I was invited by the Guardian's architecture and design critic Olly Wainwright to speak in the last of a series of talks at Central Saint Martins discussing beauty and the built environment, prompted by the government's 'Building Better, Building Beautiful' commission.
Also on the panel were one of the authors of the report, Nicholas Boys Smith, prolific artist and broadcaster Grayson Perry, excellent architect Amin Haha and Deirdra Armsby, Director of Planning at City of Westminster. We had been asked to speak for 5 minutes, Boys Smith spoke for 12.
Does beauty have a place in the planning system?
I argued no (at 21 min 30s in in vid below). Beauty is the wrong metric for determining architecture because buildings do more for us than satisfy an aesthetic need (which is all the commission was referring to in its application of the term 'beauty'). Good architecture is more likely to result from a rigorous design process than a fixation over appearance.
We had a good debate at the end (from 54min30s) satisfyingly, I got to have the last word (1hr47mins46s).
To the question of a purge of planning regulations: 'be careful what you wish for'.
26.11.18
12.9.18
5.3.18
Recordings
2018 has been busy
The year thus far has involved pulling my research trip to New York, Toyko and Hong Kong into community driven public space, into some demonstrable outputs, primarily:
- a book summarising my main findings and recommendations,
- an exhibition, displaying my recordings from those three cities - especially the sounds I had captured - but more than anything to offer up my way of looking at and understanding places.
And to really give weight to the 'dead' part of 'deadline' the book launch and exhibition opening were the same night.
Well, somehow I did it.
I think the collection of drawings, maps, and diaries worked well together, but by far the biggest achievement of the exhibition was the sound sculptures I designed in collaboration with Jonathan Munro that were lovingly brought to life by Gareth Goodison.
I had bought my entry level sound recorder about five days before my trip the previous July, without much idea of how to use it. It was easy enough as it turned out.
And so I sat still for three minutes at a time in public spaces to make my recordings.
But what would I do with them?
I wanted to be able to display sounds somehow on my return, and really display them, not just play them out of headphones dangling from a wall. Unlikely the first person to struggle with the problem of how to make sound visually interesting, without going down the soundwave visioning route that is. Not that I know how to do that. In fact I didnt really know anything about the pragmatics of making sound sculptures. But it didnt stop me from making sketches about how I thought it could work while I was away.
And when I returned, these sketches formed a starting point for discussion with Jonathan and Gareth, they lead to other sketches...
and then a prototype...
In the end, three sculptures - one for each city - with each one playing five sounds simultaneously and on a loop. A continuous soundscape of the city's public spaces. Each sound had its own speaker, and mounted above the speaker, copper tubes inviting the passerby to have a closer listen.
The idea worked in theory only until the night before the exhibition opening when Gareth delivered them to the exhibition space.
And then, thank goodness, they worked for real too.
The year thus far has involved pulling my research trip to New York, Toyko and Hong Kong into community driven public space, into some demonstrable outputs, primarily:
- a book summarising my main findings and recommendations,
- an exhibition, displaying my recordings from those three cities - especially the sounds I had captured - but more than anything to offer up my way of looking at and understanding places.
And to really give weight to the 'dead' part of 'deadline' the book launch and exhibition opening were the same night.
Well, somehow I did it.
I think the collection of drawings, maps, and diaries worked well together, but by far the biggest achievement of the exhibition was the sound sculptures I designed in collaboration with Jonathan Munro that were lovingly brought to life by Gareth Goodison.
I had bought my entry level sound recorder about five days before my trip the previous July, without much idea of how to use it. It was easy enough as it turned out.
And so I sat still for three minutes at a time in public spaces to make my recordings.
But what would I do with them?
I wanted to be able to display sounds somehow on my return, and really display them, not just play them out of headphones dangling from a wall. Unlikely the first person to struggle with the problem of how to make sound visually interesting, without going down the soundwave visioning route that is. Not that I know how to do that. In fact I didnt really know anything about the pragmatics of making sound sculptures. But it didnt stop me from making sketches about how I thought it could work while I was away.
And when I returned, these sketches formed a starting point for discussion with Jonathan and Gareth, they lead to other sketches...
and then a prototype...
In the end, three sculptures - one for each city - with each one playing five sounds simultaneously and on a loop. A continuous soundscape of the city's public spaces. Each sound had its own speaker, and mounted above the speaker, copper tubes inviting the passerby to have a closer listen.
The idea worked in theory only until the night before the exhibition opening when Gareth delivered them to the exhibition space.
And then, thank goodness, they worked for real too.
20.1.18
The Mayor's Public Space Charter
I was pretty stoked to be invited to pitch an idea alongside nine other speakers for the Mayor's forthcoming Public Space Charter at an event organised by Architecture Foundation.
12.1.18
The Everyday
I was recently asked to give a short presentation titled:
The stair in Homerton Library lends a legibility and a human scale to the interior that mirrors that of the building itself in relation to Homerton High Street.
The stair begins just inside the entrance, at a point between the foyer and the library proper. At the top of the stair: to the right a narrow gallery overlooking the void, to the left an expansive room filled with evenly spaced small square desks.
