Obesity and the Built Environment

Sounds silly, doesn't it, to link being fat with buildings? Well, this is exactly the name of a conference from the Association for the Study of Obesity, an organisation that has been a'round' for a surprisingly long time - since 1967 in fact. Now that 25% of our population resembles Mr Blobby, they must be very busy indeed.

One thing they have come up with is that, in a nutshell, buildings can make you fat. It is nothing whatsoever down to eating too much and not taking enough exercise, it is the fault of the designer of the building you live in. So, before I get sued by a 35 stone eating machine, I must look to my designs, and make sure I am tough on fat and tough on the causes of fat. I thought I would do a little brainstorming for a new office design, and here are some of the results...

1. Very, very, very, very long corridors - more walking, less fat.
2 Loos in an outbuilding on the other side of the carpark. Caught short? Try a 500 yard dash first!
3. No heating, so they can shiver it off in winter.
4. No ventilation or opening windows, so they can sweat it off in the summer.
5. No lift and a very steep staircase.
6. Treadmills in front of every workstation linked to the computer's electricity supply.

If you, dear readers, can think of any more suggestions for a home or workplace, I would be glad to hear them!

Remember I'm the Bloody Bottom Feeder

On the RIBA architects' forum, members' feathers have been well and truely ruffled by some comments in Building Design from none other than the Executive* Director of Practice. He writes a regular article in Building Design under the heading 'Ask Us a Question'. In it, some tiny practice asks for advice on competing for work against the unregulated 'plans draw-ers' and the like. Mr Executive suggested getting out of the lowest of the low market, ie small extensions, and going for bigger fish, such as housing association work. Ever tried to get the larger jobs for the big clients? No? Well, the larger publicly funded clients are rarely interested unless you've done it before, or have stupendously huge amounts of insurance (with gasp inducing premiums) and if you have not done it before - no chance, mate. We'll go to the large practice thanks.

Competition for work can be tough, especially for the micro-practice in the modern climate of 'biggest is best' and 'cheapest is best'. Basically, architects have no protection of function, only of title. And what's in a name? No money, certainly, if you are one of those in the 'bottom feeding market' our dear Mr Executive mentioned in the article. There are many, many others out there, with very little training, design acumen, technical knowledge or integrity, who will draw 'plans' of extensions, or whole houses, or entire estates complete with shops and offices, and do it a lot cheaper than an architect can with their mandatory professional indemnity insurance and their specialist seven year training. Cheap as chips, on to the next one, never mind if there's a problem down the line, they don't care because they are not insured, they can't get struck off as they are not on any register, they can close one limited company and set up another tomorrow, disappear completely and sod you, the client.

You would think, wouldn't you, that an institute paid for by its members would attempt to support those same members by promoting them to the world in general? Well... yes, that is exactly what the RIBA does, but some members are more equal than others. Eighty per cent of the membership are tiny little people like Alice here, one of the 'bottom feeders', and serves us right if we have to make a living out of small extensions. Well, Mr Executive, at least we design damn good extensions. How about marketing us as ten notches above the rest?

This has been a real blow to the morale of the small practicioner. The postings fly on RIBAnet, and watching from the sidelines, Alice witnesses Mr Executive wriggling under the prods and pokes and squawks. Referring to the article, he says the views are his own and not necessarily the RIBA's. Then he states his views are unlikely to contradict those of the RIBA. So it does not take a rocket scientist (or even an architect) to work out that his views and the RIBA’s might possibly be one and the same.

Nice to know we’re appreciated and valued by our own institute. I've a good mind to ask for my £200 membership fee back.



*Just what does the word 'executive' mean, anyway? When I hear this word, I think of the film 'Brazil' and those creepy, suited and booted officials with their endless form filling.

Muse

My muse (or one of them, anyway) Sir Norman Blogster, appears to be back, but at the moment is a wisp of his former self and isn't posting very often. He spoke of football, one of the things I just don't understand, in his recent post, rather than architecture, which I aspire to understanding even if I continue to scratch my head every week over the blobs and shards and puffed up sheds in Building Design.

Another of Alice's muses (I can have up to nine, if I want to be classical) is Mr B*******, or B2A, who lately accused me of being quiet. Well, yes. I admit, I havn't been strictly blogging in the true sense of the word, ie regularly. Why? I'm tired. Not of blogging, no - but just that dragging, all-over knackeredness that overcomes everything else, until all I want to do is shout at everyone to leave me alone before curling up in a ball on the sofa sucking my thumb, which means I need a rest. This is one of the problems of working for yourself - the fact that a holiday of any kind is akin to planning a military campaign. I have to arrange a colleague to cover for me, otherwise I am not insured. I have to tell Tom, Dick and Harry and the rest of the world that I am having a week off. I have to brief my colleague on each of my jobs in case he gets a phone call from a panicky builder, panicking client or the Council. I have to put diverters and messages on my telephones, plus an 'out of office, get lost' message on my emails. This is just for one measily week - I cannot remember the last time I was able to take two weeks off - it would just be too much aggravation.

