Sir Stuart Lipton: Developer's view

25.09.09

When Geoffrey Wilson, Ron Spinney and I developed 1 Finsbury Avenue for Greycoat with Godfrey Bradman in the early 1980s, we knew it was breaking new ground.

Not just in terms of its location, on the northern fringe of the City of London, but also because it was the first large floorplate building in the City, it was highly efficient in its use of space and the first energy-efficient building in London.

Since then, office buildings — and shopping centres — have become increasingly refined. But throughout that time corporate occupiers and funding institutions have contributed heavily to the over-specification of buildings.

Large corporations talk a good game on sustainability, but what they specify in developments just doesn’t chime with that talk. Theirs is often a very stylised, “one-size-fits-all” approach — they are so concerned with having a specification that is very British in its over-specfication.

Last week in New York, accompanying mayor of London Boris Johnson and his deputy, Simon Milton, on a visit to exchange ideas on housing, I was struck by this theme again.

We were sitting in the new New York Times building designed by architect Renzo Piano, swathed in immaculate architecture, air conditioning and solar screening. The trouble is, it was a very pleasant 70 degrees outside and inside we were all absolutely freezing.

There was also a cavernous lobby, but is that really a welcome to the visitor? People can’t rationalise their thoughts quietly in spaces like that. The whole approach seemed to be, “how much marble can we push into your face to impress you?”

Out of touch

The property market, too, has lost touch with the customer. We have been building techno-palaces, when people don’t want them.

I sense now, though, we are at a turning point in terms of design.

To understand where we are heading next, it is worth first looking into the past.

The best places in Britain are those that have soul, such as London, Manchester and Newcastle, or any of the cathedral cities like Bath, Exeter or Canterbury. By bringing the concept of the village Green into town, gathering people together, or allowing people to go to an art gallery at lunchtime, have a drink or go to a pop concert in the evening, these places thrive.

The opposite, for me, are Leeds and Sheffield, which I see as motorway hubs more than anything else, which also lack the civic leadership of a Manchester under chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein and council leader Sir Richard Leese.

Where would you rather go? Liverpool One, with its city centre, mixed-use approach or Meadowhall, off the M1?

In London the greatest restrictions on development are in Mayfair. But where is the best environment? Mayfair.

And where are the highest office rents? Mayfair.

With a shortage of finance and the excesses of the last two decades gone, people will focus on what remains: quality of life. I like visiting Apostrophe in Grosvenor Street for a coffee, and to bump into someone from Hammerson or Grosvenor — because it is a gasp of air in a busy day.

If life is tougher, life has to be more productive. This means that current methods of development are just not sustainable and, if in five years’ time buildings are not sustainable, they will not let.

Technology will be pushed to one side to produce sustainable buildings: if you are in an office complex you do not want to be an oasis in a desert. We need more modest styles, less “wiggly-wobbly” pretentious architecture, and a greater use of natural materials like stone and timber.

But it is not just occupiers and developers that are to blame. The government leaves utilities companies free to do what they fancy on uncontrolled streets. In the City, for instance, telephone operators are installing telephone boxes without telephones in, just to garner advertising revenue.

There has been the greatest boom in public building for decades, and billions of pounds have been spent on new schools, hospitals and public buildings with hardly any thought for the occupant, and shameful architecture.

How sad, in the week that we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and the design world celebrates London Fashion Week, that government still doesn’t understand architecture and design.

---

Be first to receive news with Property Week newsletters. Signup

| RSS HELP?

---

Tell us what you think

You must fill in all fields marked *

Story date 00:00 | 25.09.09

This field is for security, please leave blank.

Your Name*

Your Email*

Comment*