Scottish Architecture

Taking it on the Chin

You live and learn. Tragically, just when you’re ready for the exam, you die.

Despite the bleak outlook, I’m focussing on my CPD – Continued Personal Development. It’s not just about knowledge; it’s about people believing you are worth listening to.

An elderly Highland gentleman taught me this in my local Skye pub several years ago. He was resplendent in tweed and magnificent sideburns, and had his upright sisters either side of him, handbags clutched to laps. His voice had the precision of the educated Gael; he was someone who commanded his audience.

“Now”, he said. “Are you one of the Dualchas boys?” I told him I was. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you for some time. I just wanted to tell you: I think your buildings are absolutely disgusting.”

With that he indicated that the conversation was over; the sisters beamed in admiration.

I want that demeanour. I have the tweed suit – fitted, not off the shelf. And I’m growing a beard: the style will suggest authority, the thickness maturity, and the lustre youthfulness.

Unfortunately, the upper lip suggests my great, great granny had intimate relations with a Sumatran ape. But I accept the gingerness; you can’t help your genetics – you just do the best with what you’ve got. A trim haircut and sharp clothes doesn’t maketh the man, or secure the job, but ensuring that your fly is up can prevent your gravitas from puddling on the floor.

After all, architects are “creatives” so the look has to be right. When Dualchas was part of the Rotterdam Biennale a few years ago, we searched round Glasgow airport for the other architects we’d be travelling with. They were easy to spot. Black Norman Foster turtle-necks, dark thick-rimmed glasses, every one of them. The public could tell that this was a group of confident professionals; they oozed style, imagination and individuality.

I discovered recently that the collective noun for architects is “an arrogance of architects”. I was told this, with a certain amount of vehemence, by a professor of architectural technology who was an engineer by profession. He confirmed my guess that he must work in Edinburgh, and while this perhaps made his assertion understandable, I still think it’s dangerous for engineers to start such games.

I didn’t find out if the group of Rotterdam-bound architects was arrogant or not, as I never got to go on the trip. As the girl at check-in took great pleasure in repeatedly pointing out, my passport was two months out of date. I had to make the miserable, sick-to- the-pit-of-the-stomach bus journey back to Skye as my brother, who had contributed nothing to the exhibition, flew off on expenses with his trendy new friends. The West Highland Free Press published a photograph of him grinning in front of the Dualchas display. I try not to dwell on it.

But if the architect has to look the part, so does the office. Our previous Skye base was an old stone school – it had no insulation, no central heating, and windows that didn’t open. Just after Mary joined Dualchas we found her one morning on her hands and knees in a distressed state, furiously scrubbing the carpet. She had forgotten to close the door and a flock of sheep had taken shelter overnight, to a prodigious defecating effect. In her defence, this problem had never arisen at Patel Taylor Architects, but the new clients were due in one hour.

Fortunately they turned out to be Yorkshire sheep farmers, and they took in the aroma as if it were Italian coffee.

This reminds me of when another potential client came to interview us for a job – his lady wife owned a huge Perthshire estate, a castle, and they had big plans for the future. We had to make a good impression; this was a man to take care of. When I offered coffee he asked what we had. It was Nescafe or Gold Blend.

“Ah”, he said. “Your first mistake.”

We almost never went on to make any more. The first winter in the building was miserably cold – we were given some old gas heaters by the landlord, and we had to blast them out so our fingers could hold a pencil. One day the four of us were discovered in deep slumber. We were revived and the heaters removed, and after a Nurofen and quick breath of air, we got on with our work (some clients will not accept any excuse).

We’ve now got a shiny new office in the Templeton Carpet Factory in Glasgow as well as a Skye office we built for ourselves a few years ago. The German kitchen and the percolated coffee may not win a job, but it helps give the impression to the client that you want to look after them. We even have a dress code after one of our previous employees (you’ll remain nameless, Alex) turned up to a meeting sporting that youth-wear where the gusset of the jeans is round the knees and the waist round the scrotum. He had Spiderman pants on.

Of course, in reality, judging people by their underwear or the quality of their HobNobs is facile. The shambolic John MacLean of Glenelg has probably never worn matching socks in his life, but is known as “the Guru”, because of his huge intellect and ability to turn his hand to anything. Locals talk of the time a visitor to his house complained when, before pouring the tea, he rinsed the cups in a sink of ink-black water. John showed him that he wasn’t to worry about dirt by plunging his hand in to the sink and lifting out an octopus.

People still let him install heat recovery systems, fix their engines and teach their children science. Which shows that skills can overcome personal hygiene issues.

This may not be a profound observation, but it’s one of the things I’ve learnt over the last 14 years since I graduated. The adage that you learn far more from your mistakes than your successes is also true – if you fail to make a good impression, you learn how to improve for next time; if you screw up, you won’t do it again.

I’ve been through the problems of dealing with a building being structurally defective, of having badly worded contracts that allowed a client to escape paying. I’ve dealt badly with bullying contractors who tried to pull the wool over a young architect’s eyes, and angry clients with ludicrous expectations. I now have that empirical knowledge.

It’s also been recorded at a council planning meeting that the local representative thought my design was “the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.” And looking round the chamber, he must have seen a lot of ugly things.

