Coffee in the Square

Britain's Wet Weekend

Were the Jubilee Celebrations a success? How significant was the bad weather?

Canaletto's famous paqinting of the Thames on Lord Mayors Day

Now that we're all back to work, the barriers have been cleared away and the Union Jack bunting are beginning to look a bit tattered, I decided to ruminate on how successful the whole event was and to ask a few wider questions about public events and urban design.
It's a sad fact that more regimented states tend to do pageants rather better than we do. When Haussmann designed Paris, he prescribed wide boulevards to facilitate the charge of a brigade of cavalry at angry demonstrators. Red Square in Moscow was safeguarded from development because of its use as a suitably broad canvas for the mighty USSR to display its hardwear. We did have HMS Belfast boom out a couple of shots, but unless you count a very warlike canoo of Maoris, most of the flotilla displayed a peaceful nation.
Firstly, I think the river was a great idea, but the Thames is a rough, windy, tidal estury, not a litling backwater like the Venetian lagoons.  Secondly, it is very large and very wide, so even quite big ships look a bit puny.  I think that even the famous Canaletto painting enlarged the boats for picturesque effect. 

 

People who queued in the rain, watched in the rain and walked home in the rain might have been able to congratulate themselves on their British bulldog grit. But if we do it agin what changes should we make?

The real lesson is that large spaces do not make the best arenas for pagents.  The most exciting parade I've ever witnessed is the Semana Santa in Lorca, in the south of Spain.  This runs for about a kilometre or two along the narrow main street of the city, which is flanked on both sides by appartment blocks, each side being about eight stories high.  They place temporary seating on each side of the street, and you have to get tickets to view. However thousands of people can get a seat, and of course every balcony of the appartments is packed.  (There's no queuing needed.  it's just like getting a ticket to the opera.)

As this image so colourfully demonstrates, they race down the street in dangerous horse drawn carriages, parade racheros on dancing steeds and massed bands of hooded monks, throng to the sound of horns, antique blunderbusses and drums.  The buildings ricochet with the sound.  You are right in the thick of the parade, almost swept up by the throng and definitely frightened when the dancing horses goes through their paces. 

What makes it all work so well,  is the constraint of the space.  That is, I think, why the Mall concert worked so well.  Someone actually sat down and designed the Buck House Arena - a chap called Robbie Williams I gather - who cut his teeth designing stage sets for pop bands.  What he realised is that external space seems smaller than internal space.  So that when you want to stage any sort of performance out of doors you have to constrain the space, not expand it.

Just think of the most famous public spectacle of all, the Palio, that surges through the narrow streets of  Siena every summer.   Its fast, its constrained, its colourful, noisy and it's a horse race.  Perhaps Her Majesty, with her well known penchance for the sport of kings, might have preferred something like that?

 

Weeds, Weeds, Weeds

I never thought that the humble nettle, or the straggly rose bay willow herb could look so beautiful. But on a wet afternoon the other day, as I was scurrying to a meeting I discovered this gem of a garden just a stones throw from Edgeware Road.
Broadly street gardens has received a makeover from Westminster City Council's Parks Dept. and the result is stunning. The secret, wild plants chosen with sensitivity and all combining beautifully. Now I don't know what this garden will look like in Winter, but in the fulll flush of spring it looks wonderful.
What really struck me was the vigour of the whole thing.
Was it just a coincidence if, despite torrential rain, that the park was really quite busy?

The London Salad

The day was chosen to be auspicious. It was a full moon, international woman's day and a solar flare hurtling towards earth, making the glorious sunny morning seem all that more glorious.
The event? A workshop led by Ceri Buck , for the garden museum entitled 'Invisible Food'. We walked through the Archbishop's Park, just behind the museum, spotting Daisy (good for stir-fry), Couch Grass(salads), Mares-tail(soups and stews) and Mallow(protein rich).
Unfortunately the nettles, a delicacy when lightly boiled, like spinach, with butter and nutmeg, had been lopped by an over zealous gardener - only the day before.
What a shame that he or she didn't realise that a tincture of nettle could stabilise blood sugar, revitalise the kidneys and sooth the bronchial passages.
The high point of the walk was stopping on a park bench, under the heady scent of an abundantly flowering Mimosa tree, to sample dandelion root coffee and to learn the secrets of tincture making.
The process is simple, but Ceri warns about being too mechanical in our approach to wild bounty. Don't take too much, think about the smell, the texture and the taste. Use all your senses and emotions to experience the moment.
The tincture takes four weeks to ferment. After that a few drops a day in a glass of cold or warm water should introduce a moment of healing calm to each day. Our Couch-grass tincture will be a spring pick-me-up. And if the Couch-grass doesn't do the trick, then the neat Vodka it's matured with, might help a bit too!
There is a follow up session on 20th March, which is the spring equinox. I shall certainly be there.
Highly recommended. Info www.gardenmuseum.org.
Ceri's work is part of a Lottery Funded Lambeth Initiative, www.lambethlandofsolidarity.wordpress.com

