UEL at Ecobuild

Congratulations to our Year 1 students who won the most sustainable stand prize at Ecobuild!  Obviously there is something worth seeing there after all.  Now where did I put that ticket.....

EgoBuild

I had a ticket to go to a well-known sustainability trade fair yesterday and had booked the day out of my diary.  But then I remembered the depressing experience of my last attendance at this show.  In its original incarnation it had the 'hairy hippy' feel about it, which at least made it different, if slightly eccentric.  Now it has been fully main-streamed, to use the management-speak noun-to-verb conversion.  My last experience could not be differentiated from any other construction industry event: the narrowly-defined demographic; decontextualised, heavy-handed product marketing (bolt-ons); and uncritical, rhetorical talks.  It should simply be renamed 'Build'.  

Having worked through the weekend to clear the decks, I had a day free and simply couldn't bring myself to spend it in an artificially-lit cattle-shed, so I cycled out to see this building instead.

 
Erected in 645AD by St Cedd on the eastern edge of Essex, overlooking the sea, it fulfills Christopher Alexander's notion of building typologies arising mainly from a recognisable set of relationships.  He gives the example of a church as a general proportion of space (width, height length), rows of seating and a hierarchical structure, etc.  This building emphasises the point, being little more than a brick barn (the apse has long since gone and the building truncated), punched with small windows.  Inside, though its  remarkably light and a simple, but beautiful space.  Overlooking the Dengie nature reserve: a shifting cockle-shell 'beach' providing highly important habitat; it seems to say more about sustainability than I'd be likely to uncover in a trade-fair brochure.  If any of my buildings are still standing in 1,369 years time I'll be very surprised.

Time to update my CPD record

The Production of Architecture (or is architecture getting easier?)

The recent preoccupation with bespoke automated production processes, like 3D printing and other forms of CADCAM could lead to the conclusion that Architecture is getting easier.  For sure, it is easier than ever to produce a model of just about any form that can be imagined.  Brick-laying machines make no differentiation between a flat wall and the three-way curving brick forms that pushed the craft of bricklaying during the 'Amsterdam School' period of the early 20th Century, for example.

Wall, A. Robot

In Architecture school, model-making is a key pedagogical tool, but 3D printing is becoming so fast and cheap, it is a fair question as to why we still bother making models by hand. Working with a material, finding its limitations and responding (either by changing material, or adjusting the spatial idea) pushes an individual interest in spatial forms where the process of production is inherent in the architectural form.  This results in engaged Architecture: that which has a conversation with the world.  Its not to say that unconstrained form-making doesn't have a role in this; it does, but always as part of a wider conversation, otherwise its merely rhetorical.

Plaster cast of the ceiling of a Boromini church by UEL Diploma student.  More here

I recently started learning Rhino after having spent a lot of time struggling with 3D studio, AutoCAD and even Sketchup, which I find perversely difficult to use.  Rhino is like a breath of fresh air: its so easy and quick, one wonders why other software even exists.  Literally anything seems possible and when it becomes as easy to draw a non-uniform curve as a straight line, the choice between the two becomes a decision; there is no longer a default (and I haven't even started with Grasshopper yet).  Nonetheless, a line still represents something: normally a material set in space toward a given function (which may be purely architectural).  The conversation between these two positions is what makes new capabilities exciting.  What leaves me cold is when one drives the other.  To pick an obvious example, Zaha's buildings tend to incorporate furniture also designed by her, because ordinary furniture is the wrong shape (or is it the building?).  Its clear when you step into (at least some) of her buildings, that they inhabit another world and this is the vision that many enjoy in her work.  For me, it lacks tolerance though and it feels like an architecture of disengagement. Zaha is surely enjoying these new capabilities and for her, architecture does seem to be getting easier.

Back in the studio, though our students are developing extraordinary conversations between new and traditional capabilities and techniques.  Diploma Unit 6, run by Isaie and Gilles are exploring the interactions between different systems of production: 3D printing, plaster casting, sculpting and layering; Degree Unit C (Klara and Satoshi) are using 3D routers to develop brick moulds for traditional casting that explore these new capabilities at the component scale; Diploma Unit 11 (Jamie and Colin) are using traditional plaster casting to understand the form and articulation of Lutyens' buildings in a way that still can't be achieved with a 3D printer.  In all of these, the uncertainty of outcome is key to the process: the process learns from its product and vice versa.