But I’ve also had the experience of working with great colleagues, clients and tradesmen, of seeing designs come to fruition, and feeling some sense of achievement from helping to make something which is solid and tangible.

The trouble for youngsters is that they’re not getting the chance to do this – not even to make the mistakes. As the professor from Edinburgh told me, he has nothing but admiration for the skill, endeavour and enthusiasm of his graduates, but nothing but despair when he sees the opportunities that are open to them. As the recession hits hard, and the bankers and politicians continue to line their pockets without a semblance of shame, young hopefuls face a hopeless situation.

At the moment, as probably many practices are finding, we’re being inundated with applications from people with great portfolios and CVs. Sometimes the cover letters are almost plaintive, with the student offering to work for nothing for experience. What sort of state are we in when people offer to work for nothing?

One of the hardest things for people to deal with is loss of confidence – once you’re on the dole, or out of the profession for a while, this can open a psychological wound which takes years to repair. With talk that things are going to get worse when public spending is cut and interest rates rise, prospects are not looking good.

My only advice to young graduates is to do something which keeps your hand in. Take on small work if you can get it, travel if necessary, build or draw when you can. Keep being creative – you never know what might happen.

When a young man in a Skye hotel was complaining that he couldn’t afford to buy a house, the barman showed him a model of a student-project house design he was working on. A holidaying builder from Edinburgh, who’d had more than a couple of whiskies, promised to build it for £35,000.

Dualchas was born, or spawned some would suggest, and my brother Ali no longer has to work behind a bar. I can honestly say that I don’t know what I’d be doing if it wasn’t for him bringing together our friend Domhnall-Angaidh and the builder Jim Cook back in 1995. I certainly wouldn’t be writing this. It gave me the confidence I required to start a business and career.

The whisker-free youth that was photographed in a Big Issue article about the house is now a bearded man in tweed. So with the acquired demeanour of authority, maturity, yet youthfulness, I can now try and impart some sort of encouragement to young people who undoubtedly have huge potential to achieve great things.

And I do this grimacing from the painful truth that I still have a lot to learn.

Last week a potential new client was showing me his house as he explained his project. His big black lab was chewing something. He said, “Excuse my dog…he has a hobby of running round the house with a pair of pants in his mouth.”

“Oh”, I said. “I have the same hobby myself”.

He didn’t even smirk. My young colleague stared at the carpet with head bowed. In the tumbleweed silence I felt I had learnt something important. Get the contract signed, then attempt the jokes.

Strike a pose - Neil in full Starchitect regalia a la Norman Foster polo neck, statement specs, goatee (and pen). Images: Neil Stephen

No Spare Change

Being a “boss” is power. The bar-manager hangs a fist of keys off his belt to display his responsibility; the Heid Yin at the factory has the biggest swivel chair, and his wife-polished Italian leather shoes reflect back to staff their subservience.

I met a boss who exuded casual authority: open-shirted, smooth-chested, and surrounded by an entourage of fawning young woman. I asked him if he had any spare work, and he replied, “Why? Are you a spare?” The ladies laughed hysterically (such a clever and powerful man). I reddened, but replied honestly and said no. I must have impressed: I got the job as a bus boy.

I was 20 and working abroad for the summer. My mother was immensely proud: she crowed at a dinner party that her twins were earning good money as bum boys in Canada.

Now it’s me who’s the boss guy: the polished shoe is on the other foot. I have a key ring and swivel chair; women now laugh at my jokes. I no longer have to nervously approach someone for a job, CV polished and tie straight. Others come to me. This is when the feeling of power courses through the veins, when the gag about the spare you’ve been working on can be prosecuted to devastating effect.

But the moment is never quite right: conducting job interviews always feels too serious. You need to find good people to run a business, and the hopeful candidate is looking to you for employment and security; to help plan out their future. Every response is weighted: it’s not a time for mirth.

And yet, occasionally, you do have to bite your tongue. It can be a painful experience.

A well-turned out young man applied for a job with Hebridean Homes – our sister company that sells kits for the rural housing market. I asked him, “Are you interested in rural architecture?” He thought about it, and then replied, “No, not really.”

Another, from South Africa, struggled when he started a sentence, “I am not a racist, but…”

But the most baffling was when an applicant for a year-out position at Dualchas, who we’ll call John, turned up when we were expecting Mark. John explained that Mark was his twin, and because they had done the same course, and had similar experience, they shared a CV. OK….but he really fell down when asked about his interest in music. He sparked to life when describing the gig the night before: he was a bit shaky on account of not hitting bed till 4am, but it had been “f*ckin’ mental”.

Fortunately we found an impressive part 1 student from the Mack. He’s been with us a few months, and is a credit to his school, his parents and himself. He churns out work with unbridled enthusiasm, his eyes widening with delight at the chance of doing even a menial task, and his monstrous appetite hoovers up any food in the office that might be on the turn.

But now he’s got the job and is firmly embedded, the temptation is to unclench the tongue and take the mickey. I suffered in the past struggling to follow out my boss’s wish for a head on his pint of cider – I know people who’ve been sent on errands for tartan paint and a long stand. It’s tradition.

But with my young apprentice it’s completely unnecessary. He entertains us effortlessly.

I discovered this when telling him about a programme I saw on Discovery about a man-eating Nile crocodile which was 30 foot long, and was still alive despite being riddled with bullets.

