Heatherwick Is Robbed Again

 Sadly, instead of a gorgeous and innovative design for the Queen Elizabeth national memorial, we will end up with this monstosity by Norman Foster instead, which looks like it would be more at home on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise than St James's Park.

His translucent glass “unity bridge”, inspired by Elizabeth’s wedding tiara, is said to symbolise her as a “unifying force”.

It looks more like the plastic cutlery yoi get with a takeaway packed lunch to me! 

Scale...

A report published by SK Architects, based in London Road, Westcliff, which is leading the developement, reads: “The single house has an excessive and uncharacteristic setting and open space in an otherwise semi urban/sub urban context of this part of Leigh.”

Translation: "We can get several rabbit hutch properties suitable for the lower classes on this one plot! And what do they need space for, anyway?"

The plans hope to “create a small unique development of simple and slightly decorative family homes to mediate and respond to the varying context and domestic scale of Underwood Square.”

I like that 'slightly decorative' description! Not often architects slip up like that, is it?

Southend Council will have the final say on the application.

I bet it passes.

The More I Read About The Garden Bridge…

…the more determined I am that the Left won’t stop it:

The Southwark-based horticulturist told the Standard the £175 million bridge will be a “magical place in the centre of London” divided into five zones reflecting the centuries-long history of the city’s green spaces.

The publication of the designs meant the gardens could now take centre stage following months of debate about the location, structure and cost of Thomas Heatherwick’s bridge.

Oh, the ‘debate’ (or rather, the sniping and whinging) will rage on in the pages of the increasingly-irrelevant left-learning press. But the architects and builders will simply get on with their jobs.

From south to north, the five landscape areas start with a nod to the species once common on the former marshes of the South Bank, where Samuel Pepys spoke of walking through water meadows and willow beds to get to Greenwich.

This will be followed by the South Glade, a woodland featuring plants known for spring blossom and autumn fruit. The area over the central span will be known as the Scarp and is designed to create an environment similar to a cliff top landscape.

The North Glade will be a second woodland area “drawing inspiration from the parks and gardens of old London.”

The final North Bank landscape will echo nearby Temple Gardens with scented late winter and early spring flowering shrubs. They will reflect the former gardens in the area, which were populated with olives and figs and roses brought back by the Knights Templar in the 12th century and cultivated until Victorian times.

It sounds utterly enchanting – roll on 2018!

For Once, They Have A Point…

Parents have called for action to protect their children from danger drivers on a road dubbed a “death trap”.

Angry mums and dads want at least two school crossings put in outside Janet Duke Primary School in Markhams Chase, Laindon, claiming youngsters are at risk due to speeding and illegally parked drivers.

 For once, I'm going to agree. Because a quick glance at Google Maps shows that there's not even one:

Now, it may simply be that the maps aren't up to date, and there's clearly still building work going on at the housing estate in them. But a school with no pedestrian crossings anywhere near it is asking for trouble, surely?

Many, who turned up to a public meeting about the issue last week, blame other parents for making the situation such a hazard.

Not themselves. Oh no! It's always the others...

Headteacher Mrs Phelps-Knights said: “This has been an issue for too long now but we need parents to accept some responsibility.

“Parents need to stay with their children and make sure they don’t lose control of them as they cross. I have written a number of letters to parents detailing the issue but we need a solution.”

I'd have to agree. Here's hoping they get one.

‘It’s Only Public Money!’ Part 248963

Southend Council has announced plans to enhance the informal pedestrian crossing points at City Beach.

Ah, yes. This is down to the complaints and the accidents.

Contractors will begin laying contrasting paving blocks to make the crossing points more visible to motorists in February.

Will they be….black and white? In stripes? A bit like a….zebra?

Like this, maybe?

The council is following recommendations made in an independent safety review following a number of complaints from concerned residents.

Because it’s not like it cost them anything, is it?

Humans Are Not Bees Or Ants, Owen, That’s Why…

Owen Hatherley again. This time extolling the virtues of communal living:

Communes are not, as a rule, taken particularly seriously as possible living arrangements for the majority of the population. For some reason, it is still considered common sense for housing, irrespective of its quality, to be as private as possible.

Well, yes. Just as the privately-owned car will always be superior to public transport.