Degree Unit C

Diploma Unit 6

Diploma Unit 11

All this takes us back to the likes of Karl Marx, William Morris, Henri Lefebvre: we cannot escape our social relationship with the making of our environment.  New capabilities are both a blessing and a curse: they allow new modes of production, but also offer tempting refuges from the real world.  Architecture can absolutely transcend function, materiality, time and place, but it only serves a polemic purpose when it engages with these fundamentals in conversation; ignoring them is just pointless, or purposeless.  A more interesting avenue for me is the potential for these capabilities to allow a more dispersed production of architecture: a 21st Century self-build.  That somehow seems more radical and engaged with the contemporary social context.

Greg Henderson said cycle racing is like fighting a gorilla: you don't stop when you get tired, you stop when the gorilla gets tired.  Architecture is the same: it shouldn't get easier, you can just go further. Fight that gorilla...

OMA in Shenzhen

There's a brilliant review in this month's Architectural Review of the new stock exchange building in Shenzhen, written by Austin Williams.  He seems to be an interesting and outspoken character and although I've not seen this building, much of what he writes rings true with most of OMA's recent work.  In many respects it seems like a dumb building, lacking the overt expression of power and optimism (real or pretend) of its peers, apart from the elevated podium which appears a diagramatic, rather than architectural move.

We always tell students a diagram alone doesn't make architecture, but here the diagram is the architecture, mainly because the diagram is so architecturally provocative.  The statements Koolhaas makes about this building are typically diversionary: giving over the ground plane to public space (which means what in China, exactly?) could be achieved in so many simpler ways; but of course the real architectural issues being played with lie elsewhere and as usual Koolhaas will probably talk about them at another time, maybe in relation to another building.  It is this 'dumbness' in which the sophistication of the work lies.  Unlike any other globally-known architectural practice I can think of, OMA respond to the utterly bizarre and alien postmodern contexts in which their buildings are located and occupied.  That they manage to make an architecture linking at once the ironic, divisive and unpredictable dynamics of contemporary capitalism with physical materials, structural and functional performance for real clients is an extraordinary achievement and it seems best realised yet in this building. Like most radical movements, this architecture will only properly be understood in the future, with the benefit of hindsight.  Now, most people argue about whether its any good or not.  This is totally beside the point.  As with postmodern society, good or bad doesn't come in to it. 

The Smithsons in Norfolk

A weekend spent in Norfolk is always a great way to unwind, but as usual there's always a busman's holiday element to any break, so we went slightly out of the way to visit Hunstanton school.  Designed by the Smithsons and completed in 1951 its a stunning building.  The photos don't really do it justice, but I'll show a couple anyway.

There is something pivotal about this building in the way it manages to carry the rigour and rationality of Modernism with the subtle scale and softening of the edges that was characteristic of the late '40s and early '50s.  Having seen photos before, I expected it to feel truly brutal and unforgiving, but the black glass surprisingly has the opposite effect; giving a lightness and playfulness to it, especially in the setting sun.  The grid is absolutely rigid and resolved, but within it, the different scale and function of spaces seem to hang perfectly (as far as I could see through the windows, anyway).  Of course I'm sure its problematic as a modern school, with all that single glazing, but for a building that is 65 years old, it feels remarkably fresh.  When set against some of the well-regarded Modernist schools one finds in London and elsewhere, it suggests that something was lost in what came after.  Our more recent crop of academies seem to have generally either been desperately shortchanged by the procurement process, or lack both the simplicity and the subtleties of this building.  

The Smithsons always had that playful subversive undertow to their work, but to see it applied so masterfully here, it even embarrasses their own later work, in my view.  

