Gentrification panel 04

Past 4 decades of liberalisation has led us to where we are, privatised water supply sector that is dumping sewage in waterways, privatised energy providers profiteering from energy crisis, a liberalised housing market that has amplified the housing affordability and access crisis, a privatised railway network that prioritises dividends over investments, an NHS that is slowly being privatised through underfunding of the public component, a private postal service, a privatised educational sector that further increases disparity and polarisation. 

Is this conversation within the scope of an architect / planners / sustainability expert? We write long reports on textures, colours, placemaking..."happiness" even and yet we skirt the very foundations that exert direct influence on our lives.

An article on Canary Wharf and the tax break it received from the state.

Gentrification panel 03

 

Gentrification Cover Page

Tower top study and trailing thoughts

 

What if top two sought after floors for Penthouses spread through, not two but 13-14 floors creating additional value through multiple duplex-penthouse like conditions. Is there a possibility to illustrate creation of greater value through eroding the top of a high end residential tower on prime city land?

A study I am doing while in Athens (Greece) surrounded by Athenian Polykatoikias that seem to rather nonchalantly provide much needed semi public open spaces in the form of terraces for predominant housing units in the city. A good book for reading up on these is The Public Private House: Modern Athens and its Polykatoikia by Dr Richard Woditsch. Some preview images in here.
What is interesting is Athens celebrates and appreciates terraces as an architectural element integrated within its urbanity while other cities have moved away from provision of terraces or balconies for their citizens and thereby leading to its value as a luxury add on (penthouse flats).
The terrace or the balcony works as a transitionary zone, neither completely public nor private it allows for a degree of openness towards the street frontage facilitating passive surveillance and safer streets, animates the façade and street section (vs brick clad "dignified" monoliths of London's new built developments), facilitates micro-climate through planting and thereby temperature variations, allows for distributing accessible per capita open space. What is most endearing is this element of architecture is not exclusive or luxury, it is available for most of the citizens who live in Athens.

There is value in this architectural element especially in post pandemic times, so as a design professional always ask why no terraces and balconies? Why could there be terraces during council estates or when they built the Barbican in London and not now? How did Charles Correa manage to give terraces in Mumbai to LIC residents and now they aren't possible despite the boom in real estate? and if someone responds the math doesn't add up...keep calm and carry on, but aware you are in less generous city.

Something about exclusivity of architectural elements by class that is rather pissing off, imagine if access to lifts were based on being wealthy and the rest had to take the stairs? or if there was segregation of toilets by class? because the math for providing everyone a higher spec did not add up? wouldn't that be outrageous?

Restaurant Reviews and Architecture

Brilliant review on NOMA’s closure by Jay Rayner, 

who seems to do something that most Architects and Planners are unable to, point to the fallacy of sustainability as being a purely technocratic process of quantification and mitigation rather than an honest political discourse.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/twenty-six-courses-400-bills-artichoke-creme-brulee-i-wont-miss-fine-dining

“We dream of a future in which the chef is socially engaged, conscious of and responsible for his or her contribution to a just, sustainable society,” it began, somehow failing to acknowledge that their job was making dinner for rich people. In truth, however hard you attend to your restaurant’s sustainability, it’s pointless if most of your customers are flying business class to get there or travelling in chauffeured limos from Manhattan because those are the only ones who can afford it. The carbon footprint of the people you attract becomes part of the carbon footprint of your business.

+

Reiner de Graaf writing in Dezeen marking the launch of his third book

https://www.dezeen.com/2023/02/28/reinier-de-graaf-architecture-buzzwords-archispeak-opinion/

Both disconnected individuals, one is restaurant reviewer and food critic, other an architect / partner in a global commercial practise...embedded within the current state of affairs, so definitely not outliers...yet they capture a common strand.

Advocacy, the convoluted bureaucracy of quantification and absolute mind numbing cacophony of positive intentions...serving only one purpose, obfuscation and social condensation...a pressure release valve.

The hypocrisy of it all.

Garden transformation stories

Since the start of the Pandemic in 2020, which coincided with us moving into our new home, we have been gradually transforming a patch of lawn into something with greater biodiversity. Through the course of 2 years we have established 120 different plant species and about 350 plants. Below are some snapshots of our experiments and transformation of this piece of land through various stages.

gravel along the edges was collected and repurposed for paths in the new layout. Early months were dedicated towards establishing as much ground cover perennials and structuring shrubs as possible.

