A day of FREE advice and inspiration for Londoners looking to extend or refurbish their homes – Saturday 25 February 2012 - 13/2/2012

NLA – London’s centre for the built environment – will be holding a day of free home improvement events on Saturday 25 February at The Building Centre WC1, giving advice and inspiration to Londoners looking to extend their homes.

Architects, interior designers, and style and cost consultants will be on hand to offer free one-to-one consultations; there will be a series of ‘design inspiration’ talks from top London architects and interior designers; an exhibition of the capital’s best new home extensions and refurbishments; special promotions and more!

The free one-to-one consultations are open to anyone looking for advice on their own home extensions – suitable for those who are well underway with a project or those simply wanting advice on where to start. Advice can be given on issues from design, planning and construction; colours, finishes and styles; to cost planning and budgeting.

London architects including Soraya Khan of Theis+Khan (RIBA Stirling Award 2010 nominee), Mary Duggan of Duggan Morris, and Alan Higgs of Alan Higgs Architects will be taking part in a series of ‘design inspiration’ talks, presenting their own experiences of designing and building home extensions in the capital.

The event is the culmination of NLA’s third annual ‘Don’t Move, Improve!’ competition to find London’s best new home and small office extensions or refurbishments. The competition, run this year in association with Elle Decoration, RIBA London, the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID) and BoConcept, sought to find the best-designed and most innovative solutions for creating more space in Londonʼs homes and small offices.

All 72 shortlisted and winning schemes are on display at the NLA galleries at The Building Centre, WC1 until Wednesday 28 March and will be open to view on the day. The projects range from the transformation of a 1930s garage into a family home in Camden to the million-pound refurbishment of an apartment in Belgrave Square, and demonstrate a wide range of solutions for extending Londonʼs typical dwelling types.

All events are free but booking is highly recommended - click here to book. 

Westminster – on location - 9/2/2012

Westminster is determined to underpin its long-term future with high quality design, but faces challenges as they relate to planning changes at the neighbourhood level.

Those were some of the key points made at the NLA’s On Location event held at Millbank Tower last week, where keynote speaker Cllr Robert Davis said it was vital to keep guard against ‘tick box architecture’. Davis said that the authority received a record 12,000 planning applications last year, but that there was room for both traditional and modern architecture, warning against too many glass-fronted buildings with ‘statutory’ brises soleils. Planning chief Rosemarie MacQueen said Westminster wants to build ‘a globally attractive environment’, but without losing the borough’s DNA, whilst dealing with a population up 23 per cent since 2001. But the forthcoming National Planning Policy Framework and localism changes had thrown up all sorts of questions, not least about what exactly constitutes a neighbourhood for the proposed forums, and the ‘acceptable returns’ arising from the sustainable developments the NPPF favours. Currently, said MacQueen, there are no parish councils in London, but when they realise the local financial benefits available from development, ‘watch this space’. Another issue was that neighbourhood plans may not comprehensively cover the city, an ‘interesting debate’ about which lies in prospect.

Director of surface planning at Transport for London Ben Plowden outlined the transport improvements affecting the borough, including the now well recognised mass public transport mode of cycling, the upgrading of the tube network, and Crossrail, with its important associated public realm improvements. Victoria underground station, which deals with 80 million passengers a year is to get an upgrade to enable it to cope with a fifth more, which will be crucial to help feed the string of developments Land Securities’ Colette O’Shea outlined from her firm in the area. Beyond the successful, already built Cardinal House project these include Wellington House by John McAslan, 62 Buckingham Gate by Cesar Pelli and other major schemes by architects including Wilkinson Eyre, PLP, Lynch Architects, and Benson and Forsyth. Victoria is the powerhouse of London, said O’Shea, home to Government, royalty, and much else besides. ‘It’s all there; it just needs unlocking’, she said.

Other issues raised at the conference included the importance of BIDs to unlocking the potential of the Baker Street area, the long term stewardship of areas as is being facilitated by the Crown Estate at St James’, mirroring its success with Regent Street, housing, and the importance of the public realm to Westminster’s continued success, as detailed by Publica’s Lucy Musgrave. ‘The ground plane is for the city’, she said, ‘It’s for the citizens.’    

