bureaucratic liberalism: RIBA in 2010

We are in the age of bureacratic liberalism, and sadly so, the decision makers at the Royal Institute of British Architects are no different. Like most Imperial institutions, they evolved from a middle to upper class gentlemens society, and after the post war British Social revolution have morphed into a bureacratic liberist perveyor. They avoid any opinion neccessary to take action on essential matters - matters that could take the Architectural Profession into a new uptopic land, especially with there presence as a global dominanator; architecturally speaking.

Don't worry people please. For I am not like the majority of Architectural journalists; comparable to football pundits telling us what we already know or at the very least - should know. If I took Ruth Reeds place as President of the RIBA and replaced all her cronies, these are some of the matters I would firmly take foward and address.


Ruth Reed - RIBA President

I know she looks like a shy Maggie Thatcher, but lets not get personal about this. Its bang out of order.

(i) RIBA as political power in the global Architectural Profession.
What attracts certain Architects I wonder to become on the RIBA's board? For me, the system needs rethinking. Most of the current trustees CV's speak for itself, in terms of generic attitude for sitting on the fence and only appearing interested in self professional development. There is a certain breed of architect's that have a brilliant politcial conscience, but naturally these never make it to the trustees boards. We want interesting thinkers in architecture taking the RIBA foward. Being on the board should be alot more appealing, rewarding and acccessible.

Architecture is an immensley powerfull and versatile medium. Its interaction, engagement and involvement to prevoke and stimulate political thought are uncontested. In every political and social movement there is an architecture. From Nazism to the Village green movement there is an architecture. Good architects are usually brilliant thinkers. How can we accomodate it so that these are on the board and making the decisions.

(ii) Branding, image and awareness Urban Salon - exhibiton at the RIBA 1995

Branding is important in any trait. Architecture is a fascinating thing and the RIBA needs to reflect this. If it were rebranded away from a bureaucratic brand, built on the stones of imperialsim surely it would go somewhere new. The aoc, urban salon, FAT, Urban Splash, Free State; all very understanding and fresh private architecture organisations within London, what if the RIBA looked on its own doorstep for inspiration for branding and image? Surely it could go to an exciting place in 21st Century social culture.


(iii) Finance for education and profession support

The worst recession since the war and the profession has never looked so bad. RIBA has let us down. Refusing to comment and act on practices offering positions for less than the minimum wage, tripling the amount of architecture students in some schools, refusing to comment on neglect; enough said. Just where do all the fees go man?

Let the nostalgia begin....

Wow. What an age we grew up in. The following are a pick of my fave theme tunes from TV shows growing up in Huddersfield in the late 80's early 90's. Let the nostalgia begin.

We thought about covering this when I was in a band as a teenager.





Playdays - Look out for the Huddersfield accent in 'but where duz it gohhh?)



The lyrics man, the lyrics......



Loved this



"A spotty man brought him to life with his cosmic dust!"



Classic



Only remember this being on at dinner time (northern for lunch)



Then came the PC influence - race, sexuality, gender and multi cultural issues expressed here



One of my fave's



"Show us your fanny"



And of course..........



Others that could'nt make it: Byker Grove and Newsround (the one that orbital sampled)

Look North & the 21st Century Coronation St

Manchester based property developers Urban Splash are one of the few that I follow with any excitment and reliability. They are risk takers & exceptional chancers yet still understand people and architecture. In the early noughties, they proposed two radical projects. New Islington, Manchester simply did the unthinkable; place making that was socially conscieos, enganging, site specific, innovative and bright. The masterplan was controversial but exciting - Will Alsop doing a block of flats and a 21st Century Coronation St by FAT; then a practice with little built work to its name. Work started on site, then with the initial phases completed the projects were put on hold due to the recession. Then suddenly, from the white cracks on the facades of modernist ideoligians; out came the architectural bearacrats and liberals in critical 'we told you so' voice. However some of us think differently; here's why I think New Islington, Manchester will be a precedent of true place-making for decades to come. The initial masterplan proposed all residential accommodation to be within apartment blocks, with existing residents on the site living in degrading two story post war housing to be relocated. The residents collectivley decided that apartment dwelling wasn't for them, thus asked Urban Splash if they could allocate some two story houses into the masterplan, of which was acted upon with FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) being comissioned to come up with a proposal. I rate this project so highly as its a brilliant demonstration of listening and consulting with clients, but understanding there needs as real people. Architectural 'space' is a subjective illusion that only Architects - highly visually trained, very educated, intellectually orientated people can see. Real people talk about rooms, gardens and corridors etc. FAT visited all the residents houses and got to know them as individuals. Fascinated by how they had modified there interiors to reflect there personality there approach to regenerate the way they live was not based on utopian clean lines and minimalism but to reflect the way these people are. Director of FAT, Sean Griffiths calls the approach "a twenty-first century Coronation Street". The houses are laid out with dominant facades and set backs of which the free space allows room for a garage as any cars parked on the street were likely to be broken into. Generous back gardens face each other down the centre, with a route at the back relfecting 19th century Northen English housing enabling the residents to converse with each othere isntead of shutting each other out as they peg there washing out etc. The back facades were painted colours to the residents preference allowing indivuduallity to be expressed.


