on the outturn cost of the product, not necessarily on architects’ fees,’ he says. ‘If you look to how a more team-based and strategic approach using BIM, and off-site manufacturing might work, it may require more input at the design stage rather than less. You don’t need a skinnier design team or pressure on fees, potentially the reverse.’ Pringle, managing director of Pringle, Brandon, Perkins + Will, said there has been ‘a little bit too much of the profession thinking the world should fit round its skills rather than the other way round’.
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says his discussions with government chief construction adviser Paul Morrell had revealed Whitehall’s concerns about ‘architects who do too much unique designing, too much reinventing the wheel’. ‘Schools might be a model for standardised design. Though I’m not an expert on schools, it’s clear we cannot afford a unique design for each one at the moment.’ Public sector clients tend to closely adhere to ‘rulebooks’, he notes, ‘and if they say little about design it will not be treated as important’. The RIBA shares these fears. A spokesperson said: ‘We remain extremely concerned that the
understandable desire to drive down procurement costs will not be met be a similar drive towards quality of outcomes and will risk eroding the economic advantages of lower up-front costs. ‘Better application of wholelife costing to determine what is genuinely the most economically advantageous tender, remains key to delivering high design quality to the public.’ The government is serious about finding savings. The profession will have to marshal arguments that show good design can yield savings, not just costs. Read more comment and analysis at TheAJ.co.uk/procurement
We welcome the government’s plan to streamline the procurement process and to level the playing field on public projects for small and medium sized firms. A simple, standardised process is needed, to reduce the procurement cost for clients and bring architectural quality and creativity back into focus. Peter Murray, Stanton Williams
Good design is the key to rational, economic buildings, so this is an opportunity for architects to put themselves back at the heart of the process. Architects should be able to reconcile lean and economic design with still complying with regulations and guidelines. Fees won’t suffer, so long as architects are seen to clearly add value. Roger Fitzgerald, ADP
The construction industry could be much more efficient and savings made, including whole life costs. To achieve this, time and money need to be spent structuring and planning projects intelligently in the initial stages. In addition, public agencies, such as planning authorities and English Heritage must play a part in making that efficient. Clare Wright, Wright & Wright
Practices should benefit if they engage with the process and direction of travel. Architects, as the leaders of the design process and therefore at the centre of a BIM driven project, should be able to make their skills clearly apparent. While there are EU rules that may seem to favour larger companies, there are also ways to combine into consortia and address bids that help. Michael Olliff, Scott Brownrigg
It would be good to understand why construction costs are so high in UK compared with competitor countries? The one thing the government might be able to assist with is access to capital and the removal of the bureaucratic barriers; the protracted procurement processes (OJEU procedures), the planning delays and the EIA and Health and Safety requirements. An architect’s response should be to see beyond austerity and cost saving, and to enhance projects through better design, not the bottom line. Consideration must be given to whole-life cycle costs from the outset. While this may not initially reduce the fundamental design and construction costs, it will ensure a better designed, more efficient, and subsequently, a more cost-effective building. Chris Johnson, Gensler
He thinks an opportunity for architects in smaller practices can be found in the government’s enthusiasm for SMEs. ‘The question is how we arrange all that,’ he said. ‘The last thing people should do is start defending their turf. We are all going to have to change.’ Rab Bennetts, director of Bennetts Associates, thinks the strategy may lead to architects seeing ‘less work, but of higher value’ at least in the medium-term. ‘It’s only by increased use of BIM and standardisation that might you see a longterm decline in fees,’ he says. That may be where things ultimately head, as Bennetts
Comment
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Government Construction Strategy One Year On Report and Action Plan Update
July 2012
Cost-Led Procurement The client selects integrated supply chain teams from an existing framework on their ability to work in a collaborative fashion to deliver below the cost ceiling on their first project, and to achieve cost reductions on subsequent projects while maintaining the required quality outcomes. Integrated Project Insurance The client holds a competition to appoint an integrated project team responsible for delivery with a single (third party assured) insurance policy to cover delivery risks, packaging up all insurances held by the client and supply chain members. The client and supply chain will share the cost of overruns below a certain threshold. Two-Stage Open Book At the first stage, the client invites suppliers on a framework to bid on the basis of an outline brief and cost benchmark. The winning team then works up a proposal on the basis of an open-book cost that meets the client’s stated outcomes and cost benchmark as a second stage.
Competitions & wins
COMPETITIONS FILE
Rivals slam ‘standard’ seaside victor Finalists say Littlehampton council wasted their time, effort and money after it chose BFLS’s Soundforms product in ‘Stage by the Sea’ competition
WINNER
Shortlisted architects in Littlehampton Town Council’s ‘Stage by the Sea’ contest have hit out at the local authority for choosing a ‘standard product’ by BFLS as the winner. Finalists, mainly emerging practices, highlighted the similarity between BFLS’s victorious scheme and the temporary performance venue launched in March by the firm’s Soundforms joint venture with Arup Acoustics, ES Global and IMG Artists. Ben Allen, of Berlin-based finalist WYG, said he was disappointed the council chose a ‘modified version of a standard product’ and questioned the need for a design contest. Winchester-based finalist Dan ..
RUNNERS UP
Brill added: ‘There was absolutely no point in hosting a design competition and Littlehampton should not have wasted the relatively significant amounts of time, effort and money that small, struggling firms set aside for speculative projects such as this.’ Clare Potter, project manager at the council, defended the selection process as ‘exciting and worthwhile’. She said: ‘We would consider any one of the shortlisted candidates for future projects, as all of them had something very special to offer.’ NEX, Ian McChesney, Dan Brill, WYG and Asif Khan were shortlisted in the contest to design a £40,000 shelter and performance space. Merlin Fulcher
THE AJ DOES NOT ORGANISE, ENDORSE OR TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR COMPETITIONS
The People’s Government of Luohu District in Shenzhen, southern China, has opened a design competition for the regeneration of its Sungang Qingshuihe district (pictured above). The two-stage contest will select a company to plan sub-units and provide overall design guidelines for the 5.4km² site. The project is part of a drive to transform the former industrial area into an ‘international consumer centre’. [Forms to be received by 24 July] Comune di Bari in southern Italy has launched an ideas competition seeking proposals for two areas of the city. It focuses on Bari’s railway hub, where proposals are sought to mitigate divisions caused by tracks, and on the Caserma Rossani, where the brief is to create a park and events centre. [Stage one submissions due before 22 August] The World Monuments Fund is receiving nominations for the 2012 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize. Practices may submit projects where design solutions helped preserve a modern landmark. A $10,000 prize is up for grabs. [Submissions before 31 July] Sean Kitchen TheAJ.co.uk/competitions ..
International
In fact, almost a fifth of practices in Spain saw a rise in workloads in the first three months of this year – and the average order book is now full for more than six months. But this remains well below the European average, and a record number of practices in Spain fear the well will run dry this year. French firms have the healthiest order books with an average of almost a year’s work in the bag. German design firms are just behind the French, with Italian and British order books around the eight-month mark. French and Dutch architects have about six months’ work secured on average. The European Architectural Barometer is put together with research involving 1,200 architects across Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands. Greg Pitcher TheAJ.co.uk/spain
Spain has least work planned in EU Results of EU-wide survey reveals half of Spanish practices expect to have no projects booked within the next year, as its economic recovery falters Half of Spanish architects fear an empty order book at some point this year, a report has revealed This year’s Q1 European Architectural Barometer showed that 47 per cent of respondents in Spain expected to have no orders within 12 months. The country’s economy has been devastated by the global economic downturn with construction particularly badly hit. According to Madrid-based Broadway Malyan director Jorge Ponce some sectors, including residential ‘just stopped’ towards the end of the last decade (AJ 21.06.12).
Spanish construction output: quarterly variation percentage change compared with previous quarter Source: Eurostat 8%
+8.6%
6% 4% +2.9%
2% 0% -2%
-4.8%
-4%
-6.2%
-6% Q2 2011
Q3 2011
Q4 2011
Q1 2012
Aedas to expand US arm
The Australian Surveyors (RICS) economist housing market has bounced back Matthew Edmonds had predicted dramatically and unexpectedly, a recovery in the sector – but did official figures have revealed. not expect it to happen this soon. Data from the Australian Bureau He told AJ this week: ‘It of Statistics showed a seasonallylooks like the stimulus provided adjusted total of 13,591 new by the Royal Bank of homes were rubberAustralia (RBA) rate stamped in May. cuts have had a real This is up 27 per effect on confidence cent on the previous in the sector.’ New homes given month, and nine per However, he the go-ahead this cent on the same sounded a note May in Australia month a year earlier. of caution for Apartment building the long-term. has also rebounded. In ‘The number of permits is May 2012, the number of private now above the long-run average sector dwellings excluding of approximately 13,000, but this houses approved rocketed by shouldn’t be overstated. Housing 59 per cent year-on-year. investment is still likely to be a Private sector houses, in contrast, drag on growth over the year, rose by just nine per cent. before activity picks up in 2013. Royal Institution of Chartered Greg Pitcher. TheAJ.co.uk/australia
Aedas has laid off the high-profile head of its London interiors group while announcing it is to open a second US office. Ralph Courtenay left the UKbased AJ100 giant less than one year after joining the company in a headline-grabbing move from HOK, where he spent 15 years specialising in workplace design. In a statement, Mike Walters, managing director at Aedas’ London office, said workplace interiors – Courtenay’s speciality – had suffered during the downturn as corporate clients ‘put the brakes on spending’. He added: ‘There has not been a sufficient work-stream in this area to justify further investment and we will continue to focus efforts on hospitality interiors, which is undergoing something of a boom.’