'Telepresence'

Today I attended a Cisco 'Telepresence' meeting, thanks to an invitation from Social Life to join a discussion about innovation in the regeneration of a housing suburb of Malmo in Sweden.  I've used videolink conferencing facilities before, but this was definitely a step up.  High-definition cameras pick up the attendees, who sit round similarly shaped tables, with similar backgrounds.  The Screens are arranged as an extension of the table and the cameras are voice-activated.  The link is absolutely instantaneous with no perceptible lag.  It does actually feel like you are in the same room, to the extent that you can hear if people are whispering to each other.

People joined from Brussels, Seoul, New York, Chicago, Malmo and London and it was an interesting debate, though I think more ideas were expressed than fully explored, but there will be follow-ups.  The criticism of these things is normally that you don't feel like you've actually met the other people, which is necessary to develop a kind of professional bond, that then allows you to work effectively at a distance.  With high-definition cameras and zero lag, it does actually feel like you've met, though.  If I'm right, then this has pretty big implications for the future.  At the moment, the main problem is there is only one Cisco office with these facilities in each city and several people had to travel right across town to make the meeting.  Obviously its easier than flying to Malmo, but when this technology proliferates, it will really change things.  Broadband capacity is presumably the limiting factor, but when that improves, maybe we'll never need to leave the house again, to meet, go to school, or down the pub?

Sustainability and the city

introductory text to our MAASD course, 2013/14

Sustainability is an under-theorised notion.  The Brundtland definition of sustainable development, proposed and internationally adopted in 1987 contained inherent antagonisms, that continue to play out today: which human needs (or desires) should be met?  Whose future should be protected?  are sustainability and development (as currently realised) mutually inclusive or exclusive?  The scientific method is giving us greater insights into the likelihood, impacts and proximity of risks we face and whilst it has also delivered technical solutions, our societal capability to apply these appears to be frustrated by the very processes that produce them.  Einstein said that you don't solve problems using the same thinking that created them; he also said, 'the environment is everything except me.'  Via sustainability, we have reduced the environment of 'everything' to 'everything physical' , thus excluding the role of human relations from the discussion. Science and technology are only produced through human relations, however and this disjunction lies at the heart of the environmental conundrum.  

Some of the authors in the reading list propose that the problem of sustainability is primarily a social, not a technical one.  In their view a sustainable world is not only also a socially just world; social justice is a precondition of it.  (Un)fortunately, the (post)modern processes identified by Berman and Beck have already set to work on the under-theorised notion of sustainability, hollowing it out, so that the terminology has become a set of empty symbols, devoid of meaning; yet at the same time these processes continue in powerful, reflexive modes according to Beck.  Modernity may yet provide the radical energy to re-invent the world.  This leaves us the challenge of identifying  the roots of sustainability, as a fundamentally Modern process.  If we go back to the city at the turn of the century and follow Simmel, one of the founding fathers of modern sociology, we gain an insight into the Modern processes at work on society as it rapidly shifted from the rural to the urban.  We understand the city as a mental construct, as much as it is a physical one and we trace the roots of these antagonistic forces that continue to shape all of our lives.  If as Lefebvre proposes, the city is a social product, then a sustainable city requires first a sustainable society.  The immediately apparent inequalities of the city lie in stark contrast to this vision.  Minton's writing identifies this contradiction within contemporary urban development and in doing so, only through words, makes it tangible and possible to challenge through architecture and design.

During the first semester, we will focus on this theoretical reasoning, sharpening our critical tools and building our understanding of the history and etymology of an under-theorised idea.  Observation is key and we will learn to look again at the city around us.  Locke's twin modes of engagement with the world: sensation and reflection, will be separated once more so that they can usefully inform one another.  The skill of writing will be developed, so that in 5,000 words, a final report will build the basis for intervention in the city, to be undertaken in Semester B. 

Roland Karthaus, Alan Chandler & Anna Minton

Private public/ public private

I'm visiting Bart's hospital at the moment.  Established in 1123 (yes, you read that right) and now a PFI hospital.  The diagram of a hospital filling a whole city block (incidentally the only hospital which is also a parish) has obvious issues of overlapping public courtyard space with heavy servicing.  The recent Carillion facelift (ongoing) doesn't seem particularly concerned with resolving these, but accepts them as given conditions.  Smithfield market nearby has similar issues,  but there they strangely feel positive,  because the meat market porters are less intimidating than ambulances and delivery trucks and they still use the old red telephone boxes.