During the week off, I do all the things I simply have no time for otherwise, such as shopping for black clothes and hard hats, getting my hair cut so I can see properly again, de-gunking the fridge, servicing the car, cleaning the car, washing the car, cleaning the house properly, going to the dentist....

Then its back to work. I open the office door, to a huge pile of post, several of which are marked 'urgent' and need to be dealt with now. The answering machine is full of messages, asking me to ring immediately, despite the message referring them to my colleague. My email inbox is absolutely stuffed full of 'where are you ?' messages with attachments marked 'urgent'. When I ring my colleague, he has been on site to sort out a major problem and is busy putting a large and juicy invoice together for his time.

I have never yet worked out why, in all my years of experience, and despite the most careful preparation, the poo well and truly hits the fan the minute I walk out of the door for my first few days' rest in six months. Of course, by the time I have got through the first days' work, I am completely shattered - again - and wish I hadn't bothered going away in the first place. I lose money, I have to work twice as hard to catch up, it takes a real effort to organise....

Why did I become an architect? I could have stopped at the Part 1 and gone off and done something a lot easier.

Many years ago, at the beginning of my lengthy education, I was standing in a large, cold, medieval cathedral with a small, fresh faced and equally cold seminar group. Our lecturer started telling us about the building, with quiet enthusiasm and in an easily understood manner. Basically, his message was 'Look. Really look and see - isn't it marvellous?' At that moment I looked, then realised I had never, ever really seen a building before - they were just big things to live in, shop in, drink in - that was it. This time, I felt as if I had a giant magnifying glass, and could examine every detail. It was a wonderful Eureka moment and I often think of it when I am tired and jaded, such as now. The man was a true muse, a real inspiration.

I met him again recently, and the moment came to my mind once again. I was so overwhelmed, I kissed him.

To The Devil With The Detail!

As I was riffling through my plan chest yesterday, I unearthed an old job and stopped for a moment to look at the yellowing drawings. Nice, I thought. One of my finer moments. It was a design for a house on a lovely rural site on the edge of a village not far away. I remember meeting my client at the village shop and following his car down an uneven lane, with old trees leaning over it casting deep stripes of shade; and verdant fields of young barley and meadows dotted with sheep each side. The car window was open and the strong, sweet smell of the new grass and the spring countryside occasionally overpowered the acrid smell of diesel fumes from my client's van in front.

He was a builder, and had bought a small site at the end of the lane for his own family house. There was a wood and a stream; a large, uneven patch of grass with a sad looking cottage slumping slowly into the subsoil in the middle. The cottage was to be demolished, and he wanted a new, traditional house with four bedrooms for himself and his girlfriend. 'Something special'.. he said. 'Not the stuff I build for sale - its got to be good. Do you know what I mean?'

Firstly, I had to translate 'traditional'. Traditional to what? Northern Scotland? Estonia? Brutalist architecture of the 1920's? I jest. When most people (who are not architects) say 'traditional' they mean Victorian-y Geogian-y Elizabethesque. A kind of mish mash of historical styles, the kind done so badly by the volume housebuilders, firmly rooted in no historical period at all. The translation of 'good' is fairly easy. No plastic windows. Decent bricks. Bespoke joinery. Those frilly little extras that make all the difference between the rubbish on the new housing estates and Alice Architect's houses - individual, lovingly thought out, designed for a particular site and a particular client - a one-off.

I decided on a simple box for the sake of my client's limited purse, but decorated in an exuberant manner not normally found in the modern trash. In particular, I included decorative bargeboards, of a kind similar to the charming little station in the picture above. They are the frilly white things at the edge of the roof - really pretty, like a lace doily peeping over the edge of a rather nice Victorian tea table. They have a ladylike, dignified yet pretty charm and suit small buildings very well. I designed a little finial (the spike on the top) all nicely turned in timber, to carry each end of the lacey bargeboards. Then I did a lovely brick dogtooth moulding all around the eaves, and around the tops of the chimneys. At the bottom of the wall, I stepped it out with plinth in moulded brickwork, which had the visual effect of cutting down the height and gave the impression that the house was standing on a firm foot; it had a good grip of the ground.*

In short, the new house was simple, decorative, functional and charming, and my clients loved it. I obtained planning permission, then they decided they would proceed alone. This happens all too often - clients decide money is too tight for the services of an architect (even though, as on Grand Designs, they end up wasting enormous amounts of money during the build due to complete and utter inexperience and total inability to read drawings - oh, Alice, you're so arrogant). However, this chap was a builder, and I assumed all would be well. I heard nothing more. Several years later, I found the drawings and decided, next time I was passing, to go and look at it.

