All articles by Paul Finch
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InsightTime to cure this heritage mania
Backlash against plans to build above historic Birmingham hospital reflects skewed view of value.
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InsightWorld Architecture Festival’s Paul Finch has ‘just one thing’ to say about office design
The annual British Council for Offices (BCO) dinner was a sell-out and a cheery event, despite the travails besetting the sector.
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InsightEarls Court has an exciting future
The year was 2010, the client was Capco, the development site was Earls Court. I was part of the advisory team picking masterplanners for this ambitious project.
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InsightWorld Architecture Festival’s Paul Finch on a question of trust
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Trust, by Herman Diaz, concerns two lives and the way they were lived – or the way they were lived according to accounts written by people (themselves artificial literary creations) with personal axes to grind.
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InsightSearching for hope in silly season
With summer parties in full swing, reasons to be cheerful are currently rather tricky for the world of property, architecture and planning.
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InsightHousing ‘crisis’ is political creation
When Russian harvests failed to meet production targets in the 1930s, former Russian premier Joseph Stalin simply increased the target for the next year. He was doing his bit; why couldn’t the farmers do theirs?
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InsightAll eyes will be on Gove this year
The secretary of state for levelling up etc, Michael Gove, is going to loom large in the lives of property folk, planners and architects over the coming year.
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InsightBeauty is not a simple matter
The inaugural Building Beauty Awards were celebrated at a ceremony this week, with Lord Foster of Thames Bank the guest of honour.
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InsightPlanning refusals on the rise
I recently took part in a public inquiry, giving evidence about the very obvious design qualities of a modestly scaled scheme. It massively enhances what is laughingly categorised as a ‘conservation area’ because it contains a 19th-century railway station.
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InsightAre we going back to the 1970s?
It is tempting to start claiming that we are reverting to the 1970s because of current energy price increases and global political instability.
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InsightCan the definition of beauty be built?
Twenty years ago, the late, lamented Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment published a document on design review, including a section on “what makes a good project”.
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InsightDesigns for a sustainable life
As a prequel to COP26, and to coincide with the current architectural biennale, the US-based Design Intelligence group hosted a two-city event in Rome, then Venice discussing sustainability and its implications for architecture and architects.
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InsightProcrastination can be beneficial
It is a decade since the Tottenham riots took place, prompting the report by a task force led by Sir Stuart Lipton, which secured substantial public investment in the neglected, once-proud London borough.
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InsightWe need green-belt housing too
Guess which London borough we are talking about. “The largest number of units delivered in any one year (357) equates to 25% of the annual average needed.
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InsightA weird twist to Khan’s London plan
During these strange times, you sometimes read something in an official document and assume you must be suffering from some sort of lockdown fever.
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InsightLessons of the Grenfell inquiry
The evidence given at the Grenfell Tower inquiry has become more shocking by the day, especially in relation to the behaviour of certain manufacturers.
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InsightCreating the offices of tomorrow
”As the office sector faces seas of change, we challenge you to imagine a better future. Entrants are encouraged to think outside the box to present innovative and thought-provoking solutions that bring to life how workspace may change over the next five years.”
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InsightA healthy focus on space
One effect of the current health crisis has been to focus on how we can redesign or rethink the places we live, work and play in to deal with this and future pandemics. That should mean new workstreams.
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InsightHappy Helical celebrates the City
As we await publication of yet another government review of the planning system, the world of property, architecture and construction can only marvel at the profound belief of politicians that by changing things, they really make a difference.
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InsightAn opportunity to revive old ideas
Political certainty, in the sense of a government with a substantial working majority, is not the same thing as policy certainty.