Bigness

Old Oak Common - a big hole in London's infrastructure

Hats off to Terry Farrell for challenging some of the perceived truths about travel and communications and for questioning Foster's Thames island airport proposal.

In an article in Planning in London he argues that big ideas, like the new airport, are expensive and take a long while to come on-stream, while smaller projects can solve the problem in the short term, without compromising the big idea.  He calls it incremental planning and I'm sure he's got a point.

He's also to be applauded for putting forward a very neat solution for increasing access to Heathrow by linking the check-ins to a new High Speed 1 and 2 interchange at Old Oak Common.   When I was doing a masterplan for Swindon more than ten years ago we were told that there would soon be check-ins at Hayes to link Heathrow directly to the West Country Lines and to the Reading-Swindon Silicon Vale.  That never happened.  Though it was a condition of the construction of Terminal 5 to reduce car access to the airport I see no signs that this has worked.

But I think both Farrell and Foster are missing something in their future gazing.  The premise of both schemes is that air travel will continue to grow.  This assumption should be questioned.

I was advising the Gatwick Diamond Development team the other day.  They almost fell off their chairs when I asked the question, "What if air travel decreases in the future?"  But it's a question we should be asking. 

Air travel is one of the most carbon extravagant things we can do.  Just one trip to the USA every year will cancel out any benefit you gain from living in a state of the art eco-house (1). As carbon taxes kick-in then air travel will be hit more than most.  As governments expand the high speed rail system around the UK and Europe, more and more people will (I hope) decide to go by train.  That option just isn't here at the moment.  It could well be that internal flights become prohibitively expensive.  And I'm never convinced that a jerky flight between close locations isn't the mugs way of travelling anyway.  Show me a comfy carriage and a view of the countryside any day and I'll show you a place where I can work, send emails and relax! 

The assumptions are that everything will always get bigger.  This is the sub-text of Terry Farrell's article.  But I just don't think that an unfetteredincrease in air travel is either desireable or inevitable.  If you work on policies to reduce air travel to the minimum and increase travel by other means (good old modal shift), then the projects that government needs to support would be quite different. 

All that money could be spent on a series of smaller interventions, including the Old Oak Common interchange, and would mean spreading the benefitsto a wider public.  Even though Mayor Boris Johnson supports the airport scheme, his opponent, Ken Livingstone does not.  With mayoral elections coming up this spring, we may find that Farrells solutions will curry favour with a new administration.

The clincher for me is that it's easier to get twenty smaller schemes on the go than one big one.  Given the history of developing airports in this country, anyone who puts all their regeneration eggs into an airport basket is in my view - just that - a basket case!

I think we can be pretty sure that world populations will continue to rise.  The need for travel and communications will also rise, but whether that has to be linked to air travel is not definite.  For starters lets try to encourage people not to take internal flights, but to travel by train instead.

1. BioRegional assessments of occupants in BedZed found that those who travelled by air cancelled out the benefits of the housing.

The First Underground Railway in the World

10th January was the 149th anniversary of London's first underground line, and the first time in the world that trains had gone underground in a city.  I rode the route yesterday, with commuters and tourists who, of course, had no idea that they were riding into history. 

The route went from Paddington Station to Farringdon, and was intended to be an extension of the Metropolitan Railway right into the city.  Even today the route has three rails in some cases so that tube trains and commuter trains can arrive at the same platforms.  (Tube trains are wider.)