He asked, “On Islay?”

“No, no, Nile I said. “

As I puzzled over his initial response, he asked me a question which is perhaps the most shameful indictment of the Scottish education system ever uttered.

“Do you get crocodiles in Scotland?”

I could have put this down to an aberration, until he came in to work late and ashen faced, explaining that he had skidded his car on ice at Breakish after an antelope jumped out on the road. He didn’t help his situation when he Google-searched for antelopes, got a picture of one up on screen, and said it looked just like a deer, so it was “an easy mistake to make.”

With this sort of material, it’s very tempting to ridicule. Actually, it’s impossible not to: the antelope bolted after being startled by the sudden movement of a three-toed sloth. But I do know I should restrain myself (which is why I’ve written it down for everyone to read).

Fortunately my young colleague appears to be able to put up with my equivalent of “are you a spare?” comments. But I am aware that as someone’s senior, it’s very easy to overstep the mark.

I have a sticker on my bathroom mirror which tells me “Don’t Be a D*ck.” It was left by a former lodger and employee, and I think he was trying to tell me something.

A friend of mine, concerned for my success, advises that it’s time to remove it: ladies using the facilities may find it “unsophisticated.” But it’s useful. It’s the reduction of a thousand religious morals in to one pithy jus. If the wicked queen had reflected on it, there would have been no poisoned apple, and she may have resolved the relationship issues with her daughter.

But it is very hard to adhere to - mainly because you have to be able to recognise when your behaviour is unacceptable. At what point does banter become bullying, does an innocent tease become a hurtful jibe?

I’ve been on the end of a few in my time, with my thin skin and big ears, but my sharpest memory is of a time I doled it out. There was a boy in our Scout troop who, it had been decided, was of a striking resemblance to Ghandi. I made up a song about him based on the chart-topping Candy Girl, and when the leaders requested I sang Ghandi Boy over the camp tannoy, I performed as a dutiful young Scout should, to widespread acclaim.

I returned grinning to my tent, and found John sobbing. Apparently it wasn’t as funny as I thought.

But some boys were deliberately malicious. At one camp, a particular patrol leader gathered all the boys around the campfire, and organised that everyone, from the ten year olds upwards, had to say something nasty about one boy he regularly picked out. When it came to his turn, he said, “If I was someone else, I’d hate me too.”

It was brutal.

There were sticks and stones as well. Ritual staking out of boys with sisal and tent pegs, prior to indignities being performed on them, were par for the course, and then there was something called “hampering”. A boy was secured in a wicker hamper and heaved into the river. They were retrieved once it was submerged. A kind of extreme waterboarding technique.

All this was done by feral boys on other feral boys (someone should write a book about it).

But one suffered more than any. A mocking ditty was made up about him that went, “My name is Gerald, I read the Glasgow Herald, I can’t read the small print, because my eyes are squint.”

My pal Donnie has used these lines in a song which looks back on the cruelties of youth from the distance of adulthood, and asks what it did to the victims, how did they survive. “They never faced the demons at school, but they made you what you are, they left you with the scars.”

I don’t know what happened to Gerald, I trust he’s OK; in the song he’s “back on top, he runs a barber shop.” But some people never recover. A local brickie in Skye will tearfully admit that he ruined the life of the person he remorselessly bullied at school. The man is now a hopeless alcoholic, and an apology thirty years later won’t make the slightest difference.

And of course, the bullies of childhood often end up the bullies of the workplace. Statistics show how many hours and how much money is lost due to work related stress – often caused by ill-treatment from colleagues or management.

What it doesn’t show is the human misery caused: the loss of money, self-esteem, and health. I’ve seen this happen to someone close to me who worked for a target-driven local authority, where line-managers thought it was their job to blame those below them for their own failings. Self-awareness and common-decency were totally lacking.

We have wonderful people working at Dualchas and Heb Homes, who I know have common decency, and I think have self-awareness. They are incredibly committed. For example, Ann almost single-handedly organised the moving of our Govan office to Templeton, fitted out the interior and threw a fantastic opening party.

I was having beery dreams as she tidied up till 4 in the morning. My only excuse is that I forgot to read my sticker that day.

Recently I found a Scout log book when I was clearing some boxes. It covers the dates 1982 -1985, and the last entry was for a weekend camp, written by me when 15. Recorded are the assault courses, trips to Stewarton, the dreadful camp food, and the obligatory staking out and humiliation of one boy.

But the one thing that jumps out the page at me is my cheek. And the desperate attempts to be funny. In fact, I’ve hardly changed, which means I’m probably the same as a “boss” as I was a child. This puts me in the David Brent category.

What makes this worse is that my brother Alasdair is known as the cheeky twin, always has been. He takes comments way beyond where I will go. It’s a bad cop worse cop routine – I just provide the back-up when his quips fall flat.

It turns out I was wrong. I am a spare after all.

Images of Neil Stephen with Scout Log: Alasdair Stephen

RIBA Awards 2009

A Scottish shortlist of ten buildings has been announced for the 2009 RIBA Awards, with the winners due to be unveiled on Friday 1st May. The RIBA Awards, among the most prestigious annual architectural awards in the UK, are given for buildings that achieve the highest architectural standards and make a substantial contribution to the local environment. The awards have been running continuously since 1966.