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RATTLHED
Aussie bounce back
Overseas, Aedas has added an existing practice in Seattle (above) to its network of offices, which now stands at 33 and already includes one in Los Angeles. The company is run as a series of connected offices each owned by their respective directors. An Aedas spokesperson said: ‘The Seattle office will look to win work across the US. There are opportunities in the US and we want to have a presence in the country.’ Merlin Fulcher TheAJ.co.uk/aedas
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Statistics
Percentage of women architects on the ARB register
21 per cent 19 per cent
2010
2011
Bovis builds 18% more homes in 2012 first half
Online Stirling Prize shortlist poll results
construction Completions of new homes at UK house builder Bovis Homes were up 18 per cent in the first six months of 2012, compared with the same period last year. In all, Bovis Homes completed 944 houses in the half-year ending 30 June 2012, compared with 801 completed in the same period in 2011. The average selling price was also up 1 per cent, to £164,400. Chief executive David Ritchie said: ‘The continued success in the land market during the first half of 2012, with around 2,500 new plots contracted, is positioning the group for further growth in the future.’
Visitors to theAJ.co.uk were asked to choose their own Stirling Prize shortlist from this year’s RIBA Awards winners. These were the six designs which attracted the most votes by percentage of respondents
Number of new architects at a five-year low The number of architects on the ARB register increased to 33,456 in 2011 but new admissions, at 1,244, reached their lowest level since 2005
New admissions umber on the register N on 31 December 2011
Number of registered architects and new admissions since 2001 Source: Architects Registration Board annual report 2011 1,500
34,000
1,460
33,600
1,420
33,200
1,380
32,800
1,340
32,400
1,300
32,000
1,260
31,600
1,220
31,200
1,180
30,800
1,140
30,400
1,100
30,000
2001
2002
18 theaj.co.uk
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
35.1%
Adam Khan Architects, Brockholes Visitor Centre, Lancashire
32.7%
O’Donnell + Tuomey, The Lyric Theatre, Belfast
source: association of event organisers; markit/cips; dclg; creditsafe; the theatres trust
employment The number of women on the ARB register now represents 21 per cent of the overall profession, up from 19 per cent in 2010. According to the latest ARB annual report for 2011, there are 6,911 women on the professional index, an increase of 629 on the previous year. Within the UK as a whole, the male to female ratio was 80:20 with regional breakdowns showing a 79:21 split in both England and Scotland. In Wales, where a total of 811 architects are ARB-registered, just 14 per cent are women, while in Northern Ireland the figure is 19 per cent. UK admissions were 29 per
cent female, down from 33 per cent in 2010, while European admissions were 51 per cent female, up from 48 per cent the previous year. TheAJ.co.uk/wia
arb annual report 2011
Small rise in proportion of UK women architects
24.2%
David Chipperfield Architects, Hepworth Wakefield
21.4%
Populous, London Olympic Stadium
18.5%
Robin Lee Architecture, Wexford County Council Headquarters
17.3%
David Chipperfield Architects, Turner Contemporary, Margate 12.07.12
News on TheAJ.co.uk
Signed contracts give Battersea go-ahead THIS WEEK ONLINE Finalising of the deal to buy Battersea Power Station opens the way for work to press ahead on redevelopment of the iconic riverside site Malaysian consortium SP Setia and Sime Darby officially snapped up the long-abandoned Battersea Power Station for £400 million last week. The team, which also includes the Employees’ Pension Fund of Malaysia, finalised the deal on 4 July, 28 days after signing an exclusivity agreement to buy the 15-hectare riverside site. Overseen by agents Knight Frank and Ernst & Young Real Estate Corporate Finance, the purchase effectively ends Chelsea FC, developer Almacantar and KPF’s slim hopes of converting the iconic Grade II*-listed brick power station into a 60,000-capacity football stadium. The exchange of contracts
also torpedoed a rival bid by Mossessian & Partners and AECOM, drawn up for veteran developer Godfrey Bradman, which would have created ‘a new town centre’ while retaining the shell of the power station as a ‘public urban room’. Pictures released by Knight Frank to mark the exchange suggest the buyers will press ahead with the existing consent for the plot masterminded by Rafael Viñoly on behalf of previous developer Treasury Holdings. The deal could also mean a £200 million first-phase housing-led scheme, designed by Ian Simpson Architects, will get the go-ahead. However, asked about the next
Consent granted on Baltic Triangle project
Studio Egret West to Steve Parnell among masterplan ‘Skylon Park’ finalists for top award
Falconer Chester Studio Egret West has Hall has won planning consent won the contest to masterplan a to resurrect the mothballed Baltic new business area in Hereford, Triangle site in Liverpool. dubbed ‘Skylon Park’. Work on the £1 billion scheme In February RRA Architects came to a halt in April revealed plans to build a 2007 when Londonhalf-sized 50m-tall based Windsor Skylon replica at Developments went the entrance to the into administration. Hereford Enterprise Height of the Two years later Zone. The original original Festival of current developer cigar-shaped Britain Skylon Neptune took over 100m-tall Skylon, the site opposite King’s designed by Powell & Waterfront. Moya, was built in Hereford This week the council approved by engineering firm Painter Bros. plans for 201 flats, a 170-bed Studio Egret West will create hotel and nearly 500m² of an overarching framework plan mixed commercial space for the for the 72ha former munitions abandoned plot. TheAJ.co.uk/baltic factory. TheAJ.co.uk/Skylonpark
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steps for the design and whether consented proposals would be taken forward, a spokesperson for Knight Frank said: ‘[The site] has been sold unconditionally, so we wait to hear.’ Fergal O’Reilly, director at joint agent Ernst & Young Real Estate Corporate Finance, said: ‘The international marketing campaign has achieved a fantastic result, which some thought unlikely, if not impossible, returning a number of highly credible bids from across the globe. The sale of Battersea Power Station is testament to the continuing draw of London as a centre for global investment.’ Richard Waite TheAJ.co.uk/battersea
Regular AJ contributor Steve Parnell is among the 16 finalists for the RIBA’s President’s Awards for Research 2012. Parnell is shortlisted in the Outstanding PhD Thesis category for his work Architectural Design, 19541972: The contribution of the architectural magazine to the writing of architectural history. Meanwhile, Alistair Parvin of Architecture 00 and Sarah Wigglesworth of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects were named as finalists in the RIBA President’s Awards in the Outstanding Practice-located Research category. TheAJ.co.uk/ ribapresidentsawards
The painfully honest Anonymous Academic reports from the frontline of architectural education. This week: why more architecture students should watch The Apprentice TheAJ.co.uk/anonymous 1
Visit AJ’s Footprint blog to have your say on whether the RIBA should have an annual sustainability award. Currently 86 per cent of AJ readers say ‘yes’ TheAJ.co.uk/Footprint 2
The AJ will be hosting an evening of discussion and debate about this year’s RIBA Awards on the evening of Tuesday 17 July, featuring Paul Finch, Alison Brooks, Rory Olcayto and Joseph Rykwert. The event is free, but tickets only – sign up online now TheAJ.co.uk/talk 3
Join the 40,000 @ArchitectsJrnal twitter followers to debate the latest news as it breaks. Tweet your thoughts direct to AJ editor Christine Murray @tcmurray and news editor Richard Waite @waitey Twitter.com/ArchitectsJrnal 4
Read digital editions of the AJ and AJ Specification: a library of all this year’s magazines is available to subscribers TheAJ.co.uk/AJdigital 5
People & practice
Michael Neylan dies at 81
NEW PRACTICES
M STUDIOS
Bill Ungless, founding partner at Neylan & Ungless, remembers his colleague as a passionate advocate of radical social housing
Michael Neylan studied at Kingston School of Architecture when Jo Chamberlin, Geoffrey Powell and Christof Bon taught there. Although all three were part of the Modern movement, they also looked to history for ideas, and this way of looking at architecture set Neylan on a course he was to follow throughout his career. After Kingston, he went on to work for Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, where there was a dozen or so of us employed in their mews office. We would apply ourselves quietly to our drawing boards and, from time to time, become aware of footsteps padding to and fro. It was Neylan walking up and down considering a problem on his particular job. He did this often over the course of a day, always with fierce concentration on his face. After pacing, he would return to his board and beautifully and clearly sketch out his preferred idea. At Bishopsfield, Harlow (AJ 20.02.71) he displayed, elegantly and effectively, many of the ideas that our generation of architects was concerned with. It was a reaction against the prevailing view that technological efficiency was key to meeting the demand for new ..
housing. Overnight, Neylan became a rallying point for those of us who could see it was possible to build local authority housing both radical and sensitive to family needs. Neylan’s view was that everybody should be treated equally and this found expression in Bishopsfield. Firstly, in the way he provided every home with a private open space and a front door at ground level – not easy with higher density schemes, and secondly, in the way the scheme, necessarily comprising many small units, was designed so everybody could identify with their own particular dwelling, as well as with the community as a whole. I joined him in practice and at Neylan & Unlgess we developed ideas for low-rise, high-density housing over the next 30 years (1964-98); probably the most successful being the Setchell Road scheme in Southwark, which won a Good Design in Housing Award. Society is lucky that these and Neylan’s other ideas have been made concrete in his buildings and are thus available for future generations to unpick and be inspired by. Just as we are; we who were fortunate enough to have been his colleagues.