In the week that government announces the HS2 high speed line to Birmingham, I wanted to remind myself of how 19th Century travellers might have felt with their new high speed line.   Of course the old trains were steam trains and it seems that passengers did complain about the steamyness of the underground platforms.  The engineers went to great efforts to design a series of ducts that would dispel the steam.  They designed beautiful brick chutes at Baker Street (as well as Great Portland St and Euston Square) which let steam out and let sunlight in.  These have been blocked up now, but the refurb at Baker Street did put lights into the chutes, which gives something of the impression of the original platforms.

Baker Street 2012

Baker Street 1863

However many passengers were content to travel on the new steamy route.  In the first few months 26,000 people used the line and in an attempt to relieve overcrowding extra rolling stock had to be brought in from the Great Western Railway. 

Tunelling skills were not so advanced in those days.  The line was built with cut and cover.   The old drawings showing clearly how a trench was constructed and then temporary timber supports would be placed until the brick arches could be built. 

The problem with this method of construction was that it was very dissruptive to those on the surface.  People compained that the New Road, now Euston/Marylebone Road, was out of use for months.  But it was only the fact that this road existed which allowed the route to be built.  It would have been far too expensive to pull down great swathes of London houses to bring the line into Farringdon. 

As it was the engineers went to great efforts to disguise the ventilation shafts.  Supposedly, a five foot thick facade was constructed in Leinster Gradens to simulate a house, but which in fact masked a ventialtion duct.

Baker Street Station still has many of the original features.  It was sensitively refurbished in 1982 and a set of interesting panels were erected in the advertising spaces which illustrate the construction. 

So we haven't changed very much in 150 years.  Opponents to HS2 want fast and efficient transport systems - as long as we can't see or hear them!  And they certainly don't want the construction work to disturb them in any way.  The headline on the Ham and High, Camden's local newspaper this week said, "HS2 will cause ten years of chaos to Camden."   I expect that they said the same thing about that pesky new underground railway in 1863!

Catching the Last Routebus Home

Spent a pleasant evening with Dr. Compost the other night, AKA Craig Benton the recyling expert from Seattle who has now settled in Dublin and runs his business from there. ([email protected])
We were showing him the delights of soho. (dinner at Polpo followed by coffee and cakes in the Bar Italia), when this little beut caught our eye. The Vegan bus has had mixed gastronomic reviews, but it looked busy and the diners looked happy on the night we were there.

The bus has a website


www.veganroutes.org

and while checking it out I also found


www.veganbus.com

which is an old school bus in Massachusetts that runs on waste vegetable oil. Check out the slide show. They clearly have fun.

Transport for London have now placed the order for new routemasters, from Wright Bus. The new generation will be hybrid technology with 40% less NOx emissions and 30% less particulate matter emissions than normal diesel.
For reasons I don't get it will have three doors and two staircases. So once you have all that kit it takes 87 passengers instead of the 149 or so that the bendy bus takes.
It remains to be seen how popular the new routemasters are. But somehow I can't see them becoming cafés when they wear out.
Perhaps the Vegan bus is real recycling.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Happy New Year from COFFEEINTHESQUARE

How nice to wake up on New Years Day to find a crystal blue sky and the Post Office Tower, which hovers over our flat, sporting a new years message.
This is perhaps just a little reminder about the importance of iconography to urban design. But mainly it's to wish all our readers good luck in the 'tens.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

This makes me mad!

I have decided to include a selection of outrages, rather like Architectural review used to do.  And for my first victim I have chosen HSBC bank for their cranky new interiors.
Why does a bank need to look like a disco?  Spangly lights and low levels, a dance floor and carpeted areas.  When you enter all you see is an array of machines that remind me of the soulless slot machines of Vegas. The human tellers are tucked inconspicuously around the corner. I know what they were thinking. Get rid of expensive staff and get the feel of the street - a most overused world in interior design.  The only place for a streetscene is in Disney Land or in a REAL STREET!  Interestingly when I went in and sneaked this photo all the people at the machines were bank staff, trying to make the machines work. Please send me your outrages and I will give them blogspace.