The judging panel for this year, chaired by architect Piers Gough, also included architect Allan Murray, a Fellow of the RIAS, and, Rob Gregory RIBA, Assistant Editor of Architecture Review. Piers Gough commented: “This year’s shortlist exemplifies the strong architectural culture in Scotland. The tradition of rigour is tempered by beauty and humanity.”

Arnie Dunn, President of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, said: “We are delighted that Scotland has once again come up with such a strong list of submissions. These buildings are undoubtedly among the best in the UK and we are hopeful that Scotland will achieve a significant number of RIBA awards this year.”

The shortlist for Scotland comprises the following buildings (listed alphabetically):

Click on the following Buildings and Places links to view each project in detail. Click on images to enlarge

Affordable Housing, Gunsgreenhill, Eyemouth by Oliver Chapman Architects

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Gungreenshill+Affordable+Housing

Image: Angus Bremner

Beatson Institute New Cancer Research Facility, Glasgow by Reiach & Hall Architects

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Beatson+Institute%2C+University+of+Glasgow

Image: Paul Zanre

Drummond House, Meigle, Perthshire by LJRH Architects

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Drummond+House

Image: Graeme Hutton and Archie Wilson

Jordanhill School New Teaching Block, Glasgow by Elder and Cannon Architects

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Jordanhill+School+New+Teaching+Block

Image: Keith Hunter Photography

Moore Street Housing, Glasgow by Richard Murphy Architects with Elder & Cannon Architects, JM Architects and Page \ Park Architects

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Moore+Street%2C+Gallowgate

Image: Andrew Lee

North Glasgow College by RMJM

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/North+Glasgow+College

Image: Keith Hunter Photography

Pollok Civic Realm, Glasgow by Archial Architects Ltd

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Pollok+Civic+Realm

Image: Andrew Lee

The Potterrow Development, University of Edinburgh by Bennetts Associates

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Informatics+Forum%2C+University+of+Edinburgh

Image: Keith Hunter Photography

St Paul’s and St George’s Church, Edinburgh by Lee Boyd Ltd

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/St+Paul%E2%80%99s+%26+St+George%E2%80%99s+Episcopal+Church

Image: Malcolm Innes

The Printworks, Glasgow by Cameron Webster Architects

www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/The+Printworks%2C+Glasgow

Image: Martin Phillimore

Getting On In Architecture

Soon, I’ll no longer be a young architect. The dream of being one of the AJ’s 40 under 40’s, where young architects are exhibited and celebrated, will now have to be binned along with the dream of scoring the winner for Scotland in the last minute of extra time in the World Cup final against England, and snogging Stevie Nicks (she’s getting on a bit).

Impending mid-life was rammed home recently after I joined a few school pals for a weekend in a Fife chalet, where we went though the formality of drinking to our poor health and burying our youth. I looked across at the people I used to scarper around the playground with, and saw balding men with grey hair, puffy eyes and dance moves that would embarrass John Prescott.

Someone once said that the trouble with hanging around with old pals is that the ageing you don’t notice in a mirror is instead reflected back in their sagging faces.

Fortunately for me I have a twin, and he could pass for 34.

But it’s a good time to look back and assess what you’re doing and what the future might hold. One generation inevitably takes over from the previous – foolish youth of today become the wise elders who frown on foolish youth.

One of my friends at the weekend trip used to be foolish – he still is. He’s a project manager. He was so highly wound-up from the stresses and pressure of work, I was wondering if he’d reach 40. He was telling me in all seriousness that he was hoping to get a junior colleague sacked, because he wasn’t prepared to put in the 13-hour day that he does; apparently he had children he wanted to see in the morning.

What sort of industry is this? When I was 22 and getting screamed at by my boss Tom Yip in a Hong Kong office, I found that I had to assess what was important to stop myself from getting upset. Firstly, I’d ask myself: ‘Do I respect this guy?' No. 'If I lose the job, is it the end of the world?' No. I was young, and the world was my oxter.

My stressed-out project manager friend shared a room with me in Hong Kong, along with countless bed bugs. He was a newly qualified Q.S. and seemed to cope fairly calmly with what the world threw at him. One morning he asked me if he’d seen me in the middle of the night with my genitals hitched up over the basin, frantically cupping water over them while making high-pitched noises? Or was he dreaming?

He was very relieved to hear that it wasn’t a dream (he was at a confused age), and that I’d had a dreadful miscalculation applying Tiger Balm to my bug-bites. The memory still brings a tear to my eye.

If I exposed myself (metaphorically) to my pal in his work arena, I wouldn’t get the same sympathy I got then. I get the impression that he’d have no qualms about ripping my balls off and ramming them down my throat, if he felt it was necessary to keep his client happy. It’s a worrying thought, almost enough to make you gulp.

This is of course highly speculative and very unfair – but the industry does encourage aggression. 18 years ago my pal was a whisker away from giving up quantity surveying to follow his dream of being a jazz musician. Instead he’s now had a divorce, got a bachelor pad with guitars hanging off the walls, and spends his days tearing strips off contractors and nailing architects to the floor.

But then things don’t always happen as you imagine or hope.