Hospitals are weird places though.  Bart's is owned by the aforementioned PFI contractor,  who also runs it,  but is leased back to the state over a long period.  So is it public,  or private?  Who knows, but I've never understood why hospitals don't stop just about anybody wandering in.  I can make my visits right to the bedside without anyone ever asking what I'm doing.  In fact if you actually need to get some information you have to keep pestering people,  because everyone is so busy.  It would be an interesting experiment to climb into an empty bed,  hook yourself up to the wiring and see how long it takes someone to realise you're not a patient.  As an idea though,  an NHS hospital being a graduated extension of the public realm seems an interesting architectural thesis, yet to be properly realised,  maybe. 

When I go to collect lunch (hospital food is intended to discourage malingering) I wander through nearby paternoster square.  This travesty of a public space has clear design ambitions to be an extension of the public realm,  but of course it's private property; But then, so are many semi-public spaces: churchyards to pick an obvious example. Here its the aggressive, desperate and utterly crap attempt to create a European style square that really depresses me.  Many public spaces are incoherent, but few are so coherently bad. The in-your-face management regime is just another heavy-handed nail in the coffin. 

The City of London remains an amazing place, though, in spite of the Corporation of London's seemingly unstoppable mission to turn it into Canary Wharf.  Walk a little further and you find the most remarkable, unique and beautiful private realms open to, and well-used by the public: Ely Place, the Inns of court and the most famous, but never disappointing Temple.  

Last year we had fun on the MAASD course at UEL with Anna Minton, testing the limits of these spaces and trying to delve into this relationship between physical architecture and the ownership and management of space.  This year Anna joins us as a Reader in Architecture and I'm looking forward to digging a little deeper. 

The Homewood

I rent my office space from good friends McDowell+Benedetti and they kindly invited me on their office trip yesterday.  We visited the Homewood, Patrick Gwynne's Modernist house, designed when he was only 24.  Its a National Trust property, set in a fabulous garden and has been lovingly restored by Avanti Architects.  Excellent guided tour; highly recommended visit.  Afterwards, we walked through Claremont Gardens, to Claremont Fan Court school, where M+B have been patiently trying to unpick the problem of a contemporary school's requirements, in a Grade I listed building, in a Grade I listed landscape for more than a decade, then back to Baltic restaurant in Waterloo for dinner.  Thanks for a great day out, guys.

The Homewood was apparently a labour of love for Gwynne and superficially appears as a straightforward exercise in Modernism; nonetheless the building is emblematic of British Architecture's unconvincing adoption of Modernist principles.  It's immaculately detailed and resolved; but it's a bricolage of Modernist invention and traditional, sometimes vernacular elements.  The residential accommodation floats at first floor level, with the approach elevation designed as a facsimile of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoie, supported on ubiquitous piloti.  Turn the corner, though and the concrete slab is supported on expressed, concrete downstand beams, painted brown (as timber?), resting on brickwork columns.  The brick modules are tightly controlled and nothing is left to chance, yet this contradiction of free-floating and loadbearing structural languages is typical of the lack of conviction.  Internally, these contradictions continue: its not just the curvilinear elements that the guide points out to us as a kind of softening of the harshness of Modernism; its at every scale, in the architraves and balustrades, light fittings and so on.  I know, you're thinking Alvar Aalto, but it doesn't hang together like Aalto; this is not a clever use of brickwork gymnastics and curved edges to show how Modernism can become materially crafted; Gwynne just hedged his bets.  There are some stunning moments: the main room upstairs is like a Bond villain's pad (in a good way), the windows are beautifully composed and inventively made; my favourite is the terrace, which somehow feels magically light.  The only real bum note is the enamel painting on the main elevation, by one of Gwynne's friends; clearly stretching their relationship.  

Gwyne was an undeniably gifted Architect and in his own house, he created a kind of masterpiece.  There's nothing wrong with the building; its very British and it just indicates to me a deeply unresolved point about British Architecture: we have never really been Modern.  