For me there are only a handful of practices who can work with clients such as this - FAT, the AOC, dRMM and Urban Salon. So I had every confidence in FAT to produce something of interest.

The front facades are designed like a series of segements, almost stage-set like as they front onto the street. Each one is slightly different and the geometry is inspired by the elaborate interiors of the existing residents homes. Allowance for change is acknoledged, with residents free to add what they want to the fron of there homes - hanging baskets, ornament, curious objects, sky dishes etc.



The design is site specific and responsive and understanding of time, place and user. It has opened opinion up to educate people about new apporaches to consultation, design and place making. I have no doubt that this street in New Islington will be a precedent for decades to come.


Coming soon - CHIPS!

Bonnie & Clyde: love, drugs, danger & psychogeography

A tale of love, drugs, danger & psychogeography. Fictional characters based on real people and events. She is given the name 'Bonnie'. She is 23. He is given the name 'Clyde' and is 24. It is the early stages of the 21st Century.

"Vous avez lu l'histoire, De Jesse James"

Its a rare moment. The location is a coffee shop on Bricklane, East London and Clyde is reading a broadsheet newspaper magazine on a Sunday morning. His world is reminscant of a yoghurt as he is wired after being up all night. He's just refueled as he waits for Bonnie to return from the toilet to do the same on the sly. This state of mind makes the experience of Shoreditch very, very obsucre. They hold hands and stay close to each others bodies as the sense of touch for loved ones is stimulating and enhanced. Bricklane becomes hallucnagenic; people and open market stalls evolve into a varied combination of surreal components, forms of life and objects. Bonnie is the braver one. Her appearence shows that she is innocent. She is beautiful and a sophisticated dresser. She is well travelled, middle class and has a deeper criminal side that her intelligence uses to her advantage. Clyde finds the experience in this state uncomfortable. He is more her assistant in crime as Bonnie leads the way. Clyde regains his confidence as they walk past the Truman Brewery, and the experience, clutter and figures in the city become much more subtle. They go into a vintage clothes shop and Bonnie starts to shoplift the clothes she requires. Suddenly 'Darklands' by the Jesus & Mary Chain starts to play out and Clyde begins to relax - as he usually does when hearing familiar music. He enjoys the experience as the yoghurt feeling starts to seem thicker. He pays the usual compliments to Bonnie as she tries on clothes and subsequently steels them. She goes back inside the changing room to make the kill, and Clyde pays attention to himself in the mirror and gets anxious as his pupils seem massive, like black saucers trying to jump from his eyes; usually a fantastic royal blue but the colour is nowhere to be seen. From his own experience, he knows the euphoria will start pretty soon and is quickly reassured.



Leaving the vintage clothes shop, they walk around the back streets towards a green space near Arnold Circus. The brickwork looks and feels like sponge. Neither can tell what year it is, as beings and people appear to wear what looks like period garments.




They reach the open space, just a stones throw away from Columbia Road, Bethnal Green. They stare at the sky and take photos of each other. Clyde, his perception of colour radically enhanced to notice pigments and detail, is compelled to find just how many different shades of green there are. Bonnie talks about how she changed when she was eighteen years old. They both notice the curious features to the park, not knowing if they are real or not. An hour and a half goes by as they contemplate, embrace and chat in the September sun. The final stage of the experience is approaching. Now the architecture of the minds starts to be retained to a stage where they can walk longer distances that could be easily done in a normal state of mind. Clyde has a much needed cigarrette and then pulls out some chewing gum; an essential neccesity at this stage. They start to make there way back to Bonnie's house.




Now in Bonnies bedroom, Clyde is intruiged by the shear abstraction of objects that Bonnie has in her room and how different they are in this state. The space feels out of scale as he offere Bonnie more chewing gum and they open a can of pop to share. They start to embrace, of which develops and goes on for 2 more hours. Clyde has a ciggarrette out of the window.