My first experience of working in an architect’s office wasn’t great. To start me off, I had two weeks to practise my calligraphy. When I found some escape from the mind-numbing boredom by carefully penning phrases like “a piddle of politicians” the boss’s son told me to mind my P’s and Q’s and get back to the alphabet.

Another day I managed to get greasy fingerprints on one of the architect’s drawings, and the same culprit kliped on me to the second in command, who took his lofty position seriously. I was primly told in front of all the staff that if I ever did that again he would “have my guts for garters and my balls for earrings”.

His bark was sharper than his bite.

The boss had his drawing board up the stairs next to mine. He rarely used it, but I would hear him charging about the office, constantly battling his indigestion and stress. I clearly remember one day when he sat beside me at his board, stared at the paper for minutes in silence (I was hardly breathing) and then slammed his T-square down as hard as he could, shouting F***!

My heart almost jumped out of my mouth, but it quickly plummeted to the pit of my stomach at the thought of continuing to work in such an atmosphere. The only thing that kept me going was the chance to stare at the cat-eyed 25 year-old receptionist in the leopard-tight outfit (it was her permanent skin – I think she must have smelt like a leopard).

Instead of being a 19 year old with all the joys and ambitions of over-confident youth, I was miserable.

I phoned one of my dad’s architect pals - I wanted his advice. Should I stick with architecture or go back to art school?
“Are you telling me that you have the choice between art school and architecture?” he said.
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Listen, please listen to me. Promise me. Go back to art school. It’s a nightmare out here.”

But I didn’t listen to him; I knew about that architect’s career and achievements. Along with my dad and many others, he designed some of the best hospitals in the UK, the Glasgow Sick Kids and Paisley District General. They were young graduates from the late 60s with an overwhelming sense of social responsibility and purpose, who took their role as architects extremely seriously. They thought they could change the world for the better.

And they did. Unfortunately the world hasn’t been so good to them. My father retired early due to ill health, and when I look at the casualty list of his contemporaries –alcoholism and heart disease, mental health problems and family break-up, you can see the dreadful and unjust burden that the profession places on people.

My dad will now happily pass on his wisdom to folks he meets in his local pub in Aberdeen – he’s in his late 60s but most of his architect pals from his student days are dead. He can also pass on advice to his sons – he has an incredible wealth of untapped empirical knowledge and skill – but his main advice is simple. ‘Don’t let the job wear you down, and don’t allow the conflict of contracts affect your health.’

It’s a sobering thought. And if I look at my project manager pal and worry about his health, I should also look at mine.

Fortunately, I manage to avoid stress, usually, and I like to think I have the physique of Barack Obama (or is it Gok Wan?) I run cross-country, I’m a member of the local football team (non-playing committee member) and have been getting unsolicited karate lessons from a black-belt Broadford butcher (I only went in for something for my dinner and I ended up with a load of mince and four chops).

But I’m probably not yet half way through my architecture career, and I still don’t have a clear vision of what I want to achieve. I know I want to avoid the burnout and disillusionment of my father’s generation, but I’d love to have their sense of purpose that sprang from the social morality of the 60's and 70's. Hard to find in the modern world of PFI and coddled clients.

Some young architecture graduates probably dream of being a renowned and successful architect, head of a huge organisation, with millions in the bank, churning out sleek metal and glass perfection for the grotesquely rich of the Middle East and the City elite, and humbly taking a seat in the House of Lords when not at home in Switzerland.

Most, though, probably just want to earn a living. Not easy when even the experienced are getting dumped by the cart-load as the recession wreaks havoc across the industry.

But, before things pick up, as they will eventually, perhaps it is the right time for the profession to ask itself, ‘what is our purpose?’ Are we 'servants to the industry' as one eminent Scottish architect stated recently? Or do we have another role, as leaders and visionaries, who want to make the world and our communities a better place? Rather than just scratch a living, please a client, or pick up some baubles from our peers?

We have a responsibility to set the agenda in building our communities – not leaving it to the soulless developer, mundane planner, or blinkered politician.

And we also have to do it in a happy and healthy working environment. After all, getting to design and build things was always brilliant fun as a child – and it still should be. Why should the sheer vitality and ambition that springs from us all dissipate to routine and regret?

A couple of years after I left my first architect’s office, I saw my former boss’s obituary in the paper - dead in his mid-sixties. He’d done some good buildings, brought up a family, but my overwhelming feeling was sadness – sadness that a man who had worked so hard and under so much pressure, never got the chance to relax and look back on his achievements, or even ask the question: ‘Was it worth it?’

For my school pals, all I can say is that I’m fortunate still to be in touch with such good friends. I hope that when I have a reunion with my Mack pals later this year I can look at them and see happy, contented faces, not too worn by the rigours of work.

And what for my highly-strung friend, the project manager? Isn't it time to take one of the guitars off the wall and do the thing you really love? Who knows, your life may depend upon it.

Images of Neil Stephen courtesy of Neil Stephen

Cutting the Cloth: The Marketing of Domestic Space in the UK

During a recent research project into private sector housing development in Scotland, “Design at the Heart of Housebuilding”, a number of the housing developers used the metaphor of ‘jacketing’, or dressing an otherwise standard product to re-present the house as ‘contemporary’ or ‘traditional’.