M Studios Alvise Marsoni Belsize Park, London Late 2010 mstudios.eu
Where have you come from? I was born in Venice and trained at the AA. I then helped establish Fitzroy Robinson’s Budapest office with David Magyar, and together we set up Magyar Marsoni Architects, now part of the Hunters group. I left in 2009. What work do you have? We are designing a large house on the hills of Buda overlooking Pest with spectacular views of the Danube (sketch pictured), as well as a new-build home in north London. With this house we want to create a piece in keeping with the conservation area, yet has a powerful, bold architectural identity. We’re also creating an exclusive London residential design brand and working on a scheme with our Italian partner Marco Pestalozza.
What are your ambitions? To create buildings that emerge out of a fertile relationship based on understanding, transparency, and trust with clients who share our architectural and aesthetic values. We want our architecture to be grounded in the power of detail and craftsmanship as well as space, form, style and process. How optimistic are you? We’re currently benefiting from an influx of capital from Europe and the Far East pouring into the London residential market, and we do not foresee it’s decline in the near future. There is more demand than supply in the affluent centre of this city. Long-term it is more difficult to read the road. But our alliances with Italian architects are opening up new markets for us in the emerging economies. ..
Astragal
Round the bend Many architects have tried their hand at car design, including Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster. However, none of their proposals have been quite as radical, or bizarre, as Will Alsop’s self-named ‘Concertina Car’ (pictured). Conceived last week during a panel event inspired by the launch of Ford’s latest people carrier, the B-Max, Alsop’s sketch presents a lighthearted approach to space saving in the modern city. Featuring an expandable mid-section, the Concertina – not Cortina – is good at parking and easy to negotiate corners. But does anyone else see its similarity to London’s banished bendy buses?
An act of folly Sad news at the Royal Docks, where the shelving of two installations planned for the London Pleasure Gardens temporary events arena has left architects frustrated. RIBA London with Price & Myers commissioned a string of architectural follies for the eight hectare Silvertown Quay site, but to date only four have been
delivered. Left out in the rain were Murray Kerr’s £3,500 polystyrene and jesmonite structure (pictured) and a mirror maze by Mobile Studio. Both schemes were unable to be delivered on time and to budget, according to RIBA London director Tamsie Thomson, who said there was an ‘ambition’ to construct them on an east London waterside plot next year. The ‘rainbow folly’ by Studio Squat is also on site but yet to complete. A ‘frustrated’ Kerr said: ‘When you design something and it doesn’t happen and you don’t get paid, you are out of pocket because you spent the time designing something.’ Further London Pleasure Gardens woe emerged last weekend when the Metropolitan Police pulled the plug on the
two-day Bloc music festival at midnight on the opening night due to overcrowding.
On the scrap heap The demise of Thomas Heatherwick’s £2 million B Of The Bang sculpture in Manchester has not been happy for anyone. In 2009 the artwork had to be taken down due to ‘structural issues’ – namely because spikes kept falling off. In an out of court settlement Heatherwick agreed to pay back nearly £1.7 million to the council. Officially, the sculpture was being kept in storage until a ‘private benefactor’ came up with almost £1 million for a ‘rebirth’. Three years later, the core has now been melted down for scrap raising £17,000. Will a similar fate await Heatherwick’s topsecret London 2012 Olympics flame cauldron in September?
WWW.LOUISHELLMAN.CO.UK
Slice of life
The Hellman Files #72 A trawl through Hellman’s archives, in which we uncover gems as relevant now as they were then. Hellman writes: Charles Jencks has finally made it by appearing on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4, ..
though I was disappointed he did not give a specific date for the death of Postmodern architecture. Canary Wharf, perhaps or the Piazza d’Italia? This cartoon of the good doctor is from AJ 31.10.90.
At the wrap party for the London Festival of Architecture, held in Carmody Groarke’s Filling Station, Kevin Carmody was overheard bemoaning the choice of furniture – and rightly so, as the orange and green picnic tables were a rotten fit. Less predictably, Carmody also railed against the pizza oven behind the bar, which was already staining the white-painted canopy black, giving the petrol station-turnedbar a rather authentic patina.
Letter from London
With the Shard, Irvine Sellar, Renzo Piano and the Qataris have done London proud, says Paul Finch There has been a deafening silence from Highgrove on the subject of Renzo Piano’s Shard tower at London Bridge, launched in truly bravura fashion last week. Renzo’s old partner and friend, Richard Rogers, saw his Qatari-backed scheme for Chelsea Barracks torpedoed after the Prince of Wales wrote to his royal emirati pal, suggesting a change of approach was required. It was duly forthcoming. Perhaps one good turn deserves another, or perhaps the PoW has had a conversion to the joys of height. In any event he has chosen not to rain (or indeed reign) on the Shard’s triumphant parade. This has not stopped other worthies from bemoaning the end of the world as we know it, but their complaints ring a bit hollow, being at least five years too late. Meanwhile the rest of London can marvel at its genuine new icon, a commercial giant that says London is the most important city in the world. It all seems an age since a tiny press conference to introduce Renzo as the architect of the project, which took place in a dismal room in the mediocre mid-rise tower the Shard was to replace. The developer, Irvine Sellar, called the conference at short notice via his PR consultant, Baron Phillips, whose first name was an act of imagination on his parents’ part rather than an indication of noble blood. Baron called those of his mates he thought might be prepared to turn up at 24 hours’ notice to – horror of horrors – a press conference taking place on a Saturday morning! Anyway, up we turned, not because of the offer of a free lunch, but because it was an intriguing project, and the opportunity to hear Renzo talking about the project at its outset was too good to miss. So a handful of us gathered, waiting for Renzo. As soon as he entered the room, he immediately opened the blinds, bringing some refreshing daylight into the room, and started talking about his ideas. It was very engaging, and not much different from his comments on the scheme last week. What we didn’t discuss was ..
the prequel to his appointment. Building Design Partnership and Arup had already designed a tower for which looked interesting. But it was explained to us that if London was to get an office tower of truly international reputation, then an architect with a truly international reputation would be required. Renzo’s name had been suggested (by whom is not entirely clear). Irvine went to see him in Berlin; the classic lunch and sketch on the napkin took place, and off the project went. Planning wasn’t exactly easy, partly because Southwark’s own local plan said the site was not suitable for tall buildings. English Heritage was wildly opposed. CABE was supportive of height and architecture, but
Irvine went to see [Piano] in Berlin. The classic lunch and sketch on the napkin took place, and off the project went worried about transport connections. I spent a slightly odd afternoon being bashed up by two QCs when I gave evidence at the public inquiry on CABE’s behalf. First the English Heritage silk attacked CABE and me for supporting the scheme. When he had finished, Irvine’s silk attacked us for not being fully supportive. After the inquiry, and the inspector’s huge vote of confidence in the scheme, Irvine bought the adjacent office tower, thus allowing the transport connections to be properly resolved. The replacement sister building, also by Renzo, must be one of the very few where the architect changed his mind about the design after permission had been won, and asked the client to accept an entirely different design. It is to Irvine Sellar’s credit that he agreed. I think he knows what a wonderful job the architect has done – both for him and the Qatari funders. ..
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Black box
You could do a lot worse than look to the concrete new town of Cumbernauld for inspiration, writes Rory Olcayto Despite its ‘unrivalled aggression about the disarray of modern Britain’, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain is ‘a book about unlikely successes’, in which author Owen Hatherley ‘finds signs of the hopeful country Britain was and hints of what it might become’. For Scots, at least, says Hatherley, the answer is a seemingly hated Lanarkshire new town. Verso picked a winner when they backed Hatherley and published A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain in 2010, a compilation of his blog posts and Urban Trawl articles for a rival publication. The popular hardback ‘skewered New Labour’s architectural legacy in all its witless swagger’ and introduced a new term to describe the kind of rainscreen dreck most commercial architecture ends up looking like: Pseudomodernism. Yet clearly Verso felt the offer of another angry stomp around Britain’s cities, taking in the delights only the likes of Chapman Taylor and Broadway Malyan can offer, was not an easy sell the second time around, hence the nudge to say something positive. It has not gone down well with other critics. A bullying review by The Daily Telegraph’s Igor ToronyiLalic, reads: ‘The conclusions Hatherley draws are mad. He seems to wish us to look to the concrete new town of Cumbernauld for architectural inspiration.’ Ahh, yes, ‘glorious’ Cumbernauld, as The Mad Hatherley would have it. The same Cumbernauld that in recent years has won RIBA president George Ferguson’s
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public vote for its town centre to be blown up on his hit TV show Demolition, as well as Urban Realm magazine’s Plook on a Plinth award – twice. For Hatherley, though, Cumbernauld is ‘a model for the new settlements of an independent, leftist, intensely local Scotland’, which he makes clear in a chapter that contrasts the fortunes of Glasgow’s Govan with the 60,000-strong new town. That this point, made in a sentence or two at the end of the chapter, feels like a last-minute effort to please the publisher is not important. Because he’s right. Hatherley’s descriptions of the place are enough to convince you that there’s another reality to experience in the town beyond the narrative of new town failure that the likes of Ferguson happily bought into in his own bid to popularise architecture. ‘You take some stairs up onto a ridge,’ he explains. ‘A path leads off it, lined thickly with trees – a forest planted just next to the town centre, coursing between the estates.’ If you’ve seen Gregory’s Girl (pictured), you’ll know Cumbernauld has gentle, suburban charms. The teenage romantic comedy – best described as the precise opposite of Trainspotting – dates from 1981, when Cumbernauld new town was still quite … new. In an essay entitled ‘Modern Girls, Modern Boys: How Gregory’s Girl Promised a New Scotland’, Alistair Braidwood writes: ‘[Director] Bill Forsyth’s Cumbernauld is clean, new, desirable and safe. A place where teenagers could walk, and dance in the park and the only worry was bumping into the lecherous school photographer and his mini-me assistant. These were images of a Scotland that would be unrecognisable to an outside audience, who were used to the contrasting images of No Mean City and Brigadoon, but to those living in Scotland, this was an area and time they could place, and here were characters who were recognisable, but not stereotypical.’ So Hatherley’s proclamation is nothing new. Cumbernauld’s gentle green townscape, by landscape architect GP Youngman, ‘a place that an Alvar Aalto or a Sven Markelius would recognise as kin’, has always had its admirers. It’s nice to be reminded, though. ..