It’s a bit of a no-brainer really.

But in practice, especially in larger cities, housing is collective by accident. It's not just students – the housing crisis is pushing people into flatsharing into their 30s and beyond.

Ah, yes, the ‘housing crisis’, or rather more accurately, the ‘housing (where houses are too expensive where the jobs are) crisis’…

But luxury flats rented to groups of aspirant junior clerks or sold-off council housing and private rented accommodation subdivided into multiple profitably lettable units both ensure that basic facilities – such as toilets and kitchens – have to be shared, without the space or the design being prepared for that. Could collective housing, where the sharing of communal spaces is assumed from the outset, be the answer?

Probably not, no.

But little Owen’s off to find an example that works, which can then be used to prove the same thing will work in a different country with a different social history:

Berlin's Lebensort Vielfalt (Diverse Living Space) is the kind of housing project that no developer or municipality in the UK would consider for a split second. An LGBT housing scheme, with 60% allocated to older tenants, it's the kind of quietly successful project that undemonstratively shows other ways of living are possible.

In what way is it ‘diverse’ if it only caters to LGBT people?

Meanwhile, squats, long the major laboratory of experiments in group living, are being criminalised, not coincidentally at the time when they're most needed. Squatting is usually – and especially now – a response to emergency, a matter of improvisation, taking somewhere dilapidated, removing the trees growing into the floorboards and getting electricity and drainage working.

But as we’ve seen before, squatting is not – and rarely has been – ‘a response to emergency’. And it rarely results in an improvement to the building, in fact, quite the opposite.

… collective living no longer needs to be attached to a "lifestyle" or an easily parodied stereotype. As the crisis of private housing rages, it looks increasingly sensible.

Then, as I asked before, Owen, where do you live?

Oh, Who Could Have Predicted This?

Well....everyone, actually:

Skateboarders have been accused of wrecking a new £7.5million public square by using it as a playground for their stunts and tricks.

The groups of teenagers practise their moves in the revamped areas around Southend’s Victoria Gateway. But passers-by pointed out their boards had scored deep gouges in some of the new seating and decorative paving, and even chipped off the corner of a bench.

*sigh*

Time to bring back the men in high-vis?

Oh, wait! Some people are happy about this, in the comments:

Tom from Southend says...

What a load of sad, whinging, boring, sterile people you lot must be. We have these spaces for people to be in, to add vibrancy and life to what is a boring junction and you lot moan. Better to have skaters than drunks and louts. When stuck in traffic they are great to watch. Keep skating lads its a great place for it. Also what a great way for visitors to see this going on. Reclaim our spaces from traffic and sterile Council planning!

Yeah, reclaim it! Make sure the elderly and infirm and visually-impaired are scared to use it!

alexskate says...

im a skateboarder and i skate there regularly and all we do is use the flatground causing no damage to anything so i dont see the problem? if its that much of an issue why dont the council spend a few grand making a skatepark for us like we asked instead of spending millions on a bit of concrete...

'Give us what we want or else!'

Never Mind The Crime & The Depravity, Look At The Art Deco Cinema!

Owen Hatherley (author of Militant Modernism; A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain) in CiF on the wonders of Wythenshawe:

The second-largest council estate in the country, after Becontree in East London, it's best known of late for three media appearances – Sarah Ferguson's The Duchess on the Estate; Shameless, for which it provided many of the sets; and a photograph of David Cameron on the stump, with a hooded youth making gun signs behind him.

In appearance, though, Wythenshawe doesn't correspond much to stereotype.

Really? Are you sure about that, Owen? Are you really, really sure?

Behind The Architect’s Flim-Flam, The Real Difference: We’ll Stop Housing Muggers

This is the first image showing what a once notorious London council estate known as a "muggers' paradise" will look like.

Before

After

The development will see 2,500 homes built on the site of the Heygate estate as part of a £1.5 billion revamp of Elephant and Castle.

Interesting ‘before and after’, eh?

But the real difference is in the inhabitants, not the bricks and mortar:

Of the 2,500 new homes, 25 per cent will be classed as "affordable", compared with the 1,260 council flats and houses they replace.

Admittedly, in London, with its transport links, it might just make it the tempting waterhole in the urban jungle, attracting the herd animals for the convenience of the predators.