Gwynne is one of those Architects that you think you know, but you're not sure why.  He designed the restaurant on the Serpentine and the 'mushrooming' (as our NT guide described them) forms became a kind of leitmotif for his work, as seen at the Theatre Royal in York.  Gothic, anyone?

Sustainability and the crisis of architectural education

This piece in the AJ by Austin Williams is pretty forthright about sustainability in education.  My initial response is that I agree with him, but then it would be hard to defend teaching a Master's course called Architecture: Sustainability and Design as I do.

On reflection, the underlying point he makes is right: higher education (some would say all education) should be about arming people with the critical tools to be able to investigate and thereby understand the world around them.  At a time when we seem to be shifting towards the acquisition of knowledge as fact, rather than epistemology (ie. the construction of knowledge), Architectural education in the UK stands firm (for the moment) as an awkward proponent of the latter.  He is also right that sustainability is a misanthropic orthodoxy that has become difficult to critique and this is what makes it dangerous; actually most dangerous to its own ambitions.  It is abundantly clear that in every arena of life, the measures undertaken in the name of sustainability are falling woefully short of their originating objectives (at least as stated - if the ambition is read as 'sell more product' then most are doing pretty well).  Its not about rejecting the notion of sustainability per se, (though maybe it should be about rejecting the shop-soiled word), its about applying our critical skills to try and rescue the idea from itself.

Architectural education appears to be undergoing an existential crisis at the moment; there are not enough jobs for architectural graduates and many of the jobs that do exist won't make use of the (literally) constructively critical skills that we as educators spend five years instilling in them.  Unsurprisingly, people are asking what its all for.  For me, this isn't really about the 'trout farms on mars' argument (that is whether students should be designing realistic buildings).  Architectural education is becoming increasingly unique in producing graduates who can take on the most difficult problems of the real world; combining deep critique with creative design skills to open up entirely new possibilities.  Radicalism has always been an important aspect of architectural endeavour and although this has sometimes had unintended consequences, it lies at the heart of the challenge of sustainability.

So, we should teach sustainability; not as a set of facts, but as a subject for critical inquiry.  We shouldn't undermine architectural education because there aren't enough jobs with the right title; architecture graduates should go and do other jobs, because their critical skills are more widely and desperately needed than ever.  Both apprehension and reflection (great RSA Animate video on this here) are necessary to understand the world and to act meaningfully within it and an Architect is one of the very few remaining professionals who is trained to do both, together.  

Urban Renaissance?

It was nice to get letter of the week in BD, even if it made me sound a bit grumpy.  I also agree with the next guy's letter: Rogers has designed some outstanding buildings: the Lloyds building is still an Architectural milestone.

My point was that cities are very complicated things and the readily digestible urbanism promoted by Rogers missed many opportunities during a period when there was a lot of money thrown at cities.  He's not the first great Architect to falter at urbanism.  I also didn't mean to say, as the picture of Gillet square suggests, that the Mayor's 100 spaces are a bad thing.  Some are good, some ok, some not so good; my point was that the programme as a whole has done little to tackle the more difficult problems of London and much of the better work carried out by Design for London has been less noticeable, like the Green Grid programme, which did really take on the complexities of London's spaces.

Mike Raco and Rob Imrie's book Urban Renaissance? Does a good job of getting under the skin of the matter.  Of course these are not just architectural issues, but that's exactly my point.  I met Mike Raco at a discussion group invited by the LLDC to discuss the challenges of the redevelopment of the Queen Elizabeth park (the former Olympic park).  This kind of cross-disciplinary approach is what is needed to properly inform urban proposals and its something that Architects are not conventionally good at.

To end on a less grumpy note, my favourite example of a new public space that does work properly in its London context is Windrush Square, Brixton.  

Legacy?

It is at least good to see a proper, claws-out debate in BD about the Olympic legacy question.  Oppidan Design's response (a property developer) is a little more sophisticated than simple PR, but it is disappointing to see the first developments being designed by the usual suspects, in the usual style.  Originally panned by CABE, the Chobham Manor scheme is now supported after changes, but it hardly sets the bar high (to borrow a sporting metaphor).