David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly

The event was in association with the City of Westminster and sponsored by Berwin Leighton Paisner

For more images, please click here

Londonʼs best new home extensions and small offices revealed - 3/2/2012

A larch-clad extension to a Victorian terraced house in Wandsworth, a suburban garden studio In Enfield and a converted container at Hackney City Farm have been announced overall winners of NLAʼs third annual ʻDonʼt Move, Improve!ʼ competition to find Londonʼs best new home and office extensions.

The competition, run this year in association with Elle Decoration, RIBA London, the British Institute of Interior Design and BoConcept, seeks to find the best-designed and most innovative solutions for creating more space in Londonʼs homes and small offices, showing how sensitively designed extensions can be positive additions to the townscape.

This yearʼs winners were selected by an eminent jury from a shortlist of 72 schemes, all of which are on display at the NLA galleries at The Building Centre, WC1 until Wednesday 28 March.

The projects range from the transformation of a 1930s garage into a family home in Camden to the millionpound refurbishment of an apartment in Belgrave Square, and demonstrate a wide range of solutions for extending Londonʼs typical dwelling types. Each will provide inspiration for homeowners and small businesses looking to create more space in their homes and offices at a variety of budgets.

The jury selected two winners in the Home Extension or Refurbishment Category. Dove House is a striking monochrome extension to a family home in Wandsworth designed by Gundry & Ducker Architects. Clad in black-stained larch and incorporating a miniature version of the extension in the garden as a childrenʼs playhouse, it was described by the judges as “extremely playful and original but respectful at the same time”.

Surburbanstudio by Ashton Porter Architects amalgamated the refurbishment of a conventional Victorian suburban home in Enfield with a new single storey home office at the bottom of the garden, transforming the garden in the process. The project was achieved without the need for planning permission and was felt by the judges to be “an incredibly clever response to working at home, enjoyable to use and rich in lovely ideas”.

Magnificent Container by Carl Turner Architects was named winner of the Small Office Extension or Refurbishment category. This £7,000 low-cost, low-carbon project space for not-for-profit organisation Magnificent Revolution, was made by recycling a shipping container and palettes, and was praised by the judges for “its imaginative use of found objects”. 

Peter Murray, Chairman of the jury, commented: “This yearʼs Donʼt Move, Improve! winners and shortlist illustrate the benefits of well-designed home extensions and promote the involvement of architects in the process. In these difficult economic times, renewal and refurbishment play an increasingly important part in the renewal of the city. Too many small buildings are erected without a designer; the projects on display here demonstrate a heartening range of solutions to create more space at a variety of budgets.”

A number of commendations and a runner-up were also awarded. The Jewel Box by Fraher Architects was named runner-up in the Home Extension or Refurbishment category. The timber and concrete extension conceived as a series of jewelled boxes were praised as “beautiful”by the judges. Cornerstone by Threefold Architects was commended in the same category as “a fabulous urban intervention on a fantastic site”, a new glass box seamlessly extended the living space of a brick end of terrace building to create living space above a gallery and office in Whitechapel. Highly commended in the Small Office Extension or Refurbishment category was Belsize Garage Studio by Sanya Polescuk Architects, a Victorian coach and horses stables stripped of its later domestic additions and returned to a working environment of a new kind.

In an additional category introduced this year in association with the British Institute of Interior Design to recognise the best interior design project, The Brunswick Centre Apartment by Space Group Architects was awarded a commendation. The project was deemed "sympathetic to the original yet unashamedly contemporary".

Student residential accommodation – bucking the trend? - 26/1/2012

London has a keen and growing appetite for student accommodation, especially for schemes which are integrated into their community. But the background is one of a growing public hostility to projects and a tightening planning scenario.

Speakers and delegates at a special half-day conference held at the NLA last week and involving architects, planners, property consultants and providers, made these broad conclusions.

