Negative Externalities
I went to the launch event for CABE's The Cost Of Bad Design campaign the other night. The panel consisted of Dr Richard Simmons, Bob White and Sunand Prasad. Just beforehand there were a pair of brief talks: White gave a caustic disection of the many faults with Euston Road while Prasad attacked the "callousness" of hospital architecture and a general lack of thought given to human interaction with the built environment. A key point from the panel was that buildings are not dead: they are built to be inhabited and inhabited buildings need to be nurtured.
From the floor the Beyond Architecture campaign to "X-list" bad buildings was raised. It has the following aim:We ask HM Government to adopt the principle of X-listing really bad buildings to encourage their demolition or transformation and to provide financial incentives, equivalent to grants and tax breaks for the repair of historic buildings, in the interest of improving the natural and built environment and the settings of our historic buildings and places.
Noteably Simmons commented that "if I had to X-list I would start with streets before buildings." However there was some ambivalence on the X-list idea as there was a general feeling that the battle had been won. As the CABE website says:People don't need to be told when the built environment around them isn't working - they already know.
White went further, saying that "naming and shaming" is childish and what was needed was further research to find long term solutions.
This is inevitable. We live in an era of public value. It is axiomatic to the Treasury that nothing has value in itself. Art for art's sake is off the agenda, it has to have measurable benefits. There must be an evidence base. This poses certain problems for culture and the arts because such value is not always easy to quantify. However with design the case is a lot clearer and the accompanying booklet makes it very well. I would urge you to download it and have a read.
Particularly interesting for me was Dr Jake Desyllas's chapter, The Cost Of Bad Street Design. Desyllas is a founder of the Intelligent Space Partnership. One of the case studies he uses is Saint Giles Circus, a piece of street design that partially inspired my photojournal:This stretch of street has been designed with a specific idea of about where the pedestrians should walk, but they don't follow the rules. Pedestrians vote with their feet, walking through barriers and in the road along a heavily used bus lane. This is a dangerous kind of design failure: the risk of accident on this section of road is twice as high for the number of users as it is on surrounding streets.
Afterwards David Lammy gave a key note speech. After the normal "This Government has..." preamble he moved on to more impassioned and personal territory. It was welcome that he talked of "moving beyond services, efficiency and economy" in determining the value of design and the "need to empower the constituency", something I have mentioned before.
From the floor the Beyond Architecture campaign to "X-list" bad buildings was raised. It has the following aim:We ask HM Government to adopt the principle of X-listing really bad buildings to encourage their demolition or transformation and to provide financial incentives, equivalent to grants and tax breaks for the repair of historic buildings, in the interest of improving the natural and built environment and the settings of our historic buildings and places.
Noteably Simmons commented that "if I had to X-list I would start with streets before buildings." However there was some ambivalence on the X-list idea as there was a general feeling that the battle had been won. As the CABE website says:People don't need to be told when the built environment around them isn't working - they already know.
White went further, saying that "naming and shaming" is childish and what was needed was further research to find long term solutions.
This is inevitable. We live in an era of public value. It is axiomatic to the Treasury that nothing has value in itself. Art for art's sake is off the agenda, it has to have measurable benefits. There must be an evidence base. This poses certain problems for culture and the arts because such value is not always easy to quantify. However with design the case is a lot clearer and the accompanying booklet makes it very well. I would urge you to download it and have a read.
Particularly interesting for me was Dr Jake Desyllas's chapter, The Cost Of Bad Street Design. Desyllas is a founder of the Intelligent Space Partnership. One of the case studies he uses is Saint Giles Circus, a piece of street design that partially inspired my photojournal:This stretch of street has been designed with a specific idea of about where the pedestrians should walk, but they don't follow the rules. Pedestrians vote with their feet, walking through barriers and in the road along a heavily used bus lane. This is a dangerous kind of design failure: the risk of accident on this section of road is twice as high for the number of users as it is on surrounding streets.
Afterwards David Lammy gave a key note speech. After the normal "This Government has..." preamble he moved on to more impassioned and personal territory. It was welcome that he talked of "moving beyond services, efficiency and economy" in determining the value of design and the "need to empower the constituency", something I have mentioned before.