PETER COOK
AJBuildingsLibrary.co.uk
Project of the Week Embankment Place Terry Farrell and Partners London, 1990 The redevelopment of Charing Cross incorporated new offices and retail space into the areas above and below the station. Search for ‘Embankment’ to see 21 photographs, eight drawings, eight development images and four details on AJBuildingsLibrary.co.uk ..
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Letters
Last issue AJ 05.07.12 Established 1895
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Rykwert on Astley Witherford Watson Mann’s re-occupied castle
£4.95 THE ARCHITECTS’ JOURNAL THEAJ.CO.UK
Letters should be received by 10am on the Monday before publication. The AJ reserves the right to edit letters. The letter of the week’s author will receive a bone china AJ mug. Post to the address below or email letters@architectsjournal. co.uk
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Cut costs, not quality The most important aspect in a quest for a value-formoney reduction in overall project cost, is that of time spent getting the design right (Leader AJ 05.07.12). This can only be achieved with the design team being involved in forming the brief and through contact with endusers throughout the design stage. The design that meets those needs is then built. The government proposal would appear to be a very complicated way of achieving a different conclusion: one that places cheap building as the primary concern, and a design that meets the endusers needs as secondary. There are certainly savings to be made by seeking the advice of specialist sub-contractors, as has been proven. But to demote the design team and meeting the client’s requirements to a secondary role cannot provide a ‘good design’. The word ‘architect’ features only three times in the report and all references LETTER OFK THE WEE
Editor Christine Murray Deputy editor Rory Olcayto () Acting administrator Rakesh Ramchurn () Digital editor Simon Hogg () News editor Richard Waite ( ) Reporter Merlin Fulcher () Editorial intern Sam Westbrook, Blanca Perez Technical editor Felix Mara () Senior editor James Pallister () Group special projects editor Emily Booth Sustainability editor Hattie Hartman () Sustainability intern Hannah Wood AJ Buildings Library editor Tom Ravenscroft () Art editor Brad Yendle () Designers Tom Carpenter, Ella Mackinnon Production editor Mary Douglas (on leave) Acting production editor Abigail Gliddon () Acting sub-editor Alan Gordon Asia correspondent Hyunjoo Lee Contributing editor Ian Martin Editorial director Paul Finch Chief executive officer Natasha Christie-Miller
are from an architect who infers that the use of BIM will increase the profession’s fee income (therefore inviting a fee reduction by clients). In actuality, any increase in fee will be matched by the greater level of information required (as has been seen with the change from drawing board to 2D, and from 2D to 3D). The average architect’s income is already derisory in relation to the work expected. Reducing fees further can only mean poorer service or lower salaries. Design fee levels should at least stay the same in order that design time can be spent reducing construction and project costs, which is, after all, the aim of One Year On. John Kellett, Kettering
Praise where it’s due I just love this issue (AJ 28.06.12). First, competitions coming up and completed, always interesting. An eclectic shortlist, certainly, but how many went for the King’s College shortlist that didn’t make the cut? Stirling’s Florey Building to get an overhaul, revamp or a ‘more ambitious regeneration’,
Managing director of architecture and media Conor Dignam () Group commercial director Alison Pitchford () Commercial director James MacLeod () Business development managers Nick Roberts (), Ceri Evans () Group advertising manager Amanda Pryde () Account managers Hannah Buckley (), Simon Collingwood (), Steph Atha () Classified and recruitment sales Mark Malone ()
whatever that might be. Penoyre and Prasad win a library extension at Kent University, but was it the proposition that the extension ‘inverts the balance of the original Brutalist styling of the building to create a strong and holistic architectural integrity’ that won it for them? The RIBA gets praise and a kicking in equal measure. Council goes through some tricky fun and games – I can’t wait to see the papers when they are published online. Paul Finch rightly sounds off on ‘architecture ... frequently discussed as a matter of external appearance’ in the same issue as the excellent Sketch a Facade competition. Finally Anne Lacaton turns down a job with the comment that the town square seemed very nice ‘why bother to embellish it’ – maybe that was not the intention? Keep up the excellent work. Simon Carne, architect, London
Corrections The contractor for Theatre Royal, Newcastle was Surgo Construction, not Miller Construction, RIBA Awards (AJ 21.06.12).
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Building study
Cool, calm, connected I John McAslan + Partners’ makeover of London’s King’s Cross Station, with the dramatic geometry of its Western Concourse roof, is a fitting rehabilitation of Cubitt’s fine rail terminus, writes Felix Mara. Photography by Hufton + Crow
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t might seem ironic that Thomas Cubitt’s King’s Cross station, which opened in 1852 and was lauded as a proto-Modernist exemplar of functional design by Nikolaus Pevsner, ultimately declined into one of London’s most dysfunctional, blighted and stigmatised must-not-see destinations. It would be unfair to say that Pevsner’s only criterion was the station’s architectural expression. He was, of course, correct to praise this, especially for the way the twin ..
Rundbogenstil lunettes of its south facade, transcending Victor Lenoir’s 1852 Montparnasse terminus in Paris on which it was modelled clearly and without ornamentation, expressed Cubitt’s barrel-vaulted train sheds within, whereas 13 years earlier Philip Hardwick fig-leafed Euston Station behind a Doric screen. But Pevsner was also alive to the extreme clarity of Cubitt’s diagram for the terminus, which had departures platforms below the west vault, supported by the facilities in the flanking Western ..
Range, where passengers entered the terminus. At the end of the arrivals platforms, which were below the east vault, passengers could either pass through a brick arcade below one of the 20m-diameter lunettes, as if entering London through a triumphal arch, or they could travel by cab from a thoroughfare in the flanking Eastern Range. Today, 160 years later, after five years of open-heart surgery, the terminus has been transformed by John McAslan + Partners, reborn with a >>
Above The funnel supporting the Western Concourse roof strongly resists buckling
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Legend 1. Western Concourse 2. Western Range 3. Main Trainshed 4. King’s Cross Square 5. St Pancras Station 6. King’s Cross Central 7. British Library 8. King’s Place 9. Francis Crick Institute
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Legend 1. Taxi set down 2. Taxi pick up 3. Escalator to metro 4. Stair to metro 5. Great Northern Hotel 6. Suburban Trainshed 7. Shared services yard 8. Western Concourse 9. Northern accumulation area 10. Southern accumulation area 11. Ticket office 12. Former Parcels Office atrium 13. Platform 8 link 14. New opening in Trainshed wall and western gateline 15. Southern gateline 16. Platform 8 17. King’s Cross Sq. 18. Bus stops 19. Eastern Range 20. Platform 0 (overflow) 21. Food court 22. WCs 23. Retail 24. Bridge 25. Gateline 26. Void 27. Funnel
new Western Concourse, rationalised supporting accommodation, a new overflow platform and a new Southern Square (designed by Stanton Williams Architects). There was little wrong with the original design which, as Cubitt said, aimed at ‘fitness for its purpose and the characteristic expression of that purpose’. But the goalposts had moved. As London’s population grew, more passengers used the terminus. King’s Cross developed as a metro interchange which ultimately served six lines and became the city’s busiest transport hub. Circulation within the Western Range was blocked when it was damaged by World War II bombing and in the 1970s a lean, mean, temporary concourse was tacked onto the south facade. This became known as ‘the bungalow’, presumably because of its architectural configuration, leaving a narrow forecourt where people queued for ..
buses alongside prostitutes touting for business. It was beyond caring and as ‘in yer face’ as London gets. There was always someone who wanted to stand where you were standing. There was always someone who wanted to walk where you were walking. It was hardly a place where you would choose to linger on your way back from an excursion out of London. To compound its image problems, historically endemic to railway termini, which tend to generate short-stay accommodation and low-life demimondes, a major fire which broke out in King’s Cross underground station in 1987 was a Titanic event for the ever-unpopular London Transport. Moreover, as air travel became a more competitive option, railways came to be seen as second best, tainted by a succession of accidents and the public’s perception of railway staff as rude and unhelpful. This was aggravated by dreary, well-intended backfiring
statements such as British Rail’s 1980s ‘we’re getting there’ rebranding campaign and a line in classic excuses such as ‘it’s the wrong type of snow’. On the positive side, the project involved opportunities to coordinate with the Regent Quarter mixed use regeneration scheme, the £2 billion King’s Cross Central mixed development project and the redevelopment of St Pancras Station, completed in 2007 and augmented by the addition of Eurostar and High Speed One connections. It was also an opportunity to improve the station’s fabric, to make it safe and presentable and to retain features of historic interest. As the lead architect and >>
After five years of openheart surgery, the terminus has been transformed ..