Corten Steel edging was used to establish the paths and a small section devoted to vegetable beds. It provided early structuring guides for planting zones when it was completely barren, but now I feel the edging along the sides could had been avoided completely and one could achieve better edge purely through planting.

seeded existing lawn especially in infill patches where the grass had receded with wildflower seeds such as chamomile, cornfield seeds and poppy. In due course the plan would be to let the grass recede completely and a wild flower meadow to take over

The position of the zone dedicated for vegetable patch was based on sun, as this is a North facing garden with two large trees further reducing the sun by casting shade towards the North. The alignment of the path was also influenced by the sun so as to incorporate as much of the zone under the trees towards accommodating the path as possible.

zone under the two trees (Wild Cherry and Confier) is dry shade with acidic soil, which we replenish with compost. This zone has shading loving plants like Japanese Fatsia, Tree Fern, Penstemones, Muscaris, Ferns, Heucheras and Anemones.

Through this process the demand for good quality compost in significant amount forced us to establish a 300 litre composting bin which currently eats up all the kitchen and garden waste (we have refrained from putting cooked food, dairy and meat).

Next stages would be to establish a wild life pond / puddle however small to trigger further bio-diversity in the form of frogs, toads, newts, dragonflies and the rest and attempt to establish a wildflower meadow. We aren't landscape architects or horticulturists so this process involved lot of tests, trials, research, asking colleagues and building an understanding...but it helped us survive the stresses of life.

Reinier de Graaf - The Century that Never Happened

https://vimeo.com/211269857

Curation

For me the act of design constitutes actively engaging with all the tools at one’s disposal, sketching, model making, cad, 3d. Even while one is doing a completely banal task of drafting there are decisions being made of alignments, offsets, widths, heights, proportions. There is rationalisation that takes place of the sketch being turned into a cad plan, and while doing that there is a continuous sense of improvisation, an immersion in the design process. For me an apt metaphor to explain this process is a potter who sits at the wheel, the clay is fluid, it moves, and possibilities emerge in split second on the wheel where the potter engages with the combination of earth, water, air and gravity. This is possible only when the potter “gets his / her hands dirty” in exchange for knowledge of consistency of the clay, its fluidity, the speed of the wheel, gravity and other forces that converge on that wheel at that moment. Like construction lines in cad which may or may not be used but they record a potential that was surrendered for a better one.
When this is compared to the design profession and its hierarchy, there is an attempt to design not by engaging with the tools or the possibilities each tool provokes but through curation. An individual standing far away from the potter’s wheel trying to make pots through a set of potters! Coming from an architectural school that placed strong importance to process, I have come to believe this process is not about making an array of blue foam models by underpaid interns, but a genuine exploration by the designer and the design team. Where the lead designer if there should be one, too should actively engage with the design tools.
The design profession having split into specialisations that arrange the process of producing space into compartments and each compartment requiring a hierarchy to produce (faster+cheaper not better) efficiently, gives rise to a hierarchy which in turn creates this disjunction where the lead designer having more liability needs to split their time across 3- 4 projects, keep tabs on fee burn, alignment with the brief, scope creep, etc. In doing so despite having only say 15% of time to spare towards design process the position is consolidated through the lead having maximum say in the design process. The position is rationalised / consolidated through the design lead’s contribution in the process via curation!
No need to design, just curate design and become a designer!
When I hear people from the design profession exclaim, I do not have patience for Cad, or I am actually a “big ideas” person, or I am just so busy that I have no time for design, etc…I am alerted by this individuals genius that believes idea equals product…(ie. I just need a bunch of minions to realise my vision!)…and then I run for my life.