Keynote speaker Chris Baldwin, Head of Student Residential at Drivers Jonas Deloitte, said there are around 280,000 full-time HE students across 40 London universities – an increase of some 6 per cent since last year. There are also 99,000 non-UK full and part-time students and 75,000 full time post-graduate students. But there are only around 56,700 purpose-built bed spaces in central London, albeit an increase of 8,000 since DJ Deloitte began compiling surveys in 2008-9. The majority of development is in Zones 1 and 2 – ‘we expect, maybe not next year but the year after to see a significant increase in Zones 3 and beyond’, said Baldwin. But the key issue is a large gap between supply and demand, with an average of 5.25 students per bedspace, compared to a UK average of 3.3 students per bedspace (excluding London).

Camden, Islington, Southwark and Tower Hamlets are the hotspots for student residential accommodation, and the London Plan indicates demand for between anywhere from 1,400 to 2,700 extra bedspaces per year. Richard Simpson, Managing Director, Property, UNITE said there is no one-size fits all for this kind of accommodation, however, but London is ‘by far and away the top city in the world’ with ‘a lot of demand for renting accommodation in London’. Planning is ‘a barrier to entry’, however. Alison Squires, Planning Policy Team Leader, LB Southwark said the challenge is in balancing the student accommodation needs against those of conventional housing, especially affordable, in an area of high need. ‘One of the biggest issues that comes up is that so often with student housing they are not creating communities’, she added. Residents also often object to planning applications for student accommodation. Barney Stringer, Director of Quod agreed, pointing to research his firm has conducted which revealed that although there is general recognition of the benefits of having many students in London, very few residents want them in their back yard. ‘What are we all so afraid of?’ asked Stringer. Concerns range from potential anti-social behaviour to an effect on investment, to the ‘Kebabification’ of the high street – the propensity for student digs to spawn high streets full of fast-food joints and damage the image of an area for future investment. ‘The evidence has to be a resounding no to all three of those concerns’, said Stringer.

So, what of the future for the design of student accommodation? For Rob Sargent, director at Stride Treglown, this is an area of some change, with students now coming with different perspectives, having been brought up on shiny new BSF schools, break out areas and iPads, educated in very different ways, with different mindsets. Sargent said universities are updating 1970s and 1980s stock and many are now concentrating on ‘hub’ buildings with centralised facilities, gaining efficiencies of scale in elements like catering. Low energy and sustainable design is an emerging trend, but much of the student of today’s paraphernalia is electronic, using a lot of energy and giving off a good deal of heat. Sargent said Stride Treglown even used Facebook to help design spaces, with students wanting comfort, classic furniture, ‘homeliness’, and the ability to personalize – but definitely not posters of ‘Michael Caine on a bloody motorbike’.

David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly

The event was sponsored by Buro Four and Stride Treglown    

 

Shaping the future of the Queen Elizabeth Park - 20/1/2012

Much of the London Olympics attention thus far has been on the buildings. But a breakfast talk given this morning by some of the designers responsible for the park at the east London site showed that the landscape features will be just as exciting, and a major part of the wider area’s legacy.

Eleanor Fawcett, head of design at the London Olympic Park Legacy Company explained that the park is ‘in the DNA of why the Olympic site was chosen’, and is intended to reach three targets: to build local ownership, attract regional visitors, and promote sport and healthy living. Split into two parts – the north park and the south park, each has different characteristics, with the overall intention to model the popularity and general ambience achieved by places like London’s South Bank. But with both north and south, said Fawcett, the key was to capitalise on this post-industrial part of London, playing with the juxtapositions between the pastoral elements and huge infrastructure, embracing the energy and its ‘unique moments’. ‘It has to feel great on a wet Tuesday afternoon in February, a place where everyone wants to spend time’, she said.

The North Park is the greener, more natural environment, while the South will be a more urban setting, framed by the Olympic stadium, Aquatics Centre and Olympic concourse. Grace Tang, Associate at James Corner Field Operations – who also worked on Fresh Kills in New York – explained that this southern element will consist of four ‘frameworks’ – the arc promenade, planting ribbon, hedgerow, event rooms and lawns and gardens. The 10m wide arc promenade is a linear place meant for strolling, with kiosks, food markets and parades; the planting ribbon is a flexible space inspired by the English country landscape, with perennials to cypress hedges and hawthorns and grasses; Event Rooms are set up for different scales of events, from a play feature for kids to a large concert; and the lawns and gardens include more passive picnic lawns, perhaps with a sculpted element. It also includes a modest centrepiece park hub building designed by Make Architects.

