In from the Cold

I first read and enjoyed John Le Carre’s book ‘The Spy Who Came In from the Cold’ many years ago. Since then I’ve probably re-read it a couple of times.

But I never really got the essential point of the book until I saw the film version starring Richard Burton – and one short scene in particular of only a few seconds screen time. The penny dropped and I understood the emotional narrative at the heart of the work.

Sometimes we do need to see a narrative with our own eyes to fully ‘get it’. Yes, the right words are crucial, but life is more than split infinitives.

Designers can do that. They can take clever ideas and turn them into something heartfelt, visceral, and to all intents and purposes ‘real’. What power.

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Departed

At the start of the Oscar winning film ‘The Departed’, directed by Martin Scorsese, the Frank Costello character played by Jack Nicholson says:

“I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.”

I doubt whether Scorsese was trying to portray Frank Costello as a gangster with a keen interest in the place making agendas of South Boston. What he was doing was making a strong connection between the place people live in and who they are – and vice versa.

It is this conversation between people and places that helps create the nature of both. Martin Scorsese recognised that working on one without the other will always create unconvincing stories.

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The World Stage

The new Glasgow School of Art building by Stephen Holl and JM Architects is a building of real significance to the School, to Garnethill, to Glasgow, and to Scotland.

It’s rare that we dare to recognise that a building is being built on the world stage. And when we do we are uncharacteristically unembarrassed to be passionate and excited about the possibilities. It’s a good feeling for a designer to see people so engaged about design.

This is a great reminder of the power of buildings to change, or nurture, the narrative of a place. It’s a massive responsibility and an amazing opportunity. Great art makes you think differently. Once-in-a-century buildings do the same. Perhaps we need to look again at what we do every day as ‘a massive responsibiity and an amazing opportunity’.

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Quality of Line

A long time ago when I was a young architecture student I remember being perplexed by criticisms around something called ‘quality of line’. At the time I didn’t really get it. I do now.

Every line we draw has meaning and commitment embedded in it. Especially if that line is drawn by hand and reflects a creative moment in time. The architect Alan Dunlop speaks passionately about the 'authenticity of this approach'. But whatever the medium, every line counts. Sometimes a design drawing can fail spectacularly to convey any sense of meaning or commitment. And sometimes a few simple marks can conjure up a world of intent and quality.

I have said elsewhere that every word in a brief needs to be authentic – whether it is inscribed in stone or typed on a touchscreen. Lines are how we communicate design: they need to be as honest and as beautiful as our intentions.

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Time after Time

I came across this title to an article - ‘Moments not Monuments’ (by Craig Martin). Now, I don’t know the article but it’s a great title, and one which has real resonance in the debate about school buildings. The real debate is not iconic versus standardised. The real debate is about schools as monuments versus schools as moments.

Gant charts give us decision points and activity deadlines: turf is cut and steelwork is topped out. Contracts may be completed and ribbons cut, but education is a work in progress.

After all, schools are experienced day by day, moment by moment. It is the success of these individual experiences which mark the success of our buildings. If they are monuments at all it is as monuments to what takes place within them.

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Making Space

The winners of the Making Space 2010 award were unable to accept the award in person because they are doing good works in Haiti. Instead, these Norwegian student architects sent us a heartfelt video – including a song from the local kids they’re working with.

If I wasn’t already moved by their winning design for a library and orphanage in Thailand, then their personal message did the trick. They reminded me that architecture and social responsibility are never separate. This may be a problem for procurement – please tick box if your firm is committed to a better world - but I was taught that it is an essential part of good design.

A passion for people seems to me a prerequisite for a passion for architecture. So, my congratulations to the folk from TYIN Tegnestue and their non-profit humanitarian organisation, and my thanks for their antidote to architectural cynicism.

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A Wee Bit Radical

(extract from my guest blog for www.engageforeducation.org)

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeldt - there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns. What we do know is that some of our pupils are in buildings we need to replace, so that’s what we’re doing. We know that pupils, staff, and communities know their own lives better than we do, so that’s why we talk to them first. We know that collaborating for better outcomes leads to . . . better outcomes. And I know that design matters.

What this has led to on the ground is what I call incremental radicalism. Rather than wait for the epiphany which is the ultimate school design, we can simply learn from others – whether it’s from the school down the road or from the innovative global projects showcased in Making Space 2010.

Does this mean I lack ambition? Perhaps what I lack is patience. I do not know the future – and neither do you. But I do see good things happening which should be shared, good ideas which should be celebrated, and good people who should be supported.

We ask our schools to do remarkable things every day. If you know a better way of how design can help make that possible, then please let me know.