In that room are whiskery men reading newspapers, an elderly lady with piles of paperwork, teenagers working on coursework and assorted millennial and gen x freelancers. I prefer the desk in the back corner overlooking the street.
The winding stair is held between two heavy breezeblock walls but the grip is given lightness by a fine shadow gap that runs around. It is given breathing space by the end wall that is mostly – but not entirely – glazed. That wall offers a view of the sky as you walk up and a view of the busy pavement as you walk down. It is a connection to the High Street, on that stair you are pleasantly sequestered, but not bluntly cut off from the world.
On bright days, southern light forms brilliant trapezoid shapes on the vivid pink wall – a sassy touch that painted pink wall.
The stair’s broad, shallow treads invite a leisurely pace. They are complimented by a slender hovering hardwood banister that has a richness and an agreeable smoothness.
I always take my time on that stair.
A Good Piece Of Everyday Design From A Place I Know Well
The stair in Homerton Library lends a legibility and a human scale to the interior that mirrors that of the building itself in relation to Homerton High Street.
The stair begins just inside the entrance, at a point between the foyer and the library proper. At the top of the stair: to the right a narrow gallery overlooking the void, to the left an expansive room filled with evenly spaced small square desks.
In that room are whiskery men reading newspapers, an elderly lady with piles of paperwork, teenagers working on coursework and assorted millennial and gen x freelancers. I prefer the desk in the back corner overlooking the street.
The winding stair is held between two heavy breezeblock walls but the grip is given lightness by a fine shadow gap that runs around. It is given breathing space by the end wall that is mostly – but not entirely – glazed. That wall offers a view of the sky as you walk up and a view of the busy pavement as you walk down. It is a connection to the High Street, on that stair you are pleasantly sequestered, but not bluntly cut off from the world.
On bright days, southern light forms brilliant trapezoid shapes on the vivid pink wall – a sassy touch that painted pink wall.
The stair’s broad, shallow treads invite a leisurely pace. They are complimented by a slender hovering hardwood banister that has a richness and an agreeable smoothness.
I always take my time on that stair.
17.11.17
Reverse Commute
I’m sure it used to be the case that people would travel into the city to their places of work. It was briefly the case for me and my last job in commercial practice when I used to travel towards Euston via the Victoria line - the public transit interface / lifeline to all of Hackney as well as all those who stepped on the property ladder further north east - packed by the time I would meet it at Highbury and Islington where the long orange threads of the overground are plaited together and forced underground. The absolute drudgery of the journey was slightly tempered by the fact I’d always managed previously (bar one job in West London, like stepping daily into a alternative London entirely and an experience not to be repeated) to have jobs within walking or fair-weather cycling distance of my home.
I happily gave all that up a year ago when I stopped working in practice; between then and now (besides my university jobs) I have variously worked at home, at other people’s homes, and at the local library, each with increasing inefficiency. I’ve never had a studio but I recently reached a natural state of understanding why people get them for working on their own shit. It’s not just about space. It’s not just about seeing other people and it’s also not just about unlimited wifi or not wanting to have the heating on at home during the day. It’s all of those and a bit more. It might be that paying for space makes you more motivated to use it. Well it is partly that, but also that the brain, my brain needs a clearly designated Place of Work...
So here I am in a studio at the other end of the Victoria line out in Tottenham, joining a group of fellow architects also trying to ‘make it’ on their own terms. The other thing that unites us is that we all travel further out from Hackney, Homerton, Archway and Green Lanes where we live, to get here, our place of work. I locate the studio on my old Premier Map of London, it is just within the frame of the survey, a few roads (or short car ride) away from being cut off entirely.
I don’t know this part of London well though it has a familiar city fringe feel...larger supermarkets, bigger roads, bigger terraces all with parking out front, cars cars cars signalling the suburbs beyond. My studio is in a warehouse (natch), actually more like a collection of warehouses, and not just shells of another use and time since there remains an abundance of noisy, smelly light industry here butted up against rows of terraces.
I needed to supplement my meagre packed lunch, in lieu of a corner shop I took a walk to the local Lidl nestled in a retail park. Such places are simply not designed to be approached by foot; active frontage or enticing shop window forget about it and there actually isn’t a logical footpath from pavement to shop, instead I picked my way across a vast and crowded car park to reach the sliding front doors. There were more shops within the forecourt than I’d expected; I hadn’t seen any signs before entering, but then any advertisements wouldn’t have been for me on foot but for those on wheels.
Around 40 years ago, these parts of the city were the logical place to stick single-storey, single-use shopping containers, their forms have a kind of relationship with the neighbouring industrial sheds, I suppose, but arranged around slack forecourts designated for the car, not the body and certainly not the eye, these enclaves suck the urban-ness right out of a zone that is hinter-, not actual, suburbia.
So I travel away from the centre of London to work and the city spreads outwards too, of course, but increasingly with intent and not in the manner of sprawl which implies a kind of thinning of the quality of city. I am still in London, I don't travel to a desk in the suburbs. With me, and this phase of expansion, a mix of use, activity and scale will also flow outwards, reinforcing the edge, as it were, against the suburbs leaking in.