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Top left Aerial view as the Western Concourse works neared completion This picture Installation of roof cassettes Right Rectangularsection curved steel members jut from the fascia
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King’s Cross Station redevelopment John McAslan + Partners
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Left Model of Stanton Williams Architects’ King’s Cross Square development showing the confining arc of Thomas Cubitt’s Great Northern Hotel to the west
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masterplanner, McAslan investigated options including an addition which wrapped around the south and west sides of the terminus and Kings Cross - Section a prohibitively expensive insertion at the train shed’s south end, which would have involved moving the platforms’ terminations 120 metres northwards. They settled on a clear, practical diagram, adding a new entrance concourse to the west, with the ticket office reinstated in its original location in the Western Range. From here, passengers proceed to platforms by passing through one of two new barrier lines, the first on the ground floor within a new opening in the Western Range and another at mezzanine level, which leads to a new footbridge crossing the train sheds, with lifts and escalators connecting to the platforms’ mid-points, helping to minimise travel distances. Arriving passengers have the option of passing through the barrier lines to the south of the platforms and proceeding below McAslan’s new, freestanding canopies towards Stanton Williams’ soon-to-be-completed King’s Cross Square, or they can exit via the Western Concourse, conceived as a gateway to King’s Cross Central, using the new mezzanine-level bridge or the new opening in the 0
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Western Range. Escalators and lifts connect with London Underground’s Great Northern Ticket Hall below the Western Concourse and a new subsurface shared services yard integrates and consolidates the transport hub’s complex, varied services behind the scenes. ‘The new concourse is three times as large as what existed before,’ says chairman and practice founder John McAslan. ‘Building to the west worked best, as it offered the possibility of embedding the surface structures.’ The semi-circular footprint of the Western Concourse, Europe’s largest single-span station structure, circumscribes the perimeter of the ticket hall and shares its locus with the arc of Thomas Cubitt’s Great >>
Legend 1. Western Concourse 2. London Underground Great Northern Ticket Hall 3. Funnel 4. Food court 5. Typical tree column 6. Ticket office 7. Photovoltaics
Above Piers replace removed walls between concourse and train shed Right The fluid mezzanine relieves the concourse’s rigid circular geometry
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King’s Cross Station redevelopment John McAslan + Partners
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Left Cubitt’s restored twin barrelvaulted main train shed roofs will now admit more daylight and photovoltaics at their apex will generate renewable energy Below The redevelopment rediscovered and transformed forgotten spaces in the Western Range, such as the Parcels Office atrium, now a pub, and rationalised previous ad hoc structural alterations
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Northern Hotel, completed in 1854 and scheduled to reopen this year following a makeover by Dexter Moren Associates. Because this locus sat within the footprint of the original ticket office, where it projects from the Western Range facade, a truly semicircular concourse would only have been possible if this Grade I-listed projection were demolished or if it did not share its locus with the hotel. The answer involved removing two small segments of the semi-circle, so primary radial rib members form the edge of the roof where it meets the Western Range and are oblique to its facade. The ovoidal columns of the central funnel which supports the ribs strictly follow the concourse’s radial geometry. Some consider circular plan forms problematic. In small buildings they should be approached with care and may be constricting, but for many the objection is stylistic. McAslan seems comfortable with these forms, whether working on existing buildings, such as London’s Roundhouse or the De La Warr Pavilion, or new ones. You might question why the hotel, hardly in the same league as the station, was a major influence on the concourse’s form. Although the hotel’s footprint >>
King’s Cross Station redevelopment John McAslan + Partners
was generated by the Fleet Sewer and an underground railway, it was not part of a coherent urban design strategy. Demolition of the Grade IIlisted hotel was possible but approval would have caused delay and the project team chose to work with it. The concourse’s semi-circular form, though structurally less efficient for a shell roof than a complete circle and so requiring deep stiffening trusses on its east side, has further advantages. It enhances the site layout by reconciling the offset between the main and suburban train sheds and, while deliberate symbolic use of the Rundbogenstil and wheel-like circular plan forms for railway stations would be simplistic, the concourse’s geometry is a powerful and muchneeded unifying device. The swirling vortex of its diagrid morphs and drops away into its double-curved central funnel, like a lacy Elizabethan ruff, with no visible connections between its CHS members, clearly articulated from the box-section radial ribs. The LED-illuminated white finish to this steelwork and the myriad mosaics
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which line the undulating mezzanine bulkheads, the granite floor and McAslan’s range of product design components all help to establish unity. If the structurally honest rectangular-section steel bananas which thrust through the concourse fascia seem abrupt and some interfaces with the Western Range a little hairy, the new external spaces to the west and south, the largest added to London in recent years, have the much-needed calm, uncluttered, civic and humanist qualities of Piero della Francesca’s città ideale, which encourage people to pause and relax. Like the provision for passenger flows and concealed services, and the careful restoration of Cubitt’s work, they demonstrate that much of the best design is invisible. This is great railway architecture, standing comparison with Victorian exemplars and with recent projects, including Grimshaw’s Waterloo Eurostar terminus, Farrell’s Asian megastations (AJ 02.12.10), with which it has stylistic affinities, and the contributions of Calatrava and Foster + Partners to the renaissance of this building type. n
Project data
Below The original Pay Office in the Western Range, now reinstated as a ticket office, looks onto the Western Concourse through Cubitt’s flattened arches and stylised Venetian windows
start on site 2007 completion March 2012 (Southern Square and canopies: December 2013) form of contract Multiple contracts and forms total cost £547 million programme architect and masterplanner for station and public realm incl. southern square John McAslan + Partners architect for king’s cross square Stanton Williams Architects client Network Rail multidisciplinary engineer for western concourse, western range, suburban train shed and southern square Arup structural engineer for roof and platform refurbishment and station footbridge Tata Steel Projects quantity surveyor Network Rail access consultant David Bonnett Associates project manager Network Rail cdm co-ordinator Rod Hewitson approved building inspector Network Rail/John McAslan + Partners contractor for east range building Laing O’Rourke/Costain joint venture contractor for platform 10 Carillion contractor for platform refurbs, footbridge, service yard, west range and new concourse Vinci Construction UK contractor for roof refurbishment Kier Rail contractor for train shed roof repainting Osborne cad software Bentley, AutoCAD passenger modelling software used by arup Pedroute, Steps, Legion annual co2 emissions N/A on-site energy generation Approx 8 per cent rainwater recycling, east range 1 per cent below BREEAM ‘Very Good’ main western concourse roof Seele granite floor tiles Gormley glass balustrades Lee Warren west range roof slate and lead Mundy heritage joinery Houston Cox masonry cleaning Stonewest plaster repairs Simplicity Mouldings
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Working detail
King’s Cross Station redevelopment John McAslan + Partners Western Concourse roof The roof design evolved through collaboration between JMP and Arup, and had three drivers. The first was the need for a long-span structure bridging the London Underground Northern Ticket Hall ‘box.’ Second was the requirement for an efficient structure, which avoided applying loads to the Grade I-listed West Range facade and fitted within the curved form of the Grade II-listed Great Northern Hotel. Third was the desire for a visually and operationally unified space, a hub serving suburban and intercity traffic. A thin shell with double-curved, S-shaped section and semicircular plan, carries most of the load away from the facade and supports it at the perimeter. Functional and geometrical constraints imposed by the existing buildings required a flexurally stiff edge to the cut shell abutting the facade. Vertical, glazed truss elements enclose the envelope, providing views of the facade. The entire roof diagrid geometry and funnel form were developed through ‘sculpting’, using Arup’s 3D structural analysis software, GSA. Conceptually, the roof structure divides into radial rib elements, whose main purpose is to resist bending forces, and a diagrid, mainly for in-plane shell forces. The former are fabricated box sections, chosen for their ability to resist bending efficiently and to achieve a clear visual distinction between these members and the diagrid tubes, which are conversely optimised for axial loads. The branches of the tree columns are pin-ended at the connection to the diagrid shell to allow the roof to articulate and avoid bending forces being transferred from the radial members into the branches. Hiro Aso, project director, John McAslan + Partners ..