Michael Edwards is right to draw attention to the other side of the picture and his metaphor is more to the point: "We lay on our backs with our legs apart for the IOC and sponsors".

Generally in this debate there is more heat than light, however; of course there will be some positive benefits and of course a £10bn global, commercial festival will have its downsides; but to hope that a project even on this scale will affect the long-term economic trends that have driven wedges between different parts of society in London and between the southeast and the rest of the country is of course ridiculous.  The problem with the debate about the legacy is that the PR surrounding the Olympic bid and the preparations was utterly fantastic (in the unreal sense of the word) and anyone who really believed that such a project would 'regenerate' East London was surely credulous.  The problem for the politicians involved is that its hard to backtrack from this position and so pointing out individual pieces of legacy as examples of this fantasy merely highlights the gap with reality.  We have been trying to 'regenerate'  London since the 1890's when Booth's amazing social survey maps first made the geographic effects of poverty evident.  120 years later, it still hasn't sunk in that whilst the effects of poverty may be geographic, the causes are not and after the same period of 'regeneration' programmes, today's deprivation maps of London look remarkably similar to Booth's.  Suddenly £10bn no longer sounds like a lot of money.  

This is not to say that there won't be a positive legacy.  The London Legacy Development Corporation has a unique opportunity as both landowner and planning authority to create a park, surrounded by modern development.  They have no option but to use the market to do this and the trick for them is in how they can bring a sense of coherence to what would otherwise be a free-for-all.  The land is going to be developed, so the challenge is to manage that process to create a place that is attractive and inclusive.  That will mean changes in the population of the area: pretending otherwise is disingenuous, but these new people will bring money and will be followed by jobs and services.  The trick is in spreading these as widely as possible, but that can't be achieved through urban design alone, which is the LLDC's remit.  

Next year we're going to be working with the LLDC as part of our ongoing LEED ND research work on the MAASD course.  The intention is to provide some additional metrics to help them do their job better.  The bigger 'legacy' debate is simply a proxy for a much older and longer debate about inequality, as has become apparent in Brazil.  This is a real and increasing problem in this country, but we've had the Olympics and they didn't and won't fix it.  Let's just hope for a nice park and a more integrated urban area in East London. 

discussion on China

I was recently interviewed by TCA thinktank about architecture in China.  I'm by no means an expert, so I tried to relate it to what I know about.  Short extract below, full interview here 

TCA: Do you think Chinese architects have more or less the same responsibilities as the western ones?If we want to describe the Chinese architecture, which are the main characteristics of you and your colleagues architectural production of the last generation?

RK: In a postmodern world, responsibility is a difficult professional concept.  We can no longer connect cause and effect with the same certainty as before and yet the global superstar Architects that I complain about are using this condition as an excuse to avoid their responsibilities.  When the Shard – London’s new tallest building – was completed by Renzo Piano, a well-known London Architect, Jeremy Dixon said that Piano should be locked in the Tower of London to contemplate his mistake (the Tower is opposite the Shard and is where traitors were imprisoned in the past).  It was quite shocking for us (in a good way) because nobody really complains about these kind of buildings in public.  I think the problem is a lack of general knowledge of how to critique contemporary Architecture: it is only if we can hold Architects to account in some way that a form of responsibility develops.  I think this relates to the last question: if people are more engaged with the shaping of their own environment it is obvious that it will respond better to their needs.  Although China does not have the same freedoms of expression that we have in the UK, strangely this situation can create stronger debates because it matters more to people.  It is a deep irony that our freedoms in the west have disempowered us in many ways.  Chinese people have to struggle a lot more to be heard, but I think there are more possibilities open to them in the future to shape their own environment.  Architects should be facilitators in this process, rather than pure artists producing rhetorical forms. 

Live-work. Victorian-style.

The Pullens estate in Walworth.  Victorian Tenements built in the 1880s, with 2-storey workshops for artisans built in mews-like courtyards behind the 4-storey terraces.