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Pointless

When I see a headline which reads 'Free school pioneer says design not necessary' I assume a level of exaggeration. I assume that the author cares about the place he lives in, the vehicle he drives, the hospital that cares for him and his loved ones, and generally the physical nature of the world he spends his days in. Although he goes on to make it very clear that he does not care about the design of the places his children are taught in.

Design is no more necessary than language and mathematics: because it is simply the stuff of our everyday lives. Bad design: he has a point. But all design? A pointless headline.

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Accountability

Scotland is a small country. If you are in a room full of local experts debating a problem that needs solving, then two things are likely. Firstly, the problem likely happened because of previous decisions those same people made, or because of actions they failed to take. Secondly, the solution, and the responsibiity for making it happen, probably lies in the room.

So, lock the doors. Admit that we had a lot to do with causing the problem and that we have a responsibility for fixing it: the opposite to avoiding blame and shuffling responsibilities.

Therefore, never send to know/ For whom the bell tolls/ It tolls for thee - John Donne.

Or, to quote our American cousins - the buck stops here.

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Village Life

A new school in a village can be the most important civic building that will ever be built there. It carries the hopes not just of the designated stakeholders but of the whole community, and can change the nature of a place as somewhere that you would want to live in.

It is easy to overstate ‘placemaking’ at the expense of the delivery of services. But in the real world these two agendas need to be reunited and recognised as facets of the same issue - how to design our built environment to improve our lives.

It takes a whole village to raise a child: and it takes a well designed school to nurture a whole village.

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A Perfect Storm

Context is everything. But to understand the consequences of this, it is first necessary to recognise that what is generic for one expert is unique for another: it all depends on how much you know.

One patch of sea looks pretty much like another, unless you’re on a fishing boat or a North Sea oil platform: see ‘The Perfect Storm’. How we describe where we are, and how much we understand about how this impacts on our lives, will determine how we create places that fit well.

So, by all means be wary of unnecessary complexity. Don’t frame every challenge as if it has never been encountered before. But be afraid of thinking that we can ever reduce our lives, our landscape, and our values into watercolour assumptions of how we’d like the world to be.

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Checkmate

The purpose of chess is checkmate. Everything else – the number of pieces taken, the clarity of the strategy, the finesse of the tactics – is just the stuff you do to get to checkmate.

Of course, for some, the game also evokes beauty and fascination for its own sake. So it’s great if you can do both – but it is critically important to be clear on your personal priorities. A successful chess game is not conducted as a compromise between elegance and winning.

Design projects, on the other hand, are often presented as a balance between time, cost and quality: design as a hostage to value engineering. But getting the balance right doesn’t mean there isn’t an endgame: design, create, checkmate.

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Tunnel Vision

The human eye is constructed in such a way that we have an inevitable ‘blind spot’. We cope with this by scanning our visual field with both eyes and by deducing what we should be seeing. We make an educated guess.

This is fine. The mistake is to assume that because we see something, then everybody else sees it the same way. One person’s educated deduction is another’s wild gamble. Couple this with every culture’s unwillingness to see things which don’t fit into our frame of reference, then we are all literally blind to some things staring us in the face.

So, the last thing we need is to exacerbate this with wilful tunnel vision. It is difficult to see things as they truly are without deciding in advance that we will refuse to look to the left or the right, but cleave only to the marked pathway. Sometimes, like Robert Frost, we need to pay more attention to ‘The Road not Taken’.

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Chekhov

Anton Chekhov is reckoned to be the master of the classical short story. In his letters he sets out the basis for good writing: objectivity, honesty, brevity, daring and compassion. Hallelujah. Brief writers please take note.

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Blue

What we mean by a colour depends on who we are – our references, our culture, our past, our life. A single sliver of colour can transform how we view a space: what we think it stands for, and the boundaries we place on its potential.

Sometimes what one person sees as a detail is not a little thing but something which dominates another person’s response to a place. So, for some, colour is a little thing – for others it is an overwhelming aspect of their enjoyment of a space. Google the word ‘blue’ and you get the official website for a boy band, an Edinburgh restaurant, and some Wikipedia science. Colour is not just in the eye of the beholder but also in their brain.

Almost always, the people who use buildings ask for more colour – and we listen, and reflect, and select cool greys and whites ‘with a touch of white’ – rather than listen to the subtext of their pleas. Blue is not always blue.

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Great Streets

Educational buildings are not sited in some space time continuum – to use the terminology of science fiction: rather they form an important part of the urban fabric –to use the terminology of urbanism.

A street with a school frontage is a different street than one with houses – it creates a different experience and contributes to the creation of a different neighbourhood. So, dealing with these issues is not just a matter for Planners.