Well, the lane was the same, shady and quiet. I drove slowly past the site. The horror! Where was my design? It was the right general shape and size, but....

The gutters and rainwater pipes were all that wretched square section plastic, already warped out of line. The bricks were cheap, uniform in colour and shape, with none of the little variations in colour and texture which make all the difference. My client had made an effort with the main elevation by using partly salvaged bricks, the sort covered in mortar splashes and paint, of dubious quality and the pointing was awful - huge joints, hideously finished in what is known as 'struck' pointing. Awful, awful. The plinth was simply stepped out brickwork, exposing the edge to the frost; the dogtooth moulding had been replaced with a horrible double dentil course, badly done and grossly out of proportion.

All this was bad enough, but what really hurt, what was the final straw? The dreadful bargeboards. They were not the lacy, frilly, meringue-y confections I lovingly designed, but a lumpen effort with a jigsaw which produced a parody of the decorative edge - it was simply a wiggly line cut, very badly, into an oversized lump of inferior softwood. I stopped the car and gawped, then tears came to my eyes. It was painful to behold. There is a phrase, common among architects, that God is in the detail. The Devil had taken these details and given them a good mauling before spitting them out as this shameful satire of my work.

My client wasn't in. I wanted to grap him by the lapels and shake him, and say 'Are you blind? have you no taste at all? How could you!' before dissolving into a hysterical puddle. I drove home and dissolved into an alcoholic puddle instead.


*This phrase is often used by old countrymen when implying a horse has big feet for its size.

Discontinue?

Two of my fave bloggers have decided to rest from venting their spleen on their very different, but riveting, subjects. The first is Totally-Un PC, that Gene Hunt reincarnation, whose lust for life comes through every post; who loves and hates his job in equal measure, who behind the uniform, tan, shouty personality and grey hair is so very… human. Its as bad as Gene Hunt hanging up his camel hair overcoat and selling the Cortina and the Quattro and buying an early 90’s Skoda. Although (I believe) I have nothing whatsoever in common with TUPC, I would very much like to join him for an evening have a good, down to earth rant and a shout about the world in general over a pint or two of good beer in a noisy, sweaty, battered Victorian pub.

The second is Norman Blogster and Part IV, that commentator on architecture, life and everything; which I like to read when I am bored to tears with my own tiny little architectural gene pool. His understanding and insight are many levels above mine, due I expect to his gliding on snow white wings high above the sea of architecture rather than grovelling around on the bottom, like me. Occasionally I lift my primeval snout from the sediment and peer upwards, in wonder, at the world of architecture beyond loo extensions and filthy surveys. After an evening with TUPC, I could spend the day with Norm, whilst he explained the wonders of Starchitecture to me over a glass of perspective in a suitably lit and artistic wine bar.

I will miss these two and hope they haven’t given up entirely.

I, too, have very good reasons to discontinue this blog, but for now? I’m thinking about it!

Mystery

I met my new client in his drive. It was a lovely sunny day, and as my car drew up, he opened the front door and walked towards me, beaming all over his face. I shook his hand and couldn’t help beaming back. ‘Come and see the place!’ he said, gesturing towards the door, at the same time as gripping my hand in a very enthusiastic handshake.

The house was a range of converted outbuildings, which once belonged to the adjoining rectory. They were low, long, mellow brick, with steeply pitched, slightly uneven roofs of various angles, there were a couple of little porches under catslide roofs over the entrance doors and a dinky little scrabble of open cart lodges bordering the shingled drive. A high, old brick wall separated the house and garden from its neighbour, with vines and Virginia creeper, beginning to turn that lovely shade of red, covering large areas of brickwork.

We walked around the house to the rear, where a long, shady lawn, with some huge mature beech trees, stretched down to the river bank, where there were reeds, water lilies and willows. The afternoon sun turned everything golden and the little man beside me chatted away, telling me about the move from the other side of the country to be near his grown up children. It was very pleasant.

He introduced me to his wife, a tired looking but friendly woman. She walked with a limp and had a bent back. Her husband told me she was disabled, and my brief was to make some adaptations to the house to enable her to use it.

As we toured the building, I began to wonder why he had bought it. He was quite elderly, a retired vet, and from the sounds of his wheezing breath, I thought he either had asthma or emphysema. The house was charming, but the garden was huge, and would take a great deal of maintenance, just to keep the lawns in check. The rooms were not all on one level, there were little steps in every doorway; in one corridor you took three steps up, turned a very tight corner and took two steps down. The kitchen was in a tiny lean to, most inconvenient and several rooms away from the dining room. One bedroom was in the roof space, up a dog-leg of a staircase and you had to duck to miss the tie beam stretching across the landing. There was only one bathroom, in a most inconvenient place. From the main bedroom, you would have to go down the stairs, then up another separate staircase to reach it.