The pattern has a distinctly Georgian feel to it, though its much tighter of course.  From the air, the intricate, dense, mixed-use structure is clearly apparent as an urban typology, making everything built since look dumb and wasteful.

the wrong shade of green

It seems amazing that it has taken this long for people to begin to realise that sustainable architecture isn't working (see article link below from archdaily)

http://www.archdaily.com/396263/why-green-architecture-hardly-ever-deserves-the-name/

 Nikos Salingaros

Almost no-one was saying this a few years ago and now there are more and more similar articles.  This is what we have been saying on our Masters course for 5 years now: sustainability is the radical, social challenge of modernity; but somehow that's been watered down to a (partial) science of individual buildings.

This article highlights the failings of the USGBC, though of course its a much wider problem than that and in fact the work we've been doing with the USGBC's LEED ND standard shows an alternative approach.  ND looks at the urban scale of the built environment and combines qualitative dimensions with quantitative, so it considers how people use space, not just thinking of buildings as machines.

Climate change is only one of about ten major, global risks that threaten our survival and not even the most imminent (take your pick from desertification, species extinction, eutrophication, antibiotic resistance etc.).  Any one of these can destroy us, but of course these risks are interconnected (as we and our built environment are), so cherry-picking one problem, sticking a gizmo to tackle it on some buildings and saying we're on our way to solving our problems is the equivalent of putting fingers in your ears and singing 'la la la'.  But this is exactly what we've all been happily doing for the last three decades or so.  Time to stop kidding ourselves and start seeing the bigger picture. 

on the outside

Great week of engagement with local residents, employers, public and third sector people on the RSA Transitions project.  We used three conceptual 'models' to illustrate the different ways the site could grow and bring in a mixture of revenue to support the provision of services to the client base: category D prisoners (who are allowed out on licence) and ex-offenders, whilst also providing employment opportunities for local people.

Of course that's a difficult and potentially controversial balance, but there was almost total support for the project from people and almost too many ideas about how to develop it.  Over the summer we now have to turn this huge amount of information into a preferred option that can be mapped out on the site as a masterplan.  Watch this space...

MAASD 2013_14

Preparing the ground for our sustainability MA next academic year with Anna Minton now joining us in an official capacity.

Big discounts available for UEL graduates who have done elements of the course as part of your diploma.  Applications open now - get in touch if you want to know more.

on the inside

We've been using the consultation toolkit (see below) with prisoners and staff on the inside in HMP Everthorpe today.  Last minute panic when I found out you can't take a plan of the prison into the prison, but some sticky tape and card sorted that out.  It was an incredibly productive day, with both groups engaging fully and positively in the process and the toolkit worked brilliantly as a means to explore the possibilities on the site.  Unfortunately cameras aren't allowed in either, so no pics, but next week we're doing the same exercise with employers, public and voluntary sector organisations and local residents, so watch this space.

opening night

The UEL architecture show opened on Wednesday night.  Congratulations to the students for pulling it together: it looks great.

our MAASD / production of place installation in 'the box'

Consultation and engagement in HMP Everthorpe

I've been working as part of the RSA Transitions team at HMP Everthorpe in East Riding.  The objective of the project is simple: to reduce re-offending in those leaving prison, but of course its a complex area that is stubbornly resistant to policy initiatives.  The recent Government proposal in this area is the reconfiguring and privatisation of probation services.  Some of the changes make a lot of sense but the subtitle (a revolution in the way we manage offenders) hints at other problems.  The paper acknowledges some of the potential pitfalls of wholesale privatisation and payment by results and proposes ways to deal with them, but changing both what is delivered and how it is delivered throws all the balls up in the air, so I don't believe anyone really knows how they will land.  Its a new context for us to engage with, though and provides a potential for social enterprises to deliver these services, as well as commercial contractors.

Last week we tested out my 'consultation toolkit' which some of the prisoners helped to build in the prison workshops.  It takes the form of a game, using a lightbox and various models to explore different concepts for how Transitions will work on the site.  It seems to work well and next week we'll be consulting in the prison with prisoners and prison staff, then out in the community and with local businesses and public sector organisations.