Astonishing

At a recent conference on school design, an eminent Scottish architect prefaced his comments to a keynote speaker with ”Well that was astonishing . . . but not in a good way”.

Direct and open debate is often diluted when it is prefaced by caveats. It is often enlivened by the honest recognition of visceral responses to the sound of beliefs being broken. To my mind, that comment allowed passion into the discussion and patted several elephants in the room. And it was an articulate reminder of the power of architecture to celebrate the values we care about most.

Good architecture has the power to astonish us . . . in a good way.

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Concordare

A Latin word: to agree. Whether it’s joined up thinking or collaborative working or shared services or total place, the fundamental step is to get diverse people to agree on something and see it through in pursuit of an agreed purpose.

The simple but challenging technique of getting the right people together and creating a collective responsibility for making things happen is now the default for the way we resolve our big service and resource issues.

The output may be a contract, or an action plan, or indeed a Concordat, but the real outcome is the recognition that, ultimately, problems can only be resolved in the places where we work and live by the people who work and live there.

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The Wee Society

Scale matters. I am as guilty as anyone else of writing paragraphs which try and cover all the bases:

‘This unique place . . . responding to the street . . . engaging the neighbourhood . . . at the heart of the community . . . contributing to the town’s regeneration . . . building a regional capital . . . delivering national policy . . . an international exemplar.’

But this Russian doll approach to the narrative of a place can have the unintended consequence of confusing those who live there about the real reasons for change.

We are often asked the question – who is your audience – as if the development of the places we live was primarily an exercise in sales and marketing. Perhaps the question we need to focus on is ‘in whose name are you doing this?’.

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Arbour

The idea of a safe place seems to have been hijacked by the need for secure places. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Feeling safe is central to our sense of wellbeing. So, what makes us feel safe? As always, the most direct way to answer that question is to ask people. Whatever their responses, it is likely that it relies less on the calculus of insurance companies and more on personal circumstances and local context.

Yes, we need places that are secure. But we also need places that make people feel safe in a way that means something to them as individuals.

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Slow Cities

At the heart of deliberations about our cities and towns is an assumption about speed. Whether it’s economists debating the velocity of circulation of money or educationalists the rate of change of technology, the implication is that quicker is better. Ergo we need to plan for places that can move fast.

But speed is not the same as agility. Whether it’s a school corridor or a high street, being aware of one’s surroundings in a thoughful way is a key feature of belonging to a place. Details matter. Moments count. Individuals, rather than systems, loom large.

Successful places are not assembly lines fuelled by high speed empathy. Perhaps we need slower places that build on considered thought rather than blurred impulses.

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Another U-Turn

“I’ve started so I’ll finish . . . “ seems to be the rule when looking at masterplans – or indeed any Gantt chart laden project.

In the context of a project plan this makes a lot of sense. In the context of the real world it can lead to crazy outcomes. So do we cleave to the first idea we all bought into: the one we staked our reputation on. Or do we risk the career destroying headlines (‘Another U Turn from . . . ‘) and change our mind because it’s the right thing to do?

Resilience is not only about adaptable strategies. It is also about a culture where switching strategies is recognised as the grown up response to change.

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Begin Anywhere

We need to change the Place. But that means we need to change the Silos. But that means we need to change the Organisation. But that means we need to change the System. . . . And so it goes.

John Cage famously wrote ‘Begin Anywhere’. In the real world – the one beyond Taylorism and Classicism – that seems like good advice. At least if we are going to make change happen anytime this side of the next new Millennia.

So, whatever the obstacle is that we encounter – that’s the one to change.

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