The North Park, by contrast, explained Jennette Emery-Wallis, Principal, LUC, and Barbara Kaucky & Susanne Tutsch, Directors, Erect Architecture, is based on a masterplan ‘like an unfolding leaf’, with an ecological narrative. Again with another hub at its centre, the park includes play areas, birch woodlands, ‘ephemeral dens’ and hiding places for children, log areas for biodiversity, and sand and water play elements ‘letting children be water engineers’ and a rock landscape.

Balfour Beatty has been appointed to look at maintenance issues, while the use of the waterways at the park is another piece of ongoing work. Fawcett said she hoped that the park hubs would be open the minute the public set foot in the park, with the other elements coming onstream on a rolling basis from 2013 onwards.             

Speakers at the event were:
Eleanor Fawcett, Head of Design, The Legacy Company  
Jennette Emery-Wallis, Principal, LUC  
Barbara Kaucky & Susanne Tutsch, Directors, Erect Architecture    

By David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly

London should ‘pull together’ to weather economic storm - 18/1/2012

London faces stiff challenges in 2012 across most sectors, largely due to the fallout from Europe’s wider economic uncertainties. But the development community can grasp opportunities from the Olympics and pull together to forge innovation, even from limited finance.

Those were the key findings of the latest meeting of the NLA Sounding Board, an elite panel of thinkers and practitioners from the world of architecture, planning and property development.

In his presentation at the event on Tuesday, the LSE’s Tony Travers said that the capital had been paralysed into uncertainty, along with much of the rest of the country, now approaching a double-dip recession. That uncertainty is feeding through into the London economy, although a more optimistic small indicator is that tube and bus ridership is rising, he said.

There is no shortage of equity available, but a paucity of sites available for development, said Stuart Robinson of CBRE, looking at planning in the run up to the publication of the NPPF, expected, he said, in March. The public sector he added, has got rid of people and held onto assets, the big example being hospitals, which could take advantage of development opportunities. Robert Gordon Clark said that the NHS has some 13 sites it wishes to dispose of, of over 0.25 hectares across London – the largest 3.75ha –and 2,000 staff looking after its property interests.  

The current environment is a difficult one for commercial development, said Land Securities’ Colette O’Shea, with banks tightening their lending and the only investment being from abroad dwindling once those investors learn of the vagaries of the UK planning system. ‘I’d go so far as to say there is virtually no cash available for commercial development’, she said. The residential market in central London is good but rate of sale is slowing comparatively to 12 months ago. There needs to be more collaboration between funder, local planning authorities and occupiers, with ‘more of an understanding that we are in a difficult world so all have to pull together to make things happen, drive jobs and the economy.’

The creative industries represent the future of London, said Derwent’s Richard Baldwin. Argent’s Robert Evans agreed, remarking that the opening of Central St Martin’s was changing the type of interest coming in regarding the King’s Cross site. Ralph Ward, presenting a guest paper on regeneration offered one reassuring insight when he said: ‘There is always money to be found somewhere for good projects, and it seems to me there is money to be made in London in the longer term’.

On transport, the recent government decision to green-light High Speed 2 was an encouraging step, although some on the panel questioned why investment in maintenance and upgrading the existing system had not come first, with others signalling their concerns that HS2 might not happen at all. But Old Oak Common represents a significant opportunity to ease the interchange and perhaps become a ‘Canary Wharf 2’, alleviating possible problems of hold-ups for travellers at Euston, a station which will also be the subject of redevelopment. HS2 also offers the possibility of ‘opening up’ areas such as Willesden, North Acton and Hammersmith to social and economic change, said Pat Hayes of Ealing. The Chelsea-Hackney line is another long-term proposal Transport for London wants to see delivered, said Alex Williams, and will be cheaper to build than Crossrail.

Matthew Butters of Pascall + Watson introduced a paper on air travel, saying that Government had showed it had little in the way of aviation policy – excepting the news that PM David Cameron will look at a feasibility study into a new airport – including Boris Island – for the capital.  Government projections have aviation growth rising for the next 30 years. But the problem exists now; coming up with a solution in 15-20 years will be too late – ‘the traffic and the business will have flown away.’