When Is A U-Turn Not A U-Turn..?

Safety signs will finally be introduced at Southend seafront’s shared space.

Well, well, well. I guess the concept doesn't work, then, Tony?

The signs, the wording of which is yet to be finalised, will warn drivers to look out for people crossing the road. They are expected to be in place within the next few weeks.

And what about that other 'shared area', the one in front of the Southend Victoria train station? Will that also get signs?

However Tony Cox, the Tory councillor responsible for transport, insisted the move was certainly not a U-turn.

Why, no! Perish the thought!

He said: “We have never said we will not introduce signs.

“Now we have listened to what people have said and taken this step.”

No, you've been forced into it by the stunning lack of success of your mad scheme. How's that knee, Tony? Jerking quite nicely now, isn't it?

Private BAD! Public GOOD!

Owen Hatherley (author of Militant Modernism; A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain) on the awful ‘class cleaning’ of council housing estates:

Park Hill's status has changed gradually from a source of intense municipal socialist pride to dilapidated sink estate.

Thus perish all socialist dreams…

It is commonly described as the "largest listed building in Europe" and the largest listed brutalist or 60s building. In fact it's none of those things, with all those titles being taken by London's Barbican estate: a place that, like Park Hill, is full of bare concrete, open space, urban density, walkways, social facilities (both contain several schools and pubs, although only one an arts centre) and the separation of pedestrian and car. One is a problem that apparently had to be solved; the other one of London's most prestigious addresses. Why?

I suppose the answer couldn’t be because….one’s in London, could it?

The obvious reason is that one is council housing and the other, from the very start, was built as private housing.

Which makes you think that maybe it isn’t the building design, as such, but the building’s inhabitants…

Accordingly, the Barbican has always been cleaned and cared for; Park Hill has been left to rot.

Because if the state owns your housing, you’ve no interest in keeping it clean and tidy – someone else can pay, innit?

It wasn’t always like this.

Many a council house in the 50s and 60s would have been kept scrupulously clean not by the council, but by the matriarch of the family and her young daughters. Woe betide anyone who didn’t, back in the days when scorn and shame were powerful motivators.

It’s only the increasing pernicious effects of years and years of depending on others and of the ‘anything goes!’ culture that has sapped that, and so produced the slums we see today.

Ed Miliband's cheering on of Thatcher's right-to-buy policy in his conference speech yesterday and his notion that council housing should be for the "deserving" poor are depressingly redolent of the era that let this happen ….

Because giving free stuff to the undeserving poor has worked so well for us, eh, Owen?

Just A Load Of Balls…

Southend Council has introduced two rows of balls on Marine Parade to define where the road starts and the pavement ends.

However barman Stuart Lloyd, 30, of Hainault Avenue, Westcliff, is not impressed.

He said: “They just don’t blend in with the rest of the colours of the stone work that’s used here and there’s no clear indication what they are for. The black doesn’t match anything else in the area. They really are an eyesore.”

As the commenters point out, that's actually the point. If they didn't stand out, you'd end up with a situation where the council would need to find other ways to make them stand out.

And yes, we've been here before...

Jill-Allen-King, 71, the secretary of the Southend branch of the Federation of the Blind, added: “I regularly go on holiday to Majorca and they had similar things there, which they eventually removed because people kept tripping over them. To make it less dangerous, the council needs to bring the kerbs back so people know where the pavement ends and the road begins.”

The council? Admit to a mistake? Never!

However the council is convinced the modern feature will reduce accidents by making pedestrians and motorists more aware of their surroundings.

The pedestrians and motorists that are - respectively - listening to their iPods or fiddling with their mobile phones and consulting their sat-navs..?

Tony Cox, councillor responsible for transport, said: “After the scheme was introduced, we ensured it would be monitored and some form of demarcation was suggested.

“It was thought it would be an added enhanced feature to a scheme which has proved very popular.

“I do not make decisions which are panic measures. I said all along the scheme would need time to bed in.”

Of course you don't make panic decisions, Tony. Perish the thought!

Pictured: Not panic measures. Honestly...

Yellow Non-Peril

Well, the Southend Regeneration at Victoria Circus is living up to the pessimistic guesses of the locals.