This is what HSBC's 2006 annual report says "HSBC Bank plc aligns its strategy closely to the HSBC Group’s strategic vision to be the world’s
leading financial services company, where leading means the HSBC brand is preferred to others. In working towards delivery of the vision, the bank has developed strategic initiatives for each of its customer groups. The bank’s priorities are to improve the customer experience, (continuing to develop the FSA principles of ‘Treating Customers Fairly’), to invest in developing HSBC’s brand and
encourage all staff to live HSBC’s brand values in their day-to-day activities, and to improve staff
engagement. The bank also focuses on investing in delivery platforms and technology, improving the customer experience, enhancing work practices and taking advantage of HSBC’s global reach."

Lets hear it for the Beeb!

Last night we wandered into the lobby of Broadcasting House on the way from the pub to Pizza Express.  Paul - down from Warrington - wanted to see inside.  Now I don't know how many national broadcasting stations you can actually get into - but at 9.30 on a wet evening the staff were really welcoming and didn't try to shoo us out. 
Broadcasting House is an excellent building and the lobby, which has been recently done up is a tribute to 30's architecture. There is an Eric Gill sculpture above the desk entitled Sower, a man broadcasting seed. There is an inscription below - "Deus incrementum dat" (God giveth the increase, Corinthians, Chapter 3, verse 7).  That's a great motto for broadcasting - remembering that we are not masters of the success of our broadcasting outputs.  The idea that the BBC might become a focus for activity was part of the original re-design.  A new "square" is being constructed which is supposed to have cafes and an exhibition, as well as the BBC bookshops, but I wonder whether it will happen. (Security is paramount in London these days) There is also the minor point that the "Square" on the right in the photo, will be overshadowed by the original building putting it in shade most of the day.

© Janet Hall/RIBA Library Photographs Collection

Working in a town or a theme park - comparing Chiswick Park with Chiswick Mall

A chance visit to Chiswick gave me the opportunity to visit Chiswick Park (constructed 2002) and compare it with Voysey's Sanderson factory, now a workspace and built exactly 100 years earlier in 1902. Chiswick Park is a slick modern development built on brown land in a corner between three railway lines.  Thus it is excellently connected to transportation routes.  However the design, clever though it is, is predicated on the idea that everyone will come to work by car. The scheme is surrounded by parking and the basements are all garages, which have the effect of cutting off the buildings from their hinterland. There is always the annoying chicken and egg situation that developers won't build without parking, employers are scared to buy offices without parking and so employees never get to be encouraged to come to work by public transport here.  The pseudo green iconography of brise soleil and a pond, doesn't convince me.  It's the daily travel to work that really eats up carbon in these offices.  Also because the "estate" (for that's what it is ) is unifunctional it becomes a wasteland at weekends and in the evening.
The architecture and the landscaping are of a high enough quality but I can't help feeling that its cosmetic.  The only lip service that the design pays to its inner London location is to squash up the landscape so that it becomes a mere corridor between the blocks.  It takes a hoard of security guards and CCTV to keep this all going.  The website offers all sorts of fun.  There is a health club and a coffee bar as well as fireworks and goose herding.  What employer can't see that all this is  just a Disney-land version of real life which is available in its real incarnation ten minutes WALK up the road in Chiswick Mall!
Its the isolationary premise that I particularly object to.  I was stopped as I entered the park and CCTV's followed me everywhere. 

By comparison the Voysey building designed for the Sanderson factory and adjacent to the Barley Mow workspaces in Chiswick Mall is a real urban office space.  As far as I can see there is no car parking here at all - and even deliveries have to run the gauntlet of a tiny service road. There is no expensive manicured lawn - but this is right next door to Chiswick Park, no pond and I expect that the insulation is lower.  But people seem to manage to walk to work here and the communal activities like access to health clubs, cafe's ( no no goose herding here!) are public so anyone can join in and the profits from these activities are shared more widely with the community.

Ironically the architecture is rather similar. Both buildings are about the same scale of floor heights with a distinctive lower level and a distinctive roof-line.  Both were designed to provide open floor-plates and both have a very well defined service core.  Both also took advantage of modern scientific advances.  Architects have always loved the technology!
I can't help feeling that the Voysey building has already demonstrated its greater sustainability.  But how do we persuade the hard nosed developer that this is the better option?

Left:
Plan of Chiswick Park - note enhanced colouring of the pond!

Below:
Voyseys original drawing.  The building remains very similar today.