Disjunction

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us”, is a quote by Winston Churchill. In 1943 after the destruction of the Commons Chamber during the Blitz, the Commons debated the question of rebuilding the chamber. Churchill insisted on the rectangular shape of the older layout was responsible for the two-party system vs the semi-circular amphitheatre shapes being adopted elsewhere. This design to this day forms a key element of British parliamentary democracy. 
It is this chicken or egg relationship between the built and us (culture / policy-regulations / politics) that over the recent years has broken down. Architects and Urban Designers are no longer cultural markers with capacity to imagine new lifestyles, new urban environments or new narratives, instead they have been reduced to service providers to speculators. In such a scenario we increasingly see urban environments transform from diverse morphology to a uniform image of banal, increasingly sterile, strongly surveillanced environments. We no longer have capacity to create multi-layered, diverse cities with complex environments, we can emulate it at the best like cheap Disney versions that amplify this impotency of the profession.
The locus has shifted from Design to Bureaucracy of Design.  But it is exactly this disjunction where planners attempt policy framework and hope to create good design without having the ability/patience to test it. Also policy frameworks through personal experience have been amazingly easy to be hijacked. A look at how “Cluster approach” to redevelopment has been interpreted in Mumbai can alone work as an effective cenotaph to that argument. Financial feasibility experts work as mere extensions of the current market and banking structure. I bet Grenfell Tower victims may have a different take on this.
Not to say I do not believe in multidisciplinary approach, where an Engineer works with a Doctor to make Frankenstein…the possibilities are endless. But I do strongly feel a multidisciplinary approach with current trend of specialisation only works towards amplifying this disjunction in the profession. A planner by the end of his / her course has become so specialised that he or she has no ability to develop form / space. Also, this structure of specialisation tends to work along some kind of Fordian system of producing design. This in turn results in creation of hierarchy based on which part of the machine is most useful, a motor or the windshield(?) This hierarchy where the designer is only incidental and often dispensable cog in the wider mechanism, a naïve fellow who does not understand issues that will have far greater influence on design, like policy framework, financial feasibility, blowjobs etc, shifts the centre of gravity away from design and towards management of design. This shift comes at the cost of the urban environments we inhabit, which in turn has a subtle retarding influence on our existence with every passing day.
So while everyone plays the multi-pronged Jane Jacobs, the Designer is the only one who is able to put pen to paper and provide something that is a committed representation. It is not abstract like set of words strung together which may convey multiple meanings, it isn’t a framework in the form of constitution and design guidelines that may or may not capture something meaningful, it isn't poetry, it is a solid form, something that will cast a shadow and when built will displace the very air. It is something that all the multidisciplinary idiots who have spent time ruminating can now come and critique, hopefully giving their sense of existence in the project and the world some reason to be. It has drawings that one can discuss around and draw over.
On another note, I watched four films over the last week,
1) Tuscanyness
2) Nostalgia for the Future
3) The Great Estate - The Rise and Fall of the Council House
4) What have you done today Mervyn Day?
Each of these films is beautiful and captures the loss of hope in Architecture / Design through a sense of Nostalgia…those were the days…or maybe I am just growing old.

Automation

A recent study undertaken by the Bank of England to look at resilience of economy and labour market predicted England would lose 15 million jobs to automation. This automation is different from the earlier historic waves of industrialisation, as machines can now replace not just manual work but also cognitive. Often being referred to as the Third Industrial Revolution, it conjures polarised ideas of the future. Unable to mitigate the scale of change the economy would need to incorporate this automation, some warn of the march of machines laced with dystopian visions of Artificial intelligence; While others optimistically look at this as an opportunity to break away from daily 8 hour jobs -a Star Trek like utopia where people have more time to pursue culture, pleasure, our place in the universe, space cakes etc.
Specific to the profession of design, tools like Grasshopper, Revit -Dynamo and other parametric software are able to not only test multiple options to find the one that mathematically best satisfies all the requirements, but they also enable for change mitigation if there is a change in brief. This has resulted in a much leaner workforce that knows the tools. A colleague of mine had once said “our profession thrives on inefficiencies, if we lose all the inefficiencies we do not have a profession” …which was a response to my wish that automation could get rid of all the manual work and free us some time to do design.
Another group is a group that maintains its relevance through knowing the bureaucracy of delivery and how like a well trained chartered account, one can bring value through strategic subversions -  maintaining the project within legal parameters and yet negotiate a “win-win deal” that facilitates desired profits. Sometimes hearing a planner with a classic C3PO voice explaining “lets put an outline planning application for a private park, then put in an amendment of terraced housing, after which we can get our community consultation partner to pimp us a good result and I know John in the council who can guide us through this…blah blah blah”, makes something inside me die a little.
But both these groups continue to maintain relevance due to their engagement with design delivery, rather than design. With further automation like Residential Engine, City Engine, etc the Developer could skip these “middle men” completely. 
When the camera disrupted the Art world and artists who maintained their relevance as purely replicators were rendered useless, this wave of automation too will strike at these redundancies and the only way to maintain our relevance as designers would be to find the locus, the purpose of our profession. This wave of automation according to me is the best case scenario, a massive disruptor which will come at a huge cost but will certainly take the design profession towards a more meaningful destination…until then we continue to patiently hear the hum of managers, bureaucrats and technicians talking bullshit.