The concept of jacketing is reminiscent of Gottfried Semper’s idea of dressing, the separation of the structural-technical from the structural-symbolic. For the developer, the jacket could include adjusting the windows in a gable, or changing the materials to suit the demands of a particular local authority more comfortable with an essentially superficial pseudo-vernacular style- such as suburban or rural (Figures 1,2,3). This has the effect of extending the range of products without major additional investment in developing new plan forms. The less that is changed, the more profitable to the developer as the house type will fit within existing specifications, components and so on.

In the best examples, the dressing is more than a superficial layer - it is a response to site, brief, reinforces the urban design and makes a stronger connection between inside and outside - a proper tailoring of the jacket to fit the site and aspirations of the client (Figure 4). Such ambiguity in design– the separation of outside from inside- can be problematic for architects trained in the Modernist tradition, where the plan is seen as the generator. The sense that one has to be honest in the expression of inside on the outside is at the root of the architect’s training and yet the developer has no such bias. Robert Venturi, noted that the contradictory demands of inside and outside, private and public, should be accommodated within the façade, not necessarily resolved, but expressive of any contradiction or discord ’…since the inside is different from the outside, the wall – the point of change - becomes an architectural event” The possibility of providing contrast and ambiguity between inside and outside he noted as an essential characteristic of urban architecture.

In a further example a firm has developed an open plan interior as a response to perceived changes in lifestyle, but has no issues with putting different windows to the front and back of the same large room. The argument was that the home-owner would wish a traditional front and a contemporary back, facing the garden. Ambiguity is also evidenced in the historical eclecticism in style, and in the desire for the appearance of affluence and status, yet low purchase price. Most architects will approach such issues from a different perspective, generally driven by context, historical analysis, the design of interior and exterior space, urban design, materials and expression. There is still a sense of clothing of course, but it tends to make reference to a much wider set of factors - the architecture is the product. What also concerns architects is that the authority is clear - originality and creativity are part of the service. When employed by the private sector, the copyright is frequently forfeited to the developer to allow for future modification and use as a standard house type.

‘Jacketing’ can take a variety of forms analogous to the fashion industry. The idea that the house buyer shops for a product is a strange concept for most architects, but it is largely the basis by which houses are marketed and sold. The industry is not in business to produce architecture. The commercial reality is that the industry exists to produce houses, which will sell and generate profit. Marketing reflects this product-based approach. This separation of lifestyle from built fabric is apparent in developers’ websites, some devoid of any image of the houses but rather happy couples, sofas and cutlery. The names of the products aim to define this and try to tap into the aspirations of the buyer. The house buyer, with a wide variety of ‘products’ on offer, will choose whichever best suits their circumstances, budget and outlook, provided the location is suitable.

In general, the private sector is not concerned with flexibility, or houses for life, unlike social housing. Developers want people to buy another house, preferably a different one of their products, when their circumstances change. We are also now seeing the rise of the designer label in housing, as exchange value- as opposed to use value- is also marketed, and as property becomes as much about investment to the home owner. As noted in a recent newspaper article – ‘Home has become Property’.

We are also now seeing a very sophisticated selling of domestic space with visions of lifestyle carefully targeted at a particular audience. Individualism is mainly expressed in decoration, furniture and gardens and these being closely linked to status hence the references to activities and possessions, as being of equal importance to the representation and sense of spaces. Space, where represented, tends not to be defined by size, but by the use. On a recently completed development the master bedroom is described as offering “…bags of room, room enough to twirl in or for your morning Pilates….” A large cupboard is described as offering “…storage for anything from champagne to snowboards.” The imagery is very carefully constructed and consistent with lifestyle. In the same project a bachelor pad has a computer-generated image of an unmade bed, the images indicate signs of inhabitation rather than normal pristine spaces.

In summary, the marketing of mass housing in the UK has little to do with space, light, or context. First is the lifestyle - an assessment of who you are or aspire to be, the next step is to select a product or house type that matches the lifestyle and the image that you wish to project about yourself. This is where the external ‘jacket’ is key; the same product may be modified to appeal to different buyers and different locations. Next, house buyers can find out where that product may be available in the region in which they wish to live. Car dependency is part of this equation as it seems that the product and lifestyle come above the exact location - one suburban estate being seen as much like another so of less importance. The final steps are to view the property and only then does the quality of the spaces, internal layout, garden and specification come to play, sadly in the most part the urban design, connectivity, community, levels of insulation, lifetime costs, flexibility, and the architecture are relegated.
© Fiona McLachlan

Fiona McLachlan is a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design and Practice at the University of Edinburgh and a Partner in E & F McLachlan Architects.

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Figure 4.

'Cutting the Cloth: The Marketing of Domestic Space' appears in 'Architecture & Property', a new journal founded in 2008 by the School of Arts, Culture and Environment (ACE) at the The University of Edinburgh, and edited by Dr Cary Siress. Below, Dr Siress describes the rasion d’être behind the new 'Architecture &' publication.

Initial Mission Statement: ‘Architecture &’

Intellectual Bearing
Already implied by its title, the new journal ‘Architecture &’ provides an intellectual platform for conjunctions, aiming to construct what could be called the space of and. This space is peculiar, observing no faith in the self-consistency of a disciplinary inside and resisting conflation with the terms of either side. In its conception, ‘Architecture &’ is driven by a connective ethos, finding delight in harrowing, often unexpected juxtapositions. Architecture – understood in tandem as a discursive field and range of practices – is explored in each issue in relation to a select theme that is beyond its conventionally recognised scope. The goal is to open the operative terms of architecture pedagogy and practice alike to a space intimate to, yet beyond both.