Finally, Sarah Weir offered an upbeat finale with a look at the legacy of the Olympics, plus a plea to make the Olympic Park a zone two rather than zone three destination. The ODA has commissioned a report called ‘square pegs in round holes’ looking at the unprecedented commissioning of pop-up spaces and art projects in an Olympic Park, as is happening in London. ‘Personally’, she said, ‘I think we should keep on putting square pegs in round holes so we don’t have the homogenous space that cannot make the most of itself.’    

David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly

Meeting London’s carbon reduction targets - 16/12/2011

Londoners need to get to grips with using their buildings more efficiently if we are to meet tough carbon reduction targets as laid down in the London Plan.

That was one of the main findings at a special half-day conference on the issue at the NLA, held on 9 December.

The conference heard that simple, commonsense measures employed by commercial building occupiers – such as turning computers off at night, using LED lighting and attending to temperature controls – could make a significant contribution.

The new London Plan has confirmed tough carbon reduction targets for the built environment, as the Mayor looks to achieve a 60 per cent reduction on carbon dioxide levels by 2025 and meet his vision for London as a ‘world leader’ in tackling climate change, reducing pollution, developing a low carbon economy, and making better use of resources.  From 2016, all new residential buildings will be expected to meet zero carbon standards, with all non-domestic buildings following from 2019, while London’s existing building stock will also require significant adaptation and renewal. The development of decentralised energy systems and energy generated from waste, will also be key to decarbonising London’s energy supply.

David Collier, Energy and Sustainability Manager at Broadgate Estates, manages properties across 23 sites, many in London, with close to a £30m annual bill on energy.  ‘It’s far more difficult to retrofit solutions to existing buildings, but one thing we can all do is improve our demand management, especially during peak periods of demand on the national grid’, he said. ‘The general consensus is that energy prices are going to up, so reduce your consumption and you will reduce your exposure to that volatility.’ Collier added that there is also growing evidence to support the correlation between better energy management and staff wellbeing. Anecdotally ‘it certainly provides a nicer, more predictable working environment’.

We can halve the demand ‘by using things less’, double the efficiency of what’s left, and halve the emissions in the energy supply, said Collier. Techniques such as voltage optimisation, energy efficient lighting, such as LEDs to reduce cooling load, using software to regulate out of hours energy consumption and server virtualisation are effective tools in the battle to hit the targets. Common sense disciplines like turning computers off at night and reconsidering running water chillers all day long are also useful measures, along with many more to be found on the Carbon Trust website http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/Pages/Default.aspx. ‘Reducing your demand should always come first’.

Sunil Shah, Head of Sustainability at DPP agreed, saying: ‘While you can have a low carbon building that’s being delivered, one thing that is recognised is the performance gap between an as-built design and an operational building, two years in; it is significantly different. Those measures are up to 250 per cent difference. So you have a massive gap in place, accounted for largely in behavioural issues.’

Celeste Giusti, senior strategic planner at the GLA, said the LDA, now within the GLA, has secured £2.5m of funding from the EU to deliver a decentralised energy programme for London by 2025.  Because of the Mayor’s policies London has seen a four per cent increase in ‘green jobs’, said Giusti, which had helped to bring in over £23bn to the London economy. Other schemes are also bearing fruit. The Re:Fit programme’s main aim is to retrofit 40 per cent of public sector buildings across London – already, savings of £1m a year have been achieved in energy bills from 42 buildings the GLA either owns or occupies. The RE:NEW scheme aims to retrofit 1.2m homes across London by 2015, with 11,000 already completed and a 55,000 target by March 2015. 

David Taylor, editor, New London Quarterly

The event was sponsored by SITA UK

London's Future Office Occupier Requirements - 6/12/2011

The office occupier of the future will require more adaptable, efficient and technologically progressive spaces to get the most out of their assets and lure the best staff.

This was the headline finding from a special conference at the NLA yesterday on London’s future office occupier requirements, sponsored by GVA and chaired by Property Week’s Giles Barrie.

