Patterns

Sometimes we can see a pattern emerging which we don’t like. Circumstances conspire to move us inexorably in a direction we don’t want to go. The design process can sometimes seem like that: the procurement process even more so.

Overcoming the inertia in such patterns is a formidable task, but the alternative is to arrive somewhere we don’t want to be. As in physics it needs either the application of a large force, or relentless resistance, to disrupt these patterns and change direction.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.

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Footsteps

Individuals make a difference. A school can be altered for a generation by the commitment of a single teacher, designer, or civil servant - all those who defy the limits of their labels.

But, like many relationships, we tend only to realise their impact when they move on. We then have a choice: accept the consequences or fill the gap. We cannot always depend on remarkable people to create remarkable schools.

The challenge for us remaining flawed mortals is to find the means to step forward in their place.

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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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