The flow of traffic is notably not lessened or smoothed by the removal of the roundabout, and the original architect's plan for a sweeping expanse of smooth paving has rubbed up against the hard reality that 'shared space' (where cars, buses and pedestrians are not separated by clear divisions such as roads and pavements) in a tourist town is a bit of a bad idea.

So the council's solution is....well, see for yourself:

"Well, that wasn't on the artist's impression, Quentin!"

Yup, in order to ensure that visiting tourists (and the drunks, druggies and dropouts that flock to Southend in good weather) don't walk under a bus or taxi, because they aren't expecting those giant bollards and slight change in paving colour to be the demarcation of the road, the council has seen fit to plaster the area with yellow 'Warning!' notices.

Looks lovely, doesn't it?

Do they?

And see the little man in the hi-vis jacket? Yup, you guessed it. He and his fellows (I counted two others when I took the snaps) are there to guide the people away from danger (by shouting 'OI!' at top volume to any hapless pedestrian about to disappear under a bus).

How long will they be there? Who knows - how long will the 'shared space' idea be a danger to seasonal visitors?

So, it's been a nice little job creation scheme for the council. And not much else.

An Intriguing Idea?

Underground stations lost beneath London's streets could be opened up again in an initiative designed to give them fresh life as concert venues, bars and tourist attractions.

Interesting!

Negotiations to put together the finance needed to refurbish the first of 26 disused stations are under way and have been given the blessing of the Mayor of London Boris Johnson – with the condition that not a penny of public money is spent.

Even better.

Though of course, they’ve still to get over the smoking ban, which is what is killing a great many existing pubs and bars, though as Dick Puddlecote's post shows, the brewery bosses are reluctant to admit it...

Ajit Chambers, the entrepreneur behind the scheme, believes the hidden stations and tunnel networks can be revitalised by allowing a range of businesses to move into them. Some would make use of the heritage value of such sites while others would simply make use of the unusual space.

In London, this is likely to prove quite a draw.

However, Transport for London, offered a note of caution: "The majority of disused stations have not been used for many years and nearly all are next to the operational railway, which would present a significant safety challenge.

"We have had extensive correspondence and previous meetings with Mr Chambers and he is aware of the impracticalities of his proposals."

At least he’s prepared to put his money where his mouth is…

And Where Do You Live, Owen?

Owen Hatherley (author of ‘Militant Modernism’ and ‘A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain’) has a CiF column to whinge about the demolition of an ugly inner-city estate ghastly effect of modern progress:

On a superficial level, the Heygate estate is not lovely. A series of exceptionally long blocks of flats in Elephant and Castle, south London, the facade is bare concrete on one side, with long strips of frosted glass on the outside walkways on the other.

Sounds dreadful!

There's none of the imaginative, irregular detailing you'd find at the similarly endangered Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar, none of the dramatic multi-level futurism of Erno Goldfinger's work just opposite (Alexander Fleming House, now the Metro Central Heights luxury flat complex). Going past it on the number 188 bus, it's imposing, blank and massive.

Mmmm, yeah, you really aren’t selling it to me!

And looking at the Wiki entry for it, I doubt you’ll be able to sell it to anyone else...

So why is it that residents of the estate are defending it against a regeneration scheme?

Good question. Why do you think?

One answer might involve you getting off the bus and walking around the estate. Behind that long wall of concrete and glass is one of the greenest residential open spaces in central London, an oasis of quiet, trees and birdsong just yards from Elephant and Castle's two infernal roundabouts. The sound artist Will Montgomery used this space as material for an audio-visual project, where the surprising verdancy of the place was contrasted with images of the softening and weathering that nature has wreaked on the estate. World Communal Heritage, an international activist group from Serbia, has listed the Heygate's greenery as a perfect example of the free, open and public spaces absent in town planning since the 1980s.

Oh, my!

Who could go against the evident wishes of a Serbian activist group, and knock down this monstrosity earthly paradise?

Capitalists, perhaps? Yup:

That sort of optimism is hard to find on the estate itself, with most residents "decanted", as the grotesque euphemistic phrase for "eviction" now has it, with those left offered derisory sums for large, Parker-Morris flats in the centre of London. Rather than glumly accepting their fate, residents are angry. As one resident put it: "That community has been decimated. It was so callous and I'm truly disgusted."