Shortlisted

As a follow up to my previous post on Europan 14 design competition, all was not lost, as we received email confirming our design entry being shortlisted.
Not a win, but enough to keep continuing.

Clapham Pub

A new site under construction and soon to open.
More details to follow in the new year

Europan 14_Sluisbuurt: Landscape of Making

Some additional material from Europan 14 
Site: Sluisbuurt, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Design brief: Productive City
Design title: Landscape of Making
Project work done in collaboration with Chris Cornelissen

Europan 14

As is the bi-annual tradition we burn the night oil and lose only to try again harder! 
Europan 14 done with a close friend and fellow urban designer Chris Cornelissen.
Project involved designing two blocks of a wider masterplan (of Sluisbuurt Development, Amsterdam, Netherlands) as a representative sample. The design brief required the design to satisfy the high residential demand, create a new identity for this area, look at this as part of "the productive city" initiative and explore ideas that could create interesting live and work conditions.
Below is our own brief + design work.
"Landscape of Making

Introduction:

Through the last 3 decades Europe has undergone a shift from industrial to service economy. This shift has resulted in disjunctions between people, work and environment. Cities with industrial legacy are left with urban voids often transforming towards a consumer based landscape (Industry to shopping mall, docklands to business parks etc). Workers and their families not having had time and opportunity to adapt to the transforming economies form the urban poor. This has resulted in erosion of connection between environment, people and the culture of work.

The project interprets the brief as an initiative to re-establish a close connection between people, their work and the environment in which they live and work. The Craftsman by Richard Sennett forms the theoretical basis for our project.

“Most of us have to work. But is work just means to an end? In trying to make a living have we lost touch with the idea of making things well?

Can the desire to do a job well for its own sake -  as a template for living, work as an idea?” –The Craftsman, Richard Sennett.

Context:

The design acknowledges the following:

1) Netherlands is at the forefront of developing unique social infrastructure and housing type and delivery models that can enable finding solutions to various challenges posed by a constantly changing world.

2) The site sits within a wider context of Amsterdam and the city council’s initiative to string different hubs along the A10.

3) The work patterns will be built for the strengths and potential of existing economy, tied to various initiatives at national and citywide levels. Eg. Startup Amsterdam, Startup City Alliance Europe.

4) Potential to live and work in such close proximity allows higher density without putting pressure on transport infrastructure.

5) There is an appetite and need to invest in small scale local crafts and industry that may not be profitable immediately but allows conserving an important aspect of Dutch culture eg. Beer making, Flower production, Carpentry etc.

Vision:

The design envisages the following:

1) The ground floor is completely mixed use, with Northern edge dedicated to Selling (Retail shops) and Southern edge of the site dedicated towards Innovation and Making (workshops, studio spaces, Incubation hubs, startup spaces). This proximity allows an imagined symbiosis between Making activity getting an immediate venue to Sell or Exhibit its “goods and services”.

The ground floor is also carved with edges setting back or intruding, based on key angle of views and accents that form a part of the “MAKE” landscape.

2) The overall massing is result of location of towers based on surrounding context of the masterplan, desire to create a series of 4 yards each with its own unique function and identity, a lower height along the South to allow sunlight into the yards and finally a vision to mix live and work in various degrees to form different types that can be independently delivered and phased on a block by block basis as per requirements.

3) This being the centre of the development and having higher percentage of mixed use development, the plot is kept extremely permeable with a pedestrian gateway created along the canal enabling not only North South but also East West connectivity through the plots.

4) The massing face along the North is designed as Commercial development and the South facing massing is secured for good quality residential development.

5) The massing also attempts to balance between the high density desired on the plots and quality of urban environment through setbacks on the ground and upper level in order to maintain a healthy height along the street frontages.

Design:

The design is made up of 5 key elements:

1) Ground and Basement

2) 3 towers

3) 4 Yards

4) 9 Types

5) Hydroponic terraces

These elements together form the “Landscape of Making”

Conclusion:

The design is ambitious in its attempt to create a truly mixed use, live and work environment but has been designed to allow flexibility and change resilience in accordance with various constraints. The design also suggests architectural character in some instances but recognises that the working on types, massing strategy and overall design guidelines are the key deliverables that can effectively absorb a range of architectural styles depending on various collaborations."

Genzo Greek

If you are around East Finchley and in mood for good Greek food, do visit Genzo, our fifth restaurant design in London. Some photos of the place through construction and final opening.