Designs on London – LFA – 29/6/2010
June 30th, 2010
Who’s driving what gets built and how can we do it better?
As part of the London Festival of Architecture an event took place in the Gallery at 77 Cowcross Street on Tuesday evening 29th June. Those speaking were the following:-
David Birkbeck, Chief Executive of Design for Homes, chaired the event and speakers included: Alex Ely, partner at MAE Architects, Sadie Morgan, partner at DRMM, Dick Mortimer, Development Director at Family Mosaic, Chris “Good Evening Glastonbury!” Brown, Chief Executive at Igloo, and finally, David Lunts, London Regional Director at the HCA.
The evening started at 1800 with an introduction from David Birkbeck followed by a short talk from each of those present beginning with:-
Sadie Morgan who talked about the difference between ideals and practice in designing flats, and showed a succession of slides outlining the path from proposal to completion and the changes therein caused by the constraints of different building regulations.
Alex Ely showed slides of projects in Germany and the Netherlands where good design had been achieved with a minimal design brief and one I think in England where the brief had been 143 pages and turned out to be blue and ugly.
Chris “Good Evening Glastonbury!” Brown came over the least well I thought, (he showed no slides of his housing developments), a situation which reached its zenith when the next speaker David Lunts walked over to the lecturn and picked up a piece of paper. “He’s left his notes” he said, referring to Chris Brown, “it says Glastonbury, drugs, pigs, and flats” and put it down again with a straight face. That moment spoke volumes.
David Lunts talked about service charges being unpopular in Dublin and how there the developers were designing out common areas in order that people could avoid paying unnecessary charges. He showed one or two slides of the buildings that result, more like maisonettes. He talked about very large flats in Barking riverside of 138 – 155 sqm now on sale.
By far the most impressive speaker of the evening I thought was Dick Mortimer. Humble, reluctant almost I thought, his very low key approach was supported by a wealth of knowledge from the grass roots and long experience of managing housing associations and difficult estates, the worst surely being North Peckham of which he said “those blocks should have a flag on top to identify them. Seven blocks that all look the same and miles of walkway connecting them.”