I happily gave all that up a year ago when I stopped working in practice; between then and now (besides my university jobs) I have variously worked at home, at other people’s homes, and at the local library, each with increasing inefficiency. I’ve never had a studio but I recently reached a natural state of understanding why people get them for working on their own shit. It’s not just about space. It’s not just about seeing other people and it’s also not just about unlimited wifi or not wanting to have the heating on at home during the day. It’s all of those and a bit more. It might be that paying for space makes you more motivated to use it. Well it is partly that, but also that the brain, my brain needs a clearly designated Place of Work...
So here I am in a studio at the other end of the Victoria line out in Tottenham, joining a group of fellow architects also trying to ‘make it’ on their own terms. The other thing that unites us is that we all travel further out from Hackney, Homerton, Archway and Green Lanes where we live, to get here, our place of work. I locate the studio on my old Premier Map of London, it is just within the frame of the survey, a few roads (or short car ride) away from being cut off entirely.
 |
| The studio, at the edge of London |
I don’t know this part of London well though it has a familiar city fringe feel...larger supermarkets, bigger roads, bigger terraces all with parking out front, cars cars cars signalling the suburbs beyond. My studio is in a warehouse (natch), actually more like a collection of warehouses, and not just shells of another use and time since there remains an abundance of noisy, smelly light industry here butted up against rows of terraces.
 |
| Housing up against light industry |
I needed to supplement my meagre packed lunch, in lieu of a corner shop I took a walk to the local Lidl nestled in a retail park. Such places are simply not designed to be approached by foot; active frontage or enticing shop window forget about it and there actually isn’t a logical footpath from pavement to shop, instead I picked my way across a vast and crowded car park to reach the sliding front doors. There were more shops within the forecourt than I’d expected; I hadn’t seen any signs before entering, but then any advertisements wouldn’t have been for me on foot but for those on wheels.
Around 40 years ago, these parts of the city were the logical place to stick single-storey, single-use shopping containers, their forms have a kind of relationship with the neighbouring industrial sheds, I suppose, but arranged around slack forecourts designated for the car, not the body and certainly not the eye, these enclaves suck the urban-ness right out of a zone that is hinter-, not actual, suburbia.
So I travel away from the centre of London to work and the city spreads outwards too, of course, but increasingly with intent and not in the manner of sprawl which implies a kind of thinning of the quality of city. I am still in London, I don't travel to a desk in the suburbs. With me, and this phase of expansion, a mix of use, activity and scale will also flow outwards, reinforcing the edge, as it were, against the suburbs leaking in.
29.10.17
12.10.17
Portraits
My photographic series capturing architectural characters in Homerton is currently being exhibited at Hackney arts venue Chats Palace
9.10.17
Making Places
I spent two months over the summer pounding the streets of New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong with the aim of understanding approaches to community driven public realm.
The idea was to uncover strategies from these dense commercial cities that could be applicable to London, though I returned to capital to discover a similarly aimed initiative taking place under my nose - or at least north-eastwards of my nose - in my neighbouring borough of Waltham Forest.
Under the banner Making Places, and in partnership with arts organisation Create London, the borough asked residents to nominate sites that they felt were unloved and could be transformed through arts projects. From this initial canvassing 20 sites were selected - one in each ward - with designers then invited to submit proposals.
A smart initiative I thought, one that supports improvements in public realm in the places they are really wanted. I hope it's a success because it seems to me the kind of procurement route for community amenities that could be replicated in other boroughs. I visited the sites on a sunny day, they ranged from spaces within large parks to alleys, verges and the side of a building.
Regardless of any physical variance, the projects will be delivered for 40k each, not a huge amount, though it implies a scale and approach that is more local and will naturally draw in younger and perhaps less established designers. Which is another way of saying that I have entered along with fellow public realm enthusiast Beni Rogers. We chose a few sites, and we hope we are successful.
The idea was to uncover strategies from these dense commercial cities that could be applicable to London, though I returned to capital to discover a similarly aimed initiative taking place under my nose - or at least north-eastwards of my nose - in my neighbouring borough of Waltham Forest.
Under the banner Making Places, and in partnership with arts organisation Create London, the borough asked residents to nominate sites that they felt were unloved and could be transformed through arts projects. From this initial canvassing 20 sites were selected - one in each ward - with designers then invited to submit proposals.
A smart initiative I thought, one that supports improvements in public realm in the places they are really wanted. I hope it's a success because it seems to me the kind of procurement route for community amenities that could be replicated in other boroughs. I visited the sites on a sunny day, they ranged from spaces within large parks to alleys, verges and the side of a building.
Regardless of any physical variance, the projects will be delivered for 40k each, not a huge amount, though it implies a scale and approach that is more local and will naturally draw in younger and perhaps less established designers. Which is another way of saying that I have entered along with fellow public realm enthusiast Beni Rogers. We chose a few sites, and we hope we are successful.
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| Making Places sites (5 more still TBC) |