The conference heard that demand for new offices would be driven largely by changing demographics, GVA’s director of occupier services Howard Cooke warning that the UK’s ageing population could give rise to 10 per cent of office space becoming surplus to requirements. Space requirements will be less about cost and more about ‘value for money’, he said, with greater flexibility, more collaborative, ‘hotel-like’ space, and the likely growth sectors being those in technology, media and small business. ‘Work is what you do, not where you go’, he said.

But at the same time, firms such as Price Waterhouse Coopers, where the average age is 28, were showing that younger staff are seeking more in the way of new ways of working, sustainable features, extra facilities, and proximity to bars and restaurants, as well as displaying a notable lack of interest in parking facilities. PwC’s More London building, for example, part of the company’s drive to get 90% efficiency across the group, along with a modern refurbishment of its Embankment Place site, has 260 bike racks to replace car spaces. PwC estate director Paul Harrington said the company was using space more intelligently, with better ratios and creation of more ‘inspiring’ spaces. ‘Open plan used to mean battery farming, squeezing in as many desks as possible. We’re moving now to more free range’, he said. Property is less about the bottom line and more about marketing, recruitment and efficiency.

British Land’s Paul Burgess said that ‘the days of oversupply in central London had gone’, with ‘the most constricted supply side I have ever known.’ But keys to success in providing space in the future will be to do with connectivity, ‘presence with new sensitivities’ as regards green issues, as well as openness and transparency. Structural adaptability so tenants can adjust the base build, was also important, and so that more staff members could feel proud of the place in which they work.

A greater degree of refurbishing older stock might be one way forward, said Wade Scaramucci of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, showing the cost and energy benefits of schemes like the Angel Building. These could result in ‘cleaner, leaner’ buildings, while Cordless Group consulting director Matthew Wailling said that technological advances such as the Cloud will bring efficiencies, firms like Rentokil providing an example in pushing facilities onto the Cloud only for their 25,000 office-based staff. The future will likely bring in more ‘Jelly bean working’ – essentially where people working on documents can see the real time presence of others through colour codes similar to the reds and greens used to show whether someone is online in software such as Skype.

Presenting a series of trends in occupiers as they relate to different sectors, managing partner of KKS Strategy Katrina Kostic Samen agreed that flexible working patterns and new technology will be important drivers in the way forward. There will also be scope for a greater use of natural light, improving infrastructure to cope with growing densities, perhaps more developers offering shared facility as at 20 Fenchurch Street, and serving a growing mobile workforce that works non-traditional hours: ‘It’s not going to be about presenteeism’, said Kostic Samen, ‘but productivity’.

David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly

Water, water everywhere? - 1/12/2011

London may have to resort to building a ‘Bazalgette 2’ system – which would make the Thames Tideway Tunnel ‘look like a Lego kit’ – if it does not attend to pressing water management concerns.

So said Alex Nixon, policy and programmes manager for the GLA at a special breakfast talk on ‘Water drainage, strategies of a modern city’, held at the NLA this morning.

Nixon said the drastic measure of building a new system to cope with London’s sewerage system – which is currently ‘at capacity’ – may only be allayed by extensive greening and other measures, with the Thames Tunnel ‘a necessary evil’ to cope with an enlarged city. ‘Bazalgette built a combined sewerage system for London’, he said. ‘The chances are that, unless we start to take a very long-term perspective on this, we will be forced by regular flooding to building another one that will make the Thames Tideway Tunnel look like a Lego kit.’

Londoners need to be better informed about the need to conserve water, making better connections between water and the environment and even making a better use of waste water as a potential source of clean energy. ‘People do not equate water efficiency with their energy bill’, said Nixon. We also need to look at retrofitting our homes and our businesses, he added, and cannot keep adding to our existing 150-year-old drainage system and expect it to keep performing. The number of homes in London with a water meter – just one in five – also needs to be lifted if behaviour is to be changed. As it is, Londoners use some 167 litres of water per person per day, amounting to 10% above the UK average.

The GLA has compiled a map which shows London’s susceptibility to surface water flooding at some 300 hotspots, a scenario which is worsened by the fact that an area the size of two-and-a-half Hyde Parks are lost by people ‘concreting over’ their gardens, every year. In terms of rainfall, we have also had two 1-in-100-year events in the last decade, plus a couple of one-in-400 year events. ‘It is fairly shocking. We are very, very vulnerable to surface water flooding’, said Nixon.