Tactical Pooling
In order to raise the intellectual stakes of architecture, as well as create new freedoms for design practice, interpretive options must be multiplied. The journal ‘Architecture &’ is conceived as a nexus of research-oriented populations within and beyond the School of Arts, Culture, and Environment. These idea pools are brought together periodically in a forum for discussing and debating relevant issues for the publication. By arousing opportune dialogue across the theory-practice divide both locally and abroad, the shorthand of specialisms gives way to cross-fertilizations of knowledge and talent in the effort to more effectively engage 21st century reality.

Prospective Positioning
The journal ‘Architecture &’ is oriented toward off-screen constituencies, markets, and affiliations that have yet to mature in their formation or identity, and whose impact has yet to be articulated. While rooted in the now, ‘Architecture &’ is prospective in orientation, positioned on the cusp of novel theories, concepts, techniques, as well as modes of representation that partake of emergent tendencies and conditions. At stake with this new publication is the challenge concerning how to think and practice architecture differently.

Cover
The link to Scotland as the publishing base for this globally distributed Journal is made by commissioning for the cover of each volume a Scottish artist who is currently active and whose work is related to the thematic focus of that edition. The inaugural issue of ‘Architecture & Property’ features the work by Donald Urquhart entitled ‘North Uist Drawing’ (photograph courtesy of John K. McGregor).
Cary Siress

For further information please contact: journaleditor@caad.ed.ac.uk

OPINION: Reserved for the Humble

Self-promotion is one of the hardest things in life, especially when you’re naturally modest. For my colleague Mary Arnold-Forster, it’s almost crippling.

When she went up on stage at the recent IAA ceremony to accept the award given to her house for the best new building, she looked like Gregory crossing the playing field. No matter how far she pressed against the back wall, or ducked down, we could all still see her, exposed by the spotlight.

Offered a microphone by Muriel Gray and asked to say a few words, she cried NO! looked heavenwards as if to say, “God, why do you torture me so?” and cringed off the stage.

Perhaps Mary had a plan, as someone once said that “a modest demeanour arouses thoughts of seduction”, and surely the tables of corduroy and bearded men could not have helped but be enflamed by her coyness.

The judges had praised the restrained modesty of her architecture. Fearful that Mary didn’t manage to convey fully her inherent self-effacement on the night, I issued a press release the next morning to all Highland news outlets to let them know she had spades of it. Modesty must be trumpeted.

But I realised that this was not a wide enough audience– Wayne Hemmingway, up north as a celebrity speaker, may not pick up the Lochaber News in Blackburn. So I persuaded Mary to humbly accept the offer of featuring in a Channel 5 “architecture” programme where her humility can be fanfared to millions.

It’s called - 'I Own the Best House in Britain'.

A demure Mary will lead a polished-faced presenter around her home (or the Shed, as she deprecatingly calls it), followed by camera, sound man, producer and director, and if the voting public is crazy enough to believe that her house is better than the 24 others it’s up against, she’ll trouser 25 grand (to be donated to the Lighthouse, of course).

A token acknowledgement of the struggle to hide her Saxby stainless steel down-lighters under a bushel.

I’ve told her she’ll be the skinny equivalent of John Sergeant on Strictly Come Dancing – pity always works with the public. But don’t feel too sorry for her, she’s got a choice life in a remote rural idyll, working with charming people. And, as she will explain, “if the twins tease me it’s because they care”. Which we are happy to let her believe.

Fortunately for Mary, beneath all that feminine delicacy, she has a will of steel and an unshakeable confidence. This was probably forged in the tumultuous London upbringing of a large extended family of artists, novelists, political radicals and free-lovers. And the security of a Cambridge education.

How else could she have had the brass-neck to send a note to a flower-sending suitor, explaining she only travels to London for work, so to meet her would be £50 an hour? I think she undersold herself- an engineer would have quoted eighty – but you need confidence to administer such a withering put-down.

I’ve never received flowers, (though am hopeful of a small bouquet at my funeral, God willing), but if I did find myself in a similar situation, I’d have to rummage deep to find Mary’s cajones. My rate would be a packet of Monster Munch and a tin of Tizer, per day; more likely I’d be the one making the payment (up to twenty quid).

But maybe that’s because I’m Scottish. Despite our conceit at being the world’s best at the put-down and piss-take – built on the strength of an established ancient culture- researchers have found this to be a mere mask to low self-worth and an insecure nature. We spend so much time undermining each other (see above), both personally and politically, our deficiencies become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I remember this subtly happening to me many years ago, after I finished my Highers, when my mum’s pal took me aside for some back-stiffening advice before I stepped in to the big world. “Neil” she said. “ Always remember that in Scotland, to be better than most, you don’t have to be that good.”

Inspiring words for the challenging climb to the summit of mediocrity.

The Scottish Higher Education approach to suppressing innate spunk was a bit more straightforward. At the first crit at the Mack I attended, the task set was to make a model that “expressed your personality”. The earnest young student before me explained to the gathered year that the cardboard pound-sign represented the money he made, the records what he spent it on, and the broken records that he was wasting his money. The tutor asked him a straight question.