And the soundtrack to this day;

Zu Haus

This is my Dad, Franciszek and his fiance Lucy. During the summer of 2009, I took a trip back up North to Manchester to visit friends and then across the M62 to the promise land; Holmfirth to catch up with my family. My Dad came up with a most fantastic idea. We drove around to every house he'd ever lived in and I then took photos. I then comlied them on an A1 sheet, like a diagramatic map of personal history in order, and thus framed it and gave it to him for Christmas. There are some incredible examples of Northern domestic Architecure; weavers cottages etc and post war housing in Huddersfield, all within the gem of the most sensational scenery. The majority are in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire a small town in a valley in the Pennines where I grew up. A truly unique place with a one-off culture lost in time. A mind of its own, very difficult to describe to people here in London. You walk around the place , and amongst forrests, views, liberty caps, working mens clubs and true northern industrial heritage one can not tell what year it is at all. You go in a pub and its the 60's, then up to the park and there's kids on E's with 'Experience' on a geto blaster - is it 1988? then grab a taxi to the hills and you get picked up in an Australian outback landrover; open top, safari seats on the front and a rifle on the back......this experience continues. Anyway, photographs of my dads houses, a visual demonstration of Northern Working class housing from 1700 to present day.


Here's a pick of the best. Freinds of mine on facebook can see all of these + the compilation in my 'photographs of m62 culture' and 'object monument beauty: avante garde northern oxygen' albums

Some unexpected inspiration to us all from the valley of the sun.

Just a quarter of a century ago, Phoenix stood as desert town; lost in the shadow of vegas & merely a motel-stop-off for route 66 cruisers on their way to California. The compelling blossoming of this city was a collaborative mission between a broad scope of professionals, with a unite vision of Phoenix becoming one of America's top 10 urbanities by 2012. Already by 2010, Phoenix has become the fifth largest city in America home to 5million people. A successful combination of intelligent city planning, public spaces and transport, along with relevant and sustainable infrastructure, Phoenix is the worlds first 20 minute city. All this in a hostile desert that has limited rainfall and an average tempreture of 40 degrees its Architecture is engaging, unique, demonstrates quality and is highly sustainably.

With so much jargon and endless statistical obsession with cities; in simple terms here's why I think Phoenix should compell anyone interested in live, precedent inspiration for the 21st Century city.





















The 20 minute City

For a city nearley as populated as central London, and about four times the size; using public transport with a guarantee of getting to ones destination within 20 minutes is an astonoshing bragging right. I grew up in a town which undergone mass post war development with most of its medival street patterns sunk underneath so-called progressive infrastructure and town planning. It has a metropolitan population of 200,000 inhabitants. 20 minute culture here, along with endless towns and cities in England is what it is. A fantastic thing from America.


Looking back to broadacre and the benefits of the grid.


Even looking at a map of the old town from 1885 it looks like it was designed on 20th century US invention: The City Grid. Not true at the first instance. Settelers developed farming infrastructure of which is based on a grid. Centrally placed were the nessities - the church, the bank and the classic cowboy saloon etc. As Phoenix grew in size naturally the farming infrastructre migrated out. What's interesting here is that its original street pattern is a grid, and not the organic, yet sometimes wonderful random revelations of the medival or unplanned urban topology.

























Phoenix - 1885














Phoenix 2010

Wil Bruder, one of the most underrated Architects from across the pond, was in the team for developing the city plan. From viewing the aerial, one can observe the inexaustable expansion of the inner city and organic migration pattern of farming infrastrucutre heading West driven by urban expansion and fertile land towards the West, still retaining its orignal form - the square field grid from pre-industrial America.

Bruder made reference and inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright's visionary proposal 'Broadacre City'. This was a plan for America, essentially dividing the country into a gridded low-denisty system with each square the size of an acre. Each family would have there own acre where they would occupy there own land and grow there own food. Visionary infrastructure, Flying Architectures, cultural and beauricratic cores linked these grids together and as such a new America. Stripped down, essentially, how Phoenix operates is a product of broadacres inspiration.





























Broadacre City

Dwelling

The ingredients of essentially a new-town or city, on a large, low dense grid allows the pioneering of contemporary housing and dwelling forms. Bruder's works are all over the city. His fascination with unorthadox processes, good materiality conscience and the juxtaposition of a relevant contemporary architecture with his native Arizonian vernacular make them a true success.





















Uptown Phoenix triplex's















Suburban Phoenix terraced housing




















Rural, edge of city















Exemplary sustainable and contemporary public Architecture

Finally, trumpet blowing has to given to both the quality and sustainable approach to public architecture. The best example of this being Phoenix library, one of the most sustainable buildings in America in the hostlie environment that is the mid West desert. It isn't hairy, or dressed in BREEAMesque tick box features. Or at least they are not in any way purely visible; its the true architecture that does the talking. Conceputally a reference to the surrounding rocks in the desert that imaculately demomstrates good architecture.







































For more on this, check this class short lecture by Will Bruder out. And on his work on desert living.

Cheers, -t x