I’m pretty disgusted every time I see the word ‘decimated’ misused…

Examples are all around of the miserable, yet grinning regeneration tat that awaits. Across the road from the Heygate is a nasty block clad in Trespa, a thin, tinny material used to make concrete frames enclosing tiny flats look bright and shiny; nearby is Strata, a flashy tower with three non-functional wind turbines at the top, aimed squarely at the luxury market.

The luxury market that has been sold the concept of wind turbines as the magic bullet by…?

Ooooh, could it be ‘Guardian’ writers?

The Heygate, harsh as it may seem, treats its residents as adults and serves a much-needed social function: keeping low-income families in the centre of London.

And just why is that considered a good thing?

We’ll never know. Just as we’ll never know where Owen lives. But like others who enthuse about architecture, bet it isn’t on the Heygate!

I’m Not Too Bothered About Those Dreaded ‘Police Cuts’…

…when it seems they have the manpower and time – not to mention the desire - to play ‘SimTown’:

Police have launched a scathing attack on multi-million-pound plans for York’s Nestlé South site, saying they would lead to a surge in crime.

And this is the business of the police? Seriously?

The confectionery giant wants to redevelop some of its old factory buildings, to create homes, offices, shops, student accommodation, a community centre and a gym.

But North Yorkshire Police say Nestlé’s plans do not include enough anti-crime measures and the force has now called on City of York Council to refuse planning permission.

Here’s a clear case of the police wildly overstepping their bounds.

Incredibly enough, it’s actually a defined role:

Jim Shanks, the force’s architectural liaison officer…

The what..?!?

Once more, for the disbelieving:

Jim Shanks, the force’s architectural liaison officer…

Wow, it’s hard to see how that one hasn’t yet been dramatised for prime-time, isn’t it?

I can see it now:

'Tonight, on ITV4, our brand new drama series, starring James Nesbitt: ‘Brannigan: Architectural Liaison Officer.' He’s tough, but compassionate, and with his grasp of 21st century crime-fighting regulations, he keeps our building sites and streets safe...'

…said Nestlé had failed to work with police to make sure the site was safe, and raised a number of “serious concerns” about the plans.

I expect it came as a bit of a surprise to Nestlé that this was something that was their responsibility…

So, what glaring, specialised issues did the ALO raise, then?

There were too many footpaths and through roads, which could give alternative escape routes for criminals

Note that: ‘could’. They could also give access for the law-abiding, who surely even in York are actually in the majority, no?

There were too many open routes on to the Sustrans cycle track, running parallel to Hambleton Terrace, which he said was already a crime hotspot

Once again, what is he suggesting here? That planners shouldn’t design too many routes to a place? They should cut down or limit access so as to make things easier for the cops?

Car parks were too near the cycle track and would encourage car crime

So we shouldn’t have car parks? We should put them further away from the cycle track?

The play area was too near housing and would fuel antisocial behaviour

It should be further away? So that the people who want to use it – residents, that is – have to walk even further with their children?

The cycle stores were not secure enough.

What do you suggest, oh wise ALO? Pod-mounted mini-guns?

I mean, I’m all for intelligent design to restrict opportunities for crime, but not at the expense of making things more difficult for law-abiding people.

A Nestlé spokesman said: “We have consulted extremely closely with City of York Council throughout and the current application is based on the planning brief, which was approved by the planning committee.

“We will continue to work closely with the planning department to agree any amendments which will be necessary to enable to application to move forward to committee.”

Translation: ‘Oh, god, not again…’

It does make me wonder just what other bizarre job roles lurk undiscovered within police rosters, though.

Modern Architecture

A month or so back, a post over at 'Counting Cats..' had me thinking about just how awful a lot of modern housebuilding really was, particularly when, on a recent visit to Barking Town Hall, this monstrosity directly opposite caught my eye:


I mean, what was the architect thinking..?