“This either indicates your lack of imagination or lack of personality. Which is it?”

His stunned silence and the sniggering of other students probably defined the rest of his education. Why have the confidence to do anything when you’re met with derision from your “tutor” and humiliation before your peers.

Fortunately, the tutor looked at my effort and said, “I love it, don’t say a word.” (I had impaled an apple on a decayed rusty drain cover. No idea.)

But can anyone learn properly in an atmosphere where people are loath to be free with ideas for fear of being ridiculed? People don’t gain confidence, but either bluster bravado or retreat to a shell. And it’s not a fault to admit that you don’t know or aren’t sure.

Doubt should be an attribute. I always had sympathy for the Fountainhead character Peter Keating, who constantly questions his ability as an architect. For this, he is despised by the author. Meanwhile, the ginger hero (oyxmoron, I know), Howard Roark, the epitome of confident ego, is supposed to inspire readers by his single-minded pursuit of architectural integrity.

Yet he specifies suspended polystyrene ceiling panels, and we’re still expected to believe he’s a genius.

I thought of him when I heard a certain high profile architect recently address a conference. His practice is brilliant, he was telling us. No modesty here, and confidence was oozing from every pore. He only employed the best architects in the world, and if anyone in the audience thought they were among them, see him afterwards. (Who would be so arrogant as to stay behind?)

But this practice not only features great architects – their website also claims them to be “socially, economically and environmentally responsible”. They were bringing “sustainable” architecture to the Middle East, with their tower in Abu Dhabi, which is a “green building” that employs clever technologies to harness the wind and sun, and collect water.

Let’s get this into perspective.

The 66-storey tower will be covered with a gold-coloured titanium crystal. It will house shops, offices, a restaurant and a 300-bed hotel, and will cover an area of 2.5 million square feet. Its cost is undisclosed, but estimated between astronomical and absurd. The energy required to make and to run the building is also unknown, but probably about that of a medium-sized nation. The building is grotesque – like a giant petrified golden sphincter, standing tall in the desert sands. The architect should at least have the modesty to acknowledge the absurdity of claiming this as “sustainable” or “responsible” architecture.

But away from the superficiality and vulgarity of the Emirates (did you see that firework display?), and back in the modest surroundings of Inverness, the architects at the IAA awards were playing, by comparison, in the Highland League.

When it came to the Open Award shortlist for the Best New Building in the Highlands and Islands, everything was understated. The Culloden Centre, the Eden Court Theatre extension, the Belmont House renovation - nothing close to resembling a sphincter.

Images of the Stromness Arts Centre by Reiach and Hall were then flashed up on screen to announce the winner, and the sewerage designer next to me was baffled. “Where’s the architecture?” “Exactly” was my response. The building fits so seamlessly into the harbour townscape you hardly notice it – yet the spaces are beautiful and the building works.

And we also saw an award for something that actually was “socially, economically and environmentally responsible”. Neil Sutherland, a politically driven architect, with huge commitment to his community, uses timber hewn from local forests for his own building firm to build affordable housing. And he’ll turn down work from clients if it doesn’t tie in with his ethics.

Not a gold-coloured titanium crystal in sight.

There was no arrogance in Inverness, but there is a confidence in the Highlands that was tangible. Where simple, beautiful architecture, using developed technologies, can enhance and sustain the local culture and environment.

It’s a lie that in Scotland you don’t have to be good to be better than everyone else – Reiach and Hall showed you have to be world class. Despite the recent dross of the housing developers, the quality is getting better, and projecting a distinctive Highland image to the world.

And it was reassuring to see from our Norwegian presentation, that while they do some exquisite architecture up there, they make their ghastly mistakes as well.

But meanwhile, I’ve confronted Mary with the charge that she has allowed her undergarment of humility to be indecently exposed. Was it not her chaste appearance that left her with a purse-full of business cards from corduroyed gentlemen?

She says she just happens to be socially competent at making business contacts. By comparison, when I went home a-flutter from the Roses Awards, clutching a single card from a thick-lashed blond beauty in publishing, I ended up being invoiced for an £800 full-page ad (damn, these woman are persuasive).

But I better redeem myself, as I do tease Mary too much (and I sit within punching distance). Scottish mask removed, I’ll go against my cultural instinct and give a friend a compliment.

Mary, you’re a genuinely modest and talented woman – with nothing to be modest about (that one should last me a year).

Postscript: I have suggested to my sewerage consultant friend, that a scale-model golden Stellar Sphincter should be presented at the annual Scottish Waste Management Industry Awards Dinner for the Most Vulgar and Expensive Jobby Wheecher category.

Neil Stephen took refuge in Skye after graduating from the Mack to set up an architecture practice with his brother Alasdair. As well as being a partner in Dualchas Building Design, he has recently been involved in launching Hebridean Contemporary Homes (www.hebrideanhomes.com) which aims to to take on the kithouse companies at their own game.

Main Image of Mary Arnold-Forster in The Shed by Huntley Hedworth as featured in Coast Magazine. www.allaboutyoucom/coast

Bottom Image: Huntley Hedworth. (Click on image to enlarge)