Architects condemn 'potato stamp' homes

Published on Friday 17 November 2006 01:52

Key quote "In Britain generally, let alone Scotland, I don't want to live in a country where we are producing a few jewels in a whole pile of rubbish - which it is, frankly" - Richard Murphy, award-winning Edinburgh architect

Story in full THE cream of Scotland's architects gathered to celebrate the best of the country's design renaissance yesterday.

At a ceremony at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel, the Maggie's Cancer Care Centre in Inverness - with its curving copper walls and soft-wood interiors - was hailed as Scotland's best building of 2006.

But they warned that housebuilders and government contractors needed to make better use of the country's architectural talent, complaining of "potato stamp" mass-produced homes, "dreary and unimaginative", and poorly-constructed public projects.

Douglas Read, the president of the Royal Incorporation of Scottish Architects, said last night's Andrew Doolan Awards showed Scottish architects rank with the best in the world. But "volume builders" must start using them, he said. "Very little of volume building housing ever sees an architect's hand.

"The showpiece buildings are always of a high standard and it's the everyday buildings we would like to see raised to a high standard."

Some housing associations are building a good track record, such as Port of Leith Housing Association in Edinburgh, and the Molendinar Park Housing Association in Glasgow, he said. But in big public- private partnership (PPP) projects for public buildings, the "bundling" of a dozen or more buildings has priced out small architects' firms, as has the 5 million insurance demanded on big contracts.

The incoming director of the Lighthouse, the national centre for architecture and design in Glasgow, has given a similar message. Nick Barley recently singled out improving Scotland's homes - by working with builders - as his goal. "Scotland suffers from very poor quality of housing stock for ordinary people," he said. "You can drive through any number of Scottish towns with dreary, unimaginative, cheaply-built housing."

But Phil Hogg, the marketing director for Miller Homes, said only about 30 per cent of its homes were built to a standard design, with another 30 per cent created by external architects.

"There is often a great difference between the views of architects and the general public," he said. "In general, the public have firm ideas about the types of homes they love. Often, ambitious designs look out of place years down the line, where traditional designs are timeless."

Ingrid Gahagan, the sales director for Persimmon Homes West Scotland, said it acknowledged the "importance of good design and the significance of architecture", citing awards for its Sheriff Court and Anchor Mill sites. "We plan and design the layout and structure of our developments in order to ... meet market demand," she said.

The Andrew Doolan Award, worth 25,000, is named for the architect behind the striking Point Hotel and Conference Centre in Edinburgh. Mr Doolan left 20 million when he died suddenly in 2004 at 52.

Among those shortlisted were the giant new Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh's Gogarburn and an elegantly simple house in Longniddry, East Lothian, and the other seven pictured here.

The winner, the Maggie's Centre in Inverness, was singled out by the Scottish health minister, Andy Kerr, as a way of using architecture to create a healing environment.

Designed to offer comfort to sufferers and their families, it takes its place as an icon of Scottish design alongside other award-winners, including the Scottish Parliament and Edinburgh's Dance Base. Mr Kerr's department is teaming up with Architecture and Design Scotland, the Executive's design champion, to encourage good design for NHS Scotland and health buildings.

The ADS chief executive, Sebastian Tombs, said: "A large proportion of the Scottish construction budget comes through the public sector, so it is appropriate for the public sector to be leading the way in good design."

The architect David Page, of Page/Park which designed the Maggie's Centre, said its aim was to break with hospital stereotypes. "If you go into a rectangular room, it reinforces all the old stereotypes. There's nothing rectangular about it, it flows in all sorts of ways; it's almost as if it floats around you."

He is the co-author of the book Cloned City, on "potato stamp houses" that add nothing to the national psyche. "We are still making those everywhere," he said.

The award-winning Edinburgh architect Richard Murphy said the talent in Scotland is very high, helped along by lottery cash for major projects, a pot of money that is now shrinking.

"More interesting housing design began to emerge in cities," he said. However, he added: "In 95 per cent of suburban housing developments I see no change from the Noddy-box mentality, which litters the landscape from Caithness to Cornwall.

"In Britain generally, let alone Scotland, I don't want to live in a country where we are producing a few jewels in a whole pile of rubbish - which it is, frankly."

Competitions revitalise building design

SCOTLAND lacks the open competitions where emerging architects can bid to design buildings that are common in Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands.

"They provide a regular strand of opportunity for young architects," said Sebastian Tombs, chief executive of Architecture and Design Scotland. "There's a stronger tradition over there of local competitions even for smaller projects, and an expectation among the public that new public investment will have a cultural dimension built in.

"We should encourage more of them; there's been a bit of a drought of design competitions."

Scotland is holding on to architects who once left, said David Page, of Page/Park, but people still think they have to hire architects from outside the country.

Buildings designed by outsiders range from the Scottish Parliament and Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh to the massive new transport museum planned in Glasgow.

In Spain, said Mr Page, architecture is used as "an expression of self-confidence. Including almost every town hall, it's incredible the quality of civic buildings that have been put up in Spain".

He added: "The Irish are doing incredible stuff, in terms of the expansion of their towns and civic buildings. Dublin Docks is absolutely exquisite, done by Dublin architects."

Architect Richard Murphy said that on a trip to Barcelona he was told every school in the region is built after a competition. Here, schools are bundled to a contractor, he said. "We are getting some extremely tedious schools and hospital designs."