There was a vast conservatory in poor repair, which would be cold in the winter, but obscured the view from the sitting room. There was a hallway with no natural light, and a huge study overlooking the drive, which could only be reached through the kitchen.

I very gently suggested that this house would take a lot of altering to suit his wife, and it would not be possible to do some of the things he might wish.

‘Nonsense!’ he said. ‘You’re an architect! I’m sure you will come up with something!’. Well, I tried. I prepared a sketch showing some alterations, which he was very pleased with. What concerned him more than anything else was putting a door onto the open cart lodges. He became quite obsessed with it, sending me stacks of brochures of different (and wildly unsuitable) doors. I couldn’t get cross with him, he was so cheerful.

He and his wife left for his old house to prepare it for sale. While they were away, I did a little more work and emailed him, but heard nothing.

After a couple of weeks, his wife rang me. He had gone for a walk in the local woods and hanged himself. She was distraught. No note, no nothing.

Why?

Medieval Manoevers in the Dark Ages

Just before one in the morning, a few days ago, a rumbling sound awoke me. ‘Blasted Air Force’ I thought – there had been numerous very large transport aircraft coming over earlier, flying low enough for me to shake hands with the pilot if I felt so inclined. Actually, after the fourth or fifth of these things nearly took my chimney pots with them, I felt more inclined to punch his lights out. I digress. It was not an aircraft of course, it was The Earthquake – the biggest thing to hit Market Raison since… well, ever. The rumble grew louder, then all the crockery in the dresser began to rattle – ‘chingchingchingching’ – and my bed trembled. I lay awake in wonder at this fundamental force, more primitive than even the weather, emerging from the very bowels of our planet.

The next morning I had a quick check around the house – no damage. We are quite some way from the epicentre, and apart from a few smashed chimneys in Market Raison, and shrieking from the press, that was it.

Market Raison is in Lincolnshire, a flat, dull county for the most part, with a grid of windswept arable fields defined by deep, water filled dykes to drain what was once marshland. Nothing much happens in Lincolnshire (relatively speaking). A few illegal immigrants are occasionally arrested for illegal cauliflower cutting - and that's all there is. They might have a decent branch of Sainsbury's, but nothing to set the world on fire. Lincoln itself is very slightly more exciting – a small city built on what used to be an island in the surrounding swamp. The island is now a very steep hill, surrounded by a flat plain.

Some time ago, when I was a very immature and wet-behind-the-ears student, our tutor took a group of us to visit Lincoln cathedral. After a long and boring drive through vast flat lands with no hedges and acre upon acre of indeterminate leafy crops, the minibus toiled up the immensely steep hill and halted not far from the top. Crowning the hill was the most enormous, gob-smackingly vast Gothic cathedral I had ever seen (and even by then, I had seen quite a few). It can be seen for miles around, and dwarfs everything around it. As you can see, it is a mountain of ornate carved stone and glass, gigantic flying buttresses arching out like tentacles to anchor themselves deep in the surrounding lawn or on top of an impossibly slender wall; pinnacled, frilled and decorated stone towers reaching over two hundred and seventy feet into the air; vast glittering fields of glass in thousands of separate pieces, each uniquely shaped, set into tiny tracks of lead. Inside, the giddy height of the nave leads to a highly decorative vaulted choir, the light sparkling through the vast windows, light and shadow showing off the richly moulded, huge piers supporting the stone arches, all weighing thousands of tons but seeming as light as air. I could go on and on. Oh, it was beautiful.

Something like that, of course, is not built in a day, or even a few years. It took several hundred years to create the building we see now. Just look at the west front. Something not quite right? Does something look odd? See those great, masculine, round arches? Why the change to the much more feminine, smaller pointed arches? Did the architect die in the middle of the site works?

In 1092 the foundation was dug, and a smaller, but still impressive building with the three arches was partly completed and in use 50 years or so later, built in the style of the time known as ‘Romanesque’.

One of the numerous British earthquakes struck Lincoln in 1185. Not only was it strong enough to demolish a few chimneys, it damaged the cathedral so badly the whole lot had to be taken down and rebuilt, all apart from the three arches of the western entrance, which was so massive it withstood the shaking. In less than 100 years, the new ‘Gothic’ style of architecture had overtaken that old fashioned Romanesque. It is the medieval equivalent of our putting a modern glass and concrete box onto a Victorian rectory. Is it still beautiful, or an architectural mess?