Making pupils aware that their building is not only located within their neighbourhood but significantly determines what their neighbourhood is about, is an important lesson. The lesson for architects is that designing whole places is always a part of designing for whole lives.

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Showing Off

A resource rich, flexible school that sits well in its environment and delivers on its brief. A school that doesn’t show off but just does its job well. Difficult to photograph for the glossy design journal.

It is easy to be distracted by architectural peacock displays when first visiting a school. What you remember are the memorable features. Unless you talk to people. Unless you watch what is happening and listen to how people feel about the space. Then you remember differently – about stories rather than things.

There is absoutely nothing wrong with memorable architecture or about a building showing off – when there is something to be proud of. But what we should be showing off is what happens everyday inside our buildings not how well they photograph in the sunlight.

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The MacGuffin

Many film thrillers employ the Hitchcock device of a MacGuffin. That’s to say some plot element which provides an excuse for the narrative to take place and propels the action forward. Think of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ or ‘North by Northwest’.

The important thing about a MacGuffin is that it doesn’t necessarily need to be that important – or even real. What it does is provide a context for exploring more important things like values and relationships.

Sometimes design plays the same role – it creates a safe place to challenge issues, an excuse to challenge deeply held precepts. Indeed, the most significant impact of design can be its role as a plot device to explore and realise new narratives. The best outcome is not always a building.

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The General Theory

Discussions on how to plan for the future often reveal a hunger for theories and models which can provide us with all the answers. There seems to be an overwhelming need to wrap up observations, experiences, and anecdotes into neat packages of elegant thought.

John Maynard Keynes wrote ‘The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money’ in 1935, and a lifetime later it remains an important and influential work. Keynes had a profound impact on the way in which governments approach economic problems. Even those who disagree with him find that his work defines the framework for their dissent.

However, even Keynes embraced doubt. In his preface he wrote:

‘The writer of a book such as this, treading along unfamiliar paths, is extremely dependent on criticism and conversation if he is to avoid an undue proportion of mistakes. It is astonishing what foolish things one can temporarily believe . . ‘

Such doubt and conversations deserve to underpin all of our work.

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Ash

When risk management fails us we tend to resort to ‘acts of God’ as a get out clause. When we are grounded by events we could not have dreamed of, we inevitably become fatalistic about consequences.

Where we choose to focus our investment in buildings is also a reflection of our perceptions of risk. Implicitly or otherwise we balance unlikely consequences against likely disruption. We also need to balance outcomes against opportunity cost – what else could we have spend this money on and would it have produced a better, safer solution for more people.

This is easier said than done in the regulatory and litigious environment in which we all have to make difficult decisions. Protecting lives from danger is not an alternative to changing lives for the better – but it sometimes seems that way.

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Beautiful Minds

Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell is famous for being the research scientist who first discovered ‘Pulsars’. I discovered this whilst watching the BBC 4 series ‘Beautiful Minds’. During the programme, when asked about the ‘truth’ of science, she said: “If we assume we’ve arrived, we stop searching”. A quotation which certainly sounds like it comes from a beautiful mind.

This habit of stopping looking when we find a credible answer to a passing problem can become a real obstacle to innovation. The result is that we build up a wall of old truths which form a formidable barrier to the discovery of the next new truth.

Although it may be tempting to think that in some cases we can stop thinking, that we have indeed solved some issues for all time, the truth is that this is never the case. Forgetting this scientific fact is a recipe for repeating mistakes – the opposite of discovery.

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Time and Space

Lifelong learning, flexible partnerships, collaboration as a default – all phrases I used at the recent Adult Learning in Scotland Conference. But what do these phrases really mean?

Firstly, they mean a small but fundamental shift in the focus of our attention: a redefinition of what we mean by success and effectiveness. Rather than ask how the institution benefits, we begin to ask how the individual benefits and to look at the greater good.

And, secondly, we look at time rather than just space. Or is that merely yet another one of those phrases? Yes it is – but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Rather than ask how we should timetable next year or revise the project management plan, we begin to ask how we can help an individual plan their lives and how we might affect the growth of a whole community.

We’re told in the run up to every election that ‘it’s all about the economy’. When it comes to the design of educational buildings we sometimes need reminded that ‘it’s all about learning’.

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Plans

Two frequent comments at workshops: “We can’t tell you what we need unless we see some plans” - “We don’t believe you’ll listen to what we say because you’ve already drawn up the plans.” Spot the fatal flaw in reconciling this philosophical impasse.

George Orwell, in his novel 1984, talks about ‘doublethink’ – the ability to believe in two contradictory ideas at the same time. It may be a sophisticated trait but it’s an unhelpful one if you believe in making things better.