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Legend 1. Granite flooring 2. Tapered ovoid tree column, typical plan dimensions at base 1,400 x 600mm, fabricated from 355.6 x 6 CHS sections connected by steel structural plates behind 6mm
curved sheet cladding, plug welded to 30mm Ø pins welded to structural plates. 850 x 475 x 50mm thick steel head plate with 356mm Ø ends. 1,800 x 1,000mm base
plate with 1,030 x 40mm Ø Macalloy bars 3. Solid cast steel node 4. 355 x 16 CHS capped with 110mm thick milling plate at connection to cast node
5. 219 x 16 CHS capped with 110mm thick milling plate at connection to cast node 6. Fabricated box rib radial section, typically 150mm wide, varying from 250-450mm deep,
according to bending moments 7. 139-219mm Ø standard CHS diagrid tube with continuous fillet weld connection to box rib radial section 8. Roof cladding
Building study
School authority
Hawkins\Brown’s confident Kingston Business School plays a central role in re-organising a campus of ad hoc buildings, says David Howarth. Photography by Hufton+Crow
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s architect Hawkins\Brown was preparing to hand over a new building to Kingston University, a survey by its contractor Wates revealed that universities were continuing to significantly invest in their building stock to lift the attractiveness of their institutions in an increasingly competitive marketplace. With reduced public spending and a subsequent drop in course applications, institutions are becoming ever more demanding of this investment. Buildings need to be photogenic for the prospectus and provide efficient teaching space that is flexible enough to meet the needs of constantly changing course programmes. With student experience statistics now a major factor in an institution’s league table scoring, they need to impress at the open day and continue to provide costeffective learning environments for the lifetime of the building. The new £17.5 million Kingston Business School building, which opened in April this year, certainly looks to
Right View from northeast, showing deep-set floor to ceiling windows and bronze anodised panels, with fibre cement-clad top floor and canopy
have delivered this, within a modest budget and in a challenging location. Kingston Hill Campus is set within a conservation area on a sloping, south-facing site, bounded by protected woodland to the north, the large detached houses of Coombe Park to the South and Wimbledon Common to the east. This once formed part of the Coombe estate, home to a long-since demolished Palladian villa and gardens. Over the years the university has acquired an ad hoc collection of buildings, the best of these being the Nightingale Library extension, designed by John McAslan and Partners in 2007. As you approach from Kingston Hill and descend the contours of the approach road the presence of the new building among its neighbours is immediate. Set behind an unassuming law faculty building, the new business school imposes itself with confidence and authority – a four-storey monolithic brick volume cut into the slope with a set of vertically proportioned and deeply revealed windows registering each floor. >> .. ESCU
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Kingston Business School Hawkins\Brown
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projection size 1600/2100 mm (3:4)
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Glass roof below Classroom Classroom Classroom Server room Staff social space Tutorial room Academic office Academic office Executive / MBA / MACE / overseas student collaboration office Classroom Flexible computer facility Social room Social room
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1. Sedum roof 2. Plant 3. New School of Business and Law 4. Lawley Lecture Theatre 5. Kingston Law Building 6. Restaurants 7. Huts 8. Drama Hall 9. Nightingale Centre 10. Sir Frank Lampl Building
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Informal learning space Classroom Classroom Classroom Timetabling and QA Academic office Academic office Informal learning space Academic office Board room Classroom Classroom 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 0m
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The facades are without hierarchy, save for bronze anodised aluminium panels between pairs of windows and a fibre-cement-clad fifth floor, tonally equivalent to the aluminium but on the day of my visit blending seamlessly with a flat grey sky. The brief demanded that the new building play a central role in re-organising the campus, connecting the surrounding academic buildings and resolving the complex levels between them. Even from a distance this is clearly evident, its posture and precision subjugating its neighbours and presenting a sober, well-dressed confidence through the singular use of a material. It exudes authority and suggests a permanence that will perhaps fool visitors into thinking that this was the first building to have been constructed here, rather than the last. Its character from afar suggests ..
Fourth floor plan
historical continuity with the tradition of a ‘villa’ in the landscape. It is a compact and ordered figure, placed between town and country and understood in the round. Closer to, a number of more intricate layers is revealed. Each ‘face’ subtly responds to its setting, while collectively the facades establish a continuity of character and act as a constant reference point wherever you are on the campus. The facades are seen obliquely on approach and each entrance is simply registered with fibre-cement canopies, the main entrance signified with a portico. The deep-set full-height windows emerge into view as you near and a subtle leaf motif can be seen etched on to the bronze aluminium panels. This simple treatment of an anodised surface, which can appear very flat and immaterial when used in large sheets, gives lustre, adjusting
the tone of the panels as they catch the changing light throughout the day. The main entrance is on its five-storey, south-facing facade, its position responding to the hierarchy of entry established by an axis, which runs through the middle of the site. This street is the principal ordering device of the campus and connects the main entrances of a series of existing teaching blocks and library. The building is served by three further entrances, two at first-floor level on the east and west facades and a third on the second floor, connected by a bridge to catering facilities at the top. The project was commissioned to provide flexible teaching space for a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Hawkins\Brown has responded to this brief with a clear plan diagram and a simple set of rooms to allow various scales of teaching to take place. These spaces, from the large lecture theatres and >>
Legend 1. Classroom 2. Computer room 3. Lobby 4. Reception 5. Existing lecture theatre 6. Academic office 7. Social room 8. Plant room
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Legend 1. Café 1. Lobby 2. Reception 3. Central space 4. Classroom 5. Computer room 6. Academic office
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From left Circulation spaces have glimpses of full-height windows; open corners of covered central space between brick piers; the central space has engineered oak acoustic stair cladding and balustrades
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teaching studios on the lower floors to smaller classrooms on the upper levels, are distributed around a large open central space, a plan type not without precedent in the history of university architecture. The depth of the outer skin is replicated within the covered central space, a peristyle of heavy brick piers forming a two-storey cloister. The concrete structure is revealed overhead as a deep grid of polished pre-cast beams, obliquely masking the roof glazing. This central space is well proportioned and ordered but the architects have played with its classical allusions, removing the piers from each corner. This reduces its formality and symmetry, and subtly denies the brickwork as the primary structure.
On the ground floor, these open corners reveal the lecture theatres, and larger teaching spaces, encouraging diagonal movement between the two stair cores, which link the other entrances to the upper levels. A secondary lining of engineered oak acoustic panels covers the main stair and this finish is used as balustrading to the upper cloister, projecting into the space to form window seats and work spaces. On the upper levels the teaching spaces, staff offices and research rooms occupy the perimeter with circulation concentrated around its internal facade. The removal of the structural corners here provides further space for casual study and informal meeting. This recalls Alison and Peter Smithson’s
school of architecture at the University of Bath, where the occasional widening of circulation routes encourages chance encounter and conversation, as well as places to pass. The large floor-toceiling windows in every room are also glimpsed from these circulation spaces, bringing the landscape and horizon into the building and allowing you to constantly orientate, whether seated in a lecture or moving around the floor plate. With a budget of £2,300/m2, the BREEAM Excellent building was procured under a Design and Build contract and it is testament to the architects, contractor Wates, and the evident control of project architect Donna Walker, that the end result exudes quality. Hawkins\Brown >>
Kingston Business School Hawkins\Brown
Project data
will be pleased with its recent haul of RIBA Awards in this sector, for the Hub at Coventry University and its housing for the Royal Veterinary College, but the failure of the judges to commend this project has probably come as a surprise. However, this oversight should not detract from the level of architectural thinking which has gone into producing a serious building which is precise in its making and economically driven, yet materially rich and characterful. I am sure it will prove to be a valuable addition to the university estate and will support students through their academic lives for many decades to come. ■ David Howarth is co-founder and director of DRDH Architects, London ..
Above A deep grid of polished pre-cast beams obliquely masks the central space roof glazing Right Open corners in upper level circulation zones used for casual study and informal meetings Opposite page The south facade extends to the lower level of the sloping site
start on site January 2010 date of completion March 2012 total cost £17 million gross internal area 7,290m2 cost per square metre £2,332 form of contract JCT Design and Build client Kingston University architect Hawkins\Brown m&e consultant Hurley Palmer Flatt structural engineer URS cdm coordinator Mace Sustain approved building inspector Assent pre-cast frame only Campbell Reith services engineer Hurley Palmer Flatt civil engineer URS Scott Wilson project management MACE main contractor Wates Construction sustainability consultant Cyril Sweett planning consultant Nathanial Lichfield and Partners cost consultant Sense Cost Consultancy access/disability consultant Assent landscape architect Hawkins\Brown landscape designer Skidmores acoustics consultant BSRIA estimated annual co2 emissions 17.91kg/m2 heating & hot water load 44.5kWh/m2/yr airtightness at 50 pa 3.4m3/h.m2
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Practice
Legalese Should architects take sole responsibility for a multidisciplinary job? asks Mark Klimt
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clients) or if each consultant would only be liable to the client for its own work. Meanwhile, the architect’s insurers (regardless of what may be agreed with the client) would want to ensure that between the consultants, there is a mechanism for making recovery where a mistake by one of the other consultants has caused the architect to incur liability. Sometimes a formal JV is required; for example where an English architect involves itself in an overseas project and forms a JV with a local consultant. This weds the interests of all JV members and encourages a close collaborative approach, but can be cumbersome to set up, requiring the creation of a separate legal entity, and arrangements for such matters as a governing body, a JV office, bank account, funding of overheads, division of profits, and dispute resolution. If the JV has been set up
Sub-contracts must be fully ‘back-toback’ with the architect’s main appointment
HANNA MELIN
The increasing interdependence of the various consultancy services and ever more complicated arrangements for commissioning projects has highlighted how architects should tender for multidisciplinary assignments. There are advantages and disadvantages to each option. The neatest arrangement, and one that architects’ insurers will be most comfortable with, is for the architect to be responsible only for its area of expertise and for the other consultancies to have separate contracts with the client. However, clients tend to favour single point responsibility and initiatives such as partnering and Design & Build owe their origins to clients wishing to divest themselves of the responsibility to unpick who is at fault when a problem arises. Architects and those supporting them must therefore be prepared to explore other options. The architect must decide whether it wishes to have overall commercial control by acting as head consultant and employing the other disciplines as sub-consultants. The architect will have sole primary responsibility to the client and so must select its sub-consultants carefully and ensure that, insofar as the architect is dependent upon its sub-consultants to deliver the service it has promised to the client, those sub-consultants are under the same obligations to the architect; the sub-contracts must therefore (and subject to certain exceptional circumstances) be fully ‘back-to-back’ with the architect’s main appointment. It is also common to provide for collateral warranties between the client and the subconsultants, so that the client has the option to pursue remedies directly against the sub-consultants. Where an architect wishes to share the primary liability risk or to demonstrate strength in depth, it may tender for work in conjunction with other consultants. If the architect and the co-tenderers do not want to enter into a formal Joint Venture Agreement, then a looser arrangement is possible, such as an association or collaboration. Care would, though, need to be taken that language is not used that unwittingly sets up a joint venture ( JV) anyway. Also, it would need to be established with the client whether the ‘co-operating’ consultants would be collectively responsible for all the consultancy activities (the likely preference for
for a specific purpose only, then its limit needs to be made clear otherwise an exclusive business arrangement might accidentally have been created. It is sometimes argued that a JV works most openly where the parties have agreed in advance their respective percentage liability should a problem arise. Any such predetermined arrangement would need insurers’ specific approval because this could amount to insurers waiving certain rights of recovery and the funding of another party’s mistakes. An architect will want to know anyway that under a JV arrangement, it has insurance not only for its own activities but also for any liability which it may incur as a result of being part of a JV. Underpinning all these possible arrangements in fact will be the insurance position, and the need for the architect to be satisfied the other consultants are adequately insured. Mark Klimt is a partner at Fishburns. He is legal adviser to the RIBA and operates the RIBA Helpline
Culture
CLOSING THE GAP As this year’s London Festival of Architecture draws to a close, founder and organiser Peter Murray explains the role the event plays in bringing the profession and the public together ..