To address these problems, part of the approach is significantly more urban greening, but also to raise the profile of such issues through three ‘deep green makeovers’ currently being carried out, with work in schools on water management issues aimed at harnessing ‘pester power’ to spread to parents in their homes and workplaces.

AECOM director of sustainability Celeste Morgan said that there are lessons to be learned by the UK from the rest of the world, particularly from Europe and Australia, where Water Sensitive Urban Design (‘a verb, not a noun, and a process, not a product or a feature’) has been successful in making systems which not only work well, but look good too. One scheme in Melbourne, for example, uses a ‘zero water’ approach where no external water supply is used beyond that rainwater which is captured on site, resulting in a 99 per cent security of supply. But in the UK we are ‘still obsessed with flooding, attenuation and end up with big structures’. Schemes tend to be ‘terribly ugly’, whereas projects should be ‘far more about place, and about a great city that looks great’, with more designers and placemakers involved in water management.

A good example of design in this area, however, is being provided at the Olympic Park, said Phil Askew, project sponsor at the Olympic Park Legacy Company. The ponds, waterway treatments and planting it has carried out along the River Lea and across the park site will provide biodiversity and a ‘complicated but incredible site for London’s future.’ 

By David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly

Design review advice must be a material part of planning process, says Design Council Cabe - 28/11/2011

Design Council Cabe is lobbying government hard to get officials to recognise the discipline of design review and have it enshrined as a material planning consideration.

That was one of the key messages from a special session on design review held jointly by the organisation and the NLA on Friday morning. The moves, formulated to support the ‘well designed’ phrase as a condition of granting planning in the forthcoming National Planning Policy Framework promised next year, were set out by Design Council Cabe’s Design Review panel chair MJ Long. She told a packed audience that design review was entering a ‘very strange point of shifting territory’, but one where discussions about the importance of the review process with the DCLG are ongoing, and creation of a London panel being negotiated. ‘Design review panel advice must carry material weight’, she said, particularly in an era when charges for the service will start to apply.

The event was aimed at existing and prospective design review panel members, offering insights about best practice and the valuable experience of practitioners on the ground. Long advised that panellists should be ‘strategic’, but retain a careful ear to when, for instance, an architect might be designing for a developer’s brief they did not agree with. Senior adviser on design review at Design Council Cabe Menaka Sahai said that ‘ultimately, it’s about improving quality and that specially convened panels on issues such as the Olympics, Crossrail and schools had borne particular fruit, the last of these leading to the publication of minimum design standards. Space Syntax’s Tim Stonor suggested that larger masterplans could prove difficult; that social, environmental and economic tests should be applied to schemes, but that urbanism should not be forgotten – ‘we see very few design proposals for great streets’, he said. A worry was the kind of ‘fragmented urbanism’ or urban severance which resulted from communities becoming ‘cut-off’ through poor design advice.

Another design review panel member, Simon Hudspith, said that design review needed to also look to the micro scale when it came to housing and drill down to the way that people might use their homes, paying attention to issues such as dual aspect over single aspect in the name of better standards of living. Another issue is scale: ‘The bigger schemes become, the more concerned I become’, he said.

Finally, John Lyall said that design review should never be ‘criticism for its own sake’ and panellists had a duty to the users. Issues to be wary of included architects and developers who draw a red line around their scheme to the detriment of those around, rather than ‘contaminating’ the environs, projects which neglected the public realm, and presenters who brought in specialist sustainable consultants rather than imbuing their proposals with the principle as a fundamental.

Following a session on more advice about the role of a design review panel member from Design Council Cabe’s Thomas Bender, the event then split into three mock sessions. These involved design review sessions with a presenter from the project and delegates quizzing them over aspects of the scheme. The schemes were the Make-designed St Alphage London Wall project for Hammerson presented by Make’s Ian Lomas, another which assessed Bicester Eco-town, with presenter Gary Young from Farrells and the Minoco Wharf project, presented by Glen Howells of Glen Howells Architects.

David Taylor, Editor, New London Quarterly