So, do we share drawings? Of course we do. But, the longer we empower the user by talking in their language, then the more likely it will be that we will have meaningful conversations which build trust and empathy. It’s never about the medium – aways about the message. But it helps if you’re understood. So, resist the urge to demonstrate graphic prowess, and keep listening.

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Exuberance

There are words which we seem to exclude from our lexicon when we talk about architecture. They tend to be words we think of as less grown up: words which seem less sensible when compared with, for example, the thoughts of Vitruvius. For a start you don’t need to translate them from their classical origins.

Some words are unashamedly about how you feel – today. They escape from your thoughts like visceral responses to what is happening around you: rather like how we react to great spaces. 'Exuberance' is one of those words we rarely use about design.

William Blake said Exuberance is Beauty. He was a great poet and visionary. And we need to embrace exuberance, and words like it, if we are to inspire design that is poetic and visionary.

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Subtext

Sometimes you enter a space in a building, and your first thought is – I’d love to live in a place like this. Sometimes these spaces are designed to be exceptional like the interior of the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington DC, designed by IM Pei. And sometimes you’re genuinely caught off guard by the quality of an everyday space.

Ayr Academy has a fair claim to be the oldest school site in Scotland, and, at the rear of the building, overlooking the river, is a wonderful northlit art room. You could discuss its history and architectural references – or you could just say that it is a great place to be in.

‘A great place to be in’. Sometimes, we need to remember that this is always a part of the brief: the subtext of living well in buildings that we ignore at our peril.

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Shadows

In the Northern Latitudes it is not enough to specify lighting levels. The fact of the matter is that without an understanding of landscape and light, we can find ourselves literally learning in the shadows.

The way the sun traverses the brow of a hill can help define our sense of place, and of wellbeing. The outdoor learning space perpetually shaded by the juxtaposition of topography, buildings, and latitude – is a constant reminder of what it can mean to learn in one place as opposed to another.

Location matters – and not just because we have created boundaries on a map – but because maps are a narrative of how we might experience time in a certain place. Shadows are not an accident.

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Tweet

The Economist’s recent special report on social networking was entitled ‘A World of Connections’ and concluded simply – The world is better off for it. Its survey of the diverse means by which millions of people are now connected in real time, and the myriad of innovative ways in which this emerging technology is exploited, would suggest taking an eclectic, agile approach to this whole area.

What can you say in 140 characters? Rather a lot if you are a poet, or a songwriter, or in mortal danger, or in love. The issue is not the format or length of what you say but whether it means something.

At the heart of communications and connections remains the need to use the language best suited to the message and the audience – the basis of a good conversation. The issue for good design is not how you choose to represent it, but whether each and every line is meaningful to the person you’re ‘talking’ to.

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Noise

I recall my acoustics Professor defining noise as unwanted sound. Which is which depends on your viewpoint. It is not obvious. Contexts change and lives change. My introduction to jazz was painful: my preferred music these days is jazz.

The same applies to design. One person’s classical perfection is another’s post modern nightmare. It is not the case that an opinion can only be voiced if it is professionally qualified. The truth about design may be out there, but it is not the same for everybody, everywhere, at all times – it is not an immutable, universal truth.

Paloma Faith’s song Do you want the truth or something beautiful? is inescapable background noise/sound at the moment. Listening to debates about design, you could be misled into thinking that the choice is that simple: truth versus beauty. Since the next line in the song is I am happy to deceive you, we should be careful about setting up either/or absolute choices.

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Slow

The Slow Food movement describes itself as an organisation that brings together pleasure and responsibility and makes them inseparable. It is an alternative to a life lived too fast.

Irrespective of how one chooses to eat, combining responsibility and pleasure underlines the importance of thinking first about the impact on the quality of our lives and on those around us of the decisions we make.

Design needs to be responsible. Design should be pleasurable. Do we design too fast? Maybe. But I suspect that the most important issue is that of imagination. The slow food movement dares to imagine another way of living. Good design springs from the same leap of faith that things can be different: that the irreconcilable can be resolved.

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Snow

Snow has a way of revealing both hidden beauty and hidden weakness. Even unprepossessing buildings can look radiant clothed in glistening layers of white water. And some snowclad buildings can assume an unlikely fairytale stature in the transformed landscape.

But snow is also insiduous in seeking out detailed flaws and thwarted assumptions – that water normally runs downhill, or that roofs can support the weather. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – invasive and innocent in equal measure.

Snow reminds us that we are not designing for a set of meteorological parameters but for difficult days in everybody’s lives when walking becomes an adventure and getting to work becomes a nightmare. Snow reminds us that design is not a fair weather activity.

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