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While architects might wish for instant and visceral approval of all their works, I can think of few projects where acceptance is not greatly enhanced by explanation, by providing some understanding of why a building is like it is or indeed why it is there at all. In general the profession is not good at explaining what it does, or the reasons for doing it. In a period of increasing democratisation of the planning process and decisionmaking in the built environment, this is a bit of a problem. Ideas about ‘good design’ cannot be imposed. They must form part of our day-to-day culture. I have always believed that design quality emerges from cultures with a real understanding of the issues. In my ..
event London Festival of Architecture 2012, 23 June-8 July
Above Installation at ‘The Developing City’ exhibition at the Walbrook Building in the City of London Top right Talk – ‘Architecture as Antidote: Should Cites Make us Fit?’
paid work I have aimed to raise the profile of design. Deyan Sudjic and I launched Blueprint magazine in the 1980s in order to reach a broader audience than the traditional professional media; Wordsearch promotes architects and their projects around the world; New London Architecture explains what is going on in planning and the built environment in the capital. The splendid work of Victoria Thornton and Open-City, not just through Open House but also in training teachers, councillors and local communities, has done much to spread a real understanding of architectural quality. The London Festival of Architecture draws public attention to the architecture and the architects of the city in many ways. It celebrates architecture with walks, talks and bike rides – from the mammoth Velonotte led by Moscow professor Sergei Nikitin around east London and commentaries by Peter Ackroyd, Richard Rogers and Ricky Burdett, to a ride around central London studying the use of pineapple finials, particularly by Wren on his city churches. Look up! is the message; enjoy and understand the rich architecture of the capital. The London Festival of Architecture provides an opportunity for architects to get involved in their local area, like the west London practices, including those of Hugh Broughton and Tom Ryland, who got together to propose that the A4 should be tunnellised as a replacement for the crumbling Hammersmith flyover. This is the second time they have taken part in the festival in this way, with numerous benefits: the architects are seen to have a key role in their local area; they create links with the community, with businesses and with politicians; they get to know each other and even a joint CPD programme has emerged from their working together. When such proposals take off, it means the festival also leaves a legacy. Closing off Exhibition Road for the weekend during the Festival in 2008 played a key role in showing the public, in particular the local residents, the impact and the benefits of the project. The Carmody Groarke installation in Montague Place highlighted plans, now complete, to improve this important space >>
Culture London Festival of Architecture
behind the British Museum. The installation this year of Roz Barr and Ramboll’s Oculus project in Store Street crescent forms part of the public consultation for what we hope will be the permanent pedestrianisation of this car park space. The work of the Architecture Foundation in Southwark has left a legacy of young architects who deliver installations in London and focused attention on greening and urban food production. The transformation of Gibbons Rents in Southwark this year by Andrew Burns and Sarah Eberle is a brilliant gift to the area. The British Council’s International Architecture Showcase celebrates London as a diplomatic centre and design hub. Next year we plan to expand this to promote the work of London architects working overseas. Ten years ago I came up with the idea of a festival in London as a reaction to the Venice Biennale – a splendid event in itself but one that reflects the separation of the profession from its public audience. Leading architects fly in and fly out; there is little relevance to the location except that it’s a great place for a party. I wanted a festival that was rooted in the architectural and local communities and that had a long-term impact on its location. This year, as I watched the west London architects describe their ideas to local people in Lyric
I wanted a festival that was rooted in the architectural and local communities ..
Square, as I enjoyed tea and sandwiches in Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios’ front room as part of the Fitzrovia Hub, sat out on architect-designed benches in the Royal Docks, or scrolled through the hundreds of events from Croydon to Canary Wharf, from Hackney to South Ken on the festival website, I felt we had succeeded. ■ Peter Murray is an architect and prolific writer on the subject of architecture
Top right Sculptor Richard Wentworth addresses the ‘Construction: Knowing through Making’ symposium Above Casa Nostra, by Czech graffiti artist Jan Kaláb, aka Point Right Installations at ‘The Developing City’, an exhibition at the Walbrook Building in the City of London, which continues until 9 September
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AJ team members pick their favourite events from LFA 2012: Cycle tour: ‘London Velonotte’, 23 June About 200 cyclists listened to Peter Ackroyd and the event’s organiser and Velonotte founder, Sergei Nikitin, discuss the explosion of gin palaces and taverns that blighted east London in the early 18th century. Architecture and social history are deeply interwoven in this part of town. Outside the Salmon and Ball pub we heard of the men hanged after the Spitalfield Riots, some 250 years ago, in the same spot. And we heard of the Russian Bolsheviks who, after attending a conference in London, ran out of money and were not able to get back home, so camped up near the site of the De Beauvoir estate. But the architectural gem of the night was Denys Lasdun’s Brutalist Keeling House, lit up especially for the ride by sponsor iGuzzini. Alex Maxwell Treasure hunt: The Architects Benevolent Society’s ‘Playful City Search’, 1 July Teams of architects, their friends and others who mistakenly thought it was a pub crawl, roamed across central London answering architecture-related questions for the Architects Benevolent Society’s (ABS) inaugural treasure hunt. In their quest to raise money for the ABS, the intrepid quiz teams visited All Souls’ Church (where they learnt the spire has 17 sides), the National Portrait Gallery (where Christopher Wren’s portrait resides in room 10) and Make’s London visitor centre (where we
learned St Paul’s dome is 112m high), learning the difference between Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s K2 and K6 phone boxes along the way, before winding up at Tate Modern for drinks and awards. Tom Ravenscroft Casa Nostra by Point (Jan Kalab) at the Business Design Centre until 12 August An installation by Czech graffiti artist Jan Kalab (aka Point) which pit a cluster of skyscrapers against what can only be described as a giant urban octopus, whose glowing red tentacles surrounded and impaled the buildings – childlike and just plain fun. Rakesh Ramchurn
Below Patricia Cain with Will Alsop and Bruce McLeer at the ‘Construction: Knowing through Making’ symposium
Exhibition: ‘The Developing City’, The Walbrook Building, London EC4, until 9 September An in-depth look at some of the City’s most significant historical events – the recovery after the Great Fire of London, the Blitz, and the transformation of London as it became a global financial powerhouse. An interactive model puts the City’s buildings into context and also introduces its future landmarks, both proposed and under construction. The exhibition concluded with Grow Up London, an installation which speculated on how the capital is likely to respond to the pressures of increased density as it continues to grow. Sam Westbrook Symposium: ‘Construction: Knowing through Making’, The Mall Galleries, 26 June Hats off to artist Patricia Cain who organised the symposium and who pulled together a fantastic lineup of speakers including Will Alsop, sculptor Bruce McLean, Richard Wentworth, professor of sculpture at the Royal College of Art, and Ranulph Glanville, whose work as architect and academic is based on the notion that each of us constructs our own world. Emily Booth Talk: ‘Architecture as Antidote: Should Cities Make Us Fit?’ The Wellcome Trust, 4 July Peter Murray, architect and director of Canadian Centre for Architecture Mirko Zardini, The Lancet editor Richard Horton and commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction David Burney met at the Wellcome Trust to discuss how architecture can improve or maintain health. Peter Murray focused on walking and cycling as urban activities. We learned that New York City has a policy to ensure cycle parking is provided with every new development and that one simple way of improving health within buildings is, of course, to signpost the stairs more clearly. With this in mind, the question was raised: can architects really control how users occupy buildings in order to improve their health? Michelle Price
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MESSAGE FROM BELOW
We first visited the Tanks in 1994 on a tour of the former power station with Nick Serota and his team. The dark, sinister industrial world we encountered was very exciting, yet it also had a romantic side to it, a special flavour. Ever since, we’ve seen the Tanks as the one area we could keep as original as possible, compared with the other parts of the museum that needed to be far more refined and become classical galleries. This was not only our vision and dream, but that of Serota and the curators. The Tate Modern expansion has allowed us to revisit the Tanks, and Tate’s aim for this new project has been to fuse the extension with the power station’s past and history, so that, like the original conversion, it would always refer back to the building as it once was: rough and industrial. This sense of rawness and immediacy holds a huge fascination for us all, and in many ways is in opposition to the existing galleries. Architecturally, the Tanks resemble a space ship, but also have the feel of a bunker, or cave, as they are underground and sculpted from concrete. They have many different associations and are certainly not what you would expect in the traditional museum. Therefore, our approach should not be seen as a fashion trend, or an alternative to the ‘white cube’, but instead as something that was essential to our very first experience of the old power station. Then there is a second consideration in our thinking as architects – which is perhaps even the first – that the spaces are a moment of structural force beneath the ground, a direct physical expression that forms the foundation of the forthcoming extension. Whatever comes on top – the tower of the expansion project – will be rooted in this history. Whatever we see in the future above ground will have grown out of this other world beneath, and wound its way upwards. The Tanks should not be viewed as an annexe, but as the roots of something to come. They are not just an addition to what exists, or a decorative feature, but something fundamental to Tate’s vision. The spaces they provide may at the moment seem to be a hybrid between a white cube and a black box, but if they are considered within the entire complex of Tate Modern, then they complete ..