It must be catching too, because the scaffolding came down from a new development in Southend on Sea a few weeks ago, and oh, the horror, the horror:



Well, Lynsey Hanley had an article in ‘CiF regarding modern architecture :

The level of public esteem accorded to both tower blocks and politicians is, for the moment, about equal. They fester alongside charity muggers and Ryanair in what David Bowie, in the 1986 film Labyrinth, termed "the bog of eternal stench". So what would you say if you knew that the next generation of soon-to-be-loathed and unfit-for-purpose housing was being thrown up under the government's watch?

I’d say ‘I’m not a bit surprised’…

The Kickstart "housing delivery" programme, through which £400m of public money will be administered to stalled and truncated new housebuilding schemes by the Homes & Communities Agency, has been given a kicking in recent weeks by parties including the influential Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the government's adviser on building quality.

It seems they aren't happy with the building picked out for this scheme, and if they are anything like the day-glo erections above, I'm not entirely surprised...

Under the first round of the programme, many schemes have been revealed as failing most of Cabe's Building for Life criteria. New developments are given ratings out of 20 according to the quality of design, surroundings, environmental credentials and likelihood of creating a sense of community. Some have scored as little as 1.5, with many others achieving 10 or less.

I wonder what those two would score?

In effect, the government is pushing through inadequate housing schemes in order to meet its target of having built 3m new homes before 2020. Disenchanted professionals have taken to calling the programme "Building Slums for the Future" in a nod to the government's other patchy mass construction scheme, Building Schools for the Future.

It seems that not everyone is willing to bite the hand that feeds them, though:

Yet they're not getting the support they hoped for among other design champions. Even David Birkbeck, the chief executive of Design for Homes, an independent body, has called Kickstart "a Marshall Plan for the devastated housebuilding sector. You don't just give emergency aid to the best dressed. The HCA is right to withhold support from only the very worst".

Which didn't sit too well with Lynsey, who had obviously seen even worse buildings than these two:

Really? There's already plenty of appallingly unattractive and family-unfriendly new housing that's been completed during the recession without the aid of Kickstart. My favourite of these must be a high-rise orange space crumpet named The Old Bus Depot, squashed into the junction of two busy A-roads near the M6 at Lancaster. Solely comprising one- and two-bedroom flats, its balconies enjoy uninterrupted views of a PC World superstore and the bit where the A683 splits off from the A6.

Now, it's fairly obvious that little can be done about the vista outside the window. But the design of the building itself? That's totally in the hands of the architects, isn't it?

I mean, who in their right mind would look at the two schemes above with pride, and say 'I live there!'..? Where does it come from, this desire to recreate on a giant scale the things you built with Lego as a kid?

And does anyone really believe that, in years to come, this period will be looked back on in the way that, say, the Georgian period is looked back on?

Update: The scaffolding has come down from the side too, and, oh, my...


Are those dials supposed to be clocks? Or is it not a housing development at all, but a giant oven?

'The Peasants Are Questioning The Wisdom Of Their Betters, M'Lord...'

The creators of such ghastly monstrosities as the Robin Hood Gardens housing estate have got in a strop over the plans to knock the ghastly edifice down:

One of Britain’s most prominent architects, Lord Rogers of Riverside, last night questioned the “authority and objectivity” of the body which makes listing recommendations to the Government.

His criticism of English Heritage came after a campaign by leading architects, seeking heritage status for a rundown east London council estate, was rejected by Margaret Hodge, the Culture Minister.

Ms Hodge took the advice of English Heritage before concluding that Robin Hood Gardens was “not fit for purpose”. The estate now faces demolition.

Well, well, will wonders never cease? Margaret Hodge listening to residents for once.

Number of architects living at Robin Hood Gardens…? Zero. Nevertheless:

Lord Rogers said in a statement tonight: “All the British winners of the Pritzker Prize, the highest international award for an architect, agree that Robin Hood Gardens is one of the greatest modern buildings in the UK.

“There is not one internationally recognised modern architect or academic included in making English Heritage’s recommendation on Robin Hood Gardens to the minister.

We should, therefore, deeply question the authority and objectivity of English Heritage in discussing contemporary architecture of this quality.”

What do the residents think?

English Heritage had recommended that the building should not be listed and a survey revealed that 80 per cent of residents wanted to be rehoused by the council while the structure was demolished and replaced with new apartments.

Well, Lord Rogers, if you like it so much, you live there…