HERZOG & DE MEURON
Jacques Herzog recalls his first visit to the Tate Modern Tanks and explains how their sinister and dark rawness still shapes and inspires the museum
HERZOG & DE MEURON/HAYES DAVIDSON, 2009
Culture The Tanks, Tate Modern
Top View from the south at dusk – render of Herzog & de Meuron’s new building to be added at the south of the existing Tate Modern gallery Centre East oil tank Bottom Southern oil tank
the variety of display areas, both old and new, and are unique, unlike those in any other museum in the world. As such, we hope they give more freedom and a sense of possibility for innovation to artists and curators. In terms of artworks, we imagine them to be used in many different ways. For performance and film they’re perhaps less unusual settings, although still unique. But imagine a classical painting hanging in the round raw concrete; that would also be amazing. We trust that art can be tested in different areas within the expanded Tate Modern – from classical light galleries, the white cube and more abstract spaces, to this kind of polygonal form, where you are aware you are underground and the viewer is provided with different contexts and experiences. We, as architects, keep returning to art because we’re fascinated by what it can be, and by the innovation it can bring to our lives and understanding of society, particularly in dealing with issues of perception and ..
PETER SAVILLE/HAYES DAVIDSON/HERZOG AND DE MEURON, 2011
awareness. This form of democratic museum is a strong basis for how our society should work, in terms of its openness to the audience and to art; not in conserving and conforming to traditional values, but in testing them and experimenting and discussing art publicly. Making all this accessible to as many people as possible, not just an elite, also links to ideas of learning, an element that features strongly in the new expansion. In the case of Tate, which attracts the largest crowds anywhere in the world for contemporary and modern art, it is not just a vital platform for London, but for everyone. All in all, galleries and museums can play a vital role in questioning systems within art and society at large and offer alternative models, at once establishing a social space for the dissemination of ideas. ■ Jacques Herzog established architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron with Pierre de Meuron in 1978. The Tanks form part of the Tate Modern Project ..
The Unlimited Edition is an urban research sampler, writes James Pallister Throughout the south-east there are probably just as many people beavering away to Olympic deadlines as there are those in the rest of the country already heartily sick of the whole thing. For some, the Olympics are a mere blip – albeit an all-singing, all-dancing blip – in a continuum of study and work that takes the challenges offered by the Olympic boroughs as grist to their collective mills. A series of publications from the young studio We Made That in association with High Street 2012, the funding quango for brushing up the arterial route between the City and Stratford, is now available in a natty binder to complete the set. The newsprint publications take the high street as their subject and are themed into ‘Survey’, ‘Speculation’ and ‘Proposition’. Topics covered include Muf ’s work at Altab Ali Park, research by Gort Scott, and an intro by OPLC head of design, Eleanor Fawcett (declaration of interest: I contributed a piece to issue two on sticky-back ‘Shopjackets’, the ersatz frontages that act as placeholders for better days). The collection is an interesting snapshot of people’s current research interests and proposals pinned to a small locale. Part of The Unlimited Edition’s schtick is that it’s given away free on Whitechapel High Street. It’s an easy means of distribution and in keeping with the local content of the mag, even if the of some of it wouldn’t seem the natural reading choice of many passing along Whitechapel. Even the explanation of what High Street 2012 actually is: ‘Area-based initiatives… respond to specific spaces… coherent thread’ proves a hard work for those not down with Urbanismspeak. But, maybe that’s ungenerous: perhaps for every 10 of these publications shoved in the bin by baffled punters, one is enjoyed by an interested amateur, acting a little like the local history section of the Tower Hamlets freesheet, East End Life, albeit a more rarefied version, without the council house adverts and council messages in Urdu.
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57
AR115e
CRITICAL THINKING FOR CRITICAL TIMES
Ian Martin
Everyone discounts, in large amounts WEDNESDAY I’ve been consulted on the government’s WEDNESDAY. three key proposals for speeding up planning applications. My thoughts so far… 1. I like the idea of reducing nationally-prescribed information requirements. Information requirements are vague enough at the best of times. The fewer the better. 2. I oppose the requirement that councils update their local information requirements every two years. Again, too many requirements. 3. A cautious yes to simplifying rural development by replacing agricultural land declarations and ownership certificates with a CountryBuild Platinum Donor Card.
MONDAY. Pub lunch with Rock Steady Eddie the fi xer. Brazil’s where we should be pitching he says, through a mouthful of peanuts. ‘Got to follow the new middle classes. They’re like whatever, truffles in the global forest. Leave the mushrooming to losers…’ I hate this reasoning. Why should we dreamweavers, with our insight and genius, simply trail round after the world’s middle classes? It makes me so angry. There are alternatives. What about the not-for-profit community technical aid centre I’ve been running for months, bringing together underemployed architects, engineers, neighbourhoods, seizing the environmental agenda, giving power back to the people? And that’s just one of SEVERAL possible projects that have been at the back of my mind for some time now. I can’t finish my chips, Eddie does.
..
FRIDAY Un-bloody-believable. All this fuss about FRIDAY. discounting, what about straightforward plagiarism? The Royal Institute for the Pop-Uption of British Architects has announced its new corporate mission statement: ‘Find the space that isn’t there, create the space that is!’ I procure a lawyer to get on to this right away. I never know which lawyer to choose so as usual I go for the second cheapest on the list. SATURDAY My lawyer (time and a half on Saturdays!) has SATURDAY. bad news. The RIPBA’s (probably more expensive) lawyer insists the phrase ‘find the space that isn’t there, create the space that is’ originated in the public domain: ‘furthermore, the crucial addition of an exclamation mark is where genuine architectural value has occurred. So fuck off ’. Moral: find out who the RIPBA’s lawyer is and hire her next time. HANNA MELIN
TUESDAY. It’s very wearing, this Twitter mentality swirling around everything like an invisible, inflammable cloud. People are so bloody meanminded and volatile and fat and stupid. So WHAT if I pimped myself on some massmarket discount network as an ‘affordable plasmic arts auteur specialising in loft conversions’? It’s a free world. Or at least one in which my initial consultation fee may be reduced by 70 per cent. Certain people have accused me of besmirching the profession. They are jealous sluggards. And hypocrites. Exactly the same thing happens every year when the epic space community goes all Christmassy about the homeless. Architects sign up to give free consultations, the client’s money goes to charity, and professional bodies give a little elbow nudge and remind you that all exposure is sound practice marketing. So if I keep my own fee, it’s NOT sound marketing? Make up your mindz, haterz. Meanwhile, I am making up my day rate. Nobody really knows what an affordable plasmic arts auteur is, or what they would normally charge for an initial consultation, or what that consultation might involve. I’m offering a onehour thinking session (chatting to the client in an abstract way, gazing out of the window etc) plus a blown-up picture of their house with meaningful scribbles all over it: ‘Inside + outside = upside – downside.’ ‘Bit more eco? THINK GREEN SMUDGE.’ ‘Find the space that isn’t there, create the space that is’. Even with a 70 per cent discount I’m still charging a grand a go so ha ha laterz, haterz.
THURSDAY Outrage over my heavily discounted services THURSDAY. is still simmering in the bourgeois section of the internet. ‘I yield to no-one in my admiration and respect for ordinary people…’ splutters one eminence of the learned plasmic society. ‘But sometimes they are fools. Why would anyone with any sense procure CHEAP plasmic art advice? Would this foolish ordinary person procure the cheapest surgeon? The cheapest vintner? I wonder sometimes which universities these idiots went to, even though as I say I have great admiration and respect for them’.
SUNDAY To the most expensive church I can find. It’s a SUNDAY. Groupon Communion; I put 70 per cent less money than usual in the collection plate. ..
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2012
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