Posts Tagged: hta
Checking out Accra, Ghana – 9 October 2014
I fulfilled an ambition and got myself to Africa, to Accra in Ghana.
KLM from Amsterdam was good and handy from Edinburgh. They only took my bags as far as Amsterdam though so I was less keen on them after that. Tip for next time: put the malaria pills in your hand luggage.
I knew about Star beer from supporting Ghana in this summer’s world cup. I knew about the $600k flats like this scheme by AHMM too. Security objected to me sketching. I’ve been told ‘no photographs’ before but never ‘no sketches’. In the bar, they told me the expensive flats are for the diaspora to invest in and rent out to expense account NGO’s. The NGO’s skew the economy, but Accra is a safe base from which to access the rest of west Africa so it’s part of what’s driving growth.
For the number of people, there aren’t that many buildings. Despite the heat, life takes place in the streets.
You need a 4×4 to tackle the unmade roads, and to help with the potholes on the better ones. We were driven around by Ebeneezer who made Accra seem a fairly straight forward place to navigate, the opposite of it’s reputation.
Ghana has an emerging middle class. It’s largely being housed in concrete boxes with little shade and no insulation. If you pick up a stone, it burns your hand. The people are living in ovens, cooled down by air conditioning.
Great streets and a thoughtful scheme at Pokuase, built in the ’90s by African Concrete Products. Given how much construction is going on, and how much the Africans love concrete (it doesn’t succumb to termites), this should be a brilliant business.
We visited the plant.
Arguably, the site huts are a better design than most of the housing. They have a nice big roof to keep off the heat and the rain. We are by the sea and the small central courtyard catches the sea breezes effectively. It’s not a match for air conditioning but that doesn’t work all the time anyway, so it’s a mistake to rely on it.
One of the things the government can’t organise is enough power for the whole city, so every second night they switch it off in your part of town. It makes you realise how lucky we are that the Victorians sorted out our infrastructure. Accra has no central sewage system, no public transport and terrible roads. The place is growing but the Ceedi lost 30% of it’s value against the dollar in six months. For sustainable growth you need good infrastructure (since Roman times).
Too soon, it was time to come home. I left behind people worried about the health crisis lurking on the other side of the border. I wish them all well, and a good future beyond that.
Worrying about the Referendum – 16 September 2014
Monday night: a piper in Trafalgar Square, London, at a rally calling for Scotland to remain in the Union. 
In the last two days I passed through Newcastle, Leeds, London and Derby to meet clients and discuss some of the projects we are delivering in England.
The week before I was in Bristol and Bath. About half of our 18 Edinburgh based staff work on projects for sites in England. The union gives us straightforward access to a market ten times the size of our own. Nobody questions where we started the day, they see it all as one country.
Here’s Roberto at his leaving do. He’s off home to Spain. As it’s in the EU we could, theoretically work there but we don’t speak the language and you can’t get home in time for your tea. The UK’s the market, not the EU.
I’m not sure the ‘levers’ we can pull to transform Scotland is the problem. I think it’s the ideas and leadership around what the changes should be. Independence gives us more levers, but not necessarily better ideas.
Fraser, Isla and Innes talking about the referendum. I was in England for two days and I neither bought a house nor even opened a bank account so I’m worried, but not that worried.
A conference day – 24 June 2014
People should get more information to be able to compare the homes they’re considering buying: space, cost in use, broadband speed etc. The Housing Forum are pushing it and I went along to hear Ben Derbyshire talking us through how it would work.
It seems like a good idea, there’s more about it here:
http://www.mindthe-gap.info/
I was at a conference, so was quickly on to a new topic, a debate on Regeneration and particularly the accusation that it’s a process of gentrification. We need to improve the physical place but we need to improve the lives of the existing population, not just displace them. No disagreement there, but different ideas about how that can be achieved and how the approach in the south isn’t going to work for the rest of the country.
Then some football watching followed by a meal with Crestel. This was generally relaxed but interspersed with some emotional discussion of the upcoming referendum.
I feel fortunate to be taking part in a vote that arouses this amount of passion, a marked contrast to the parliamentary elections and the main stream parties.
It can all be beautiful – 10 June 2014
One frustration of being an architect is the fact that the main thing that stands between you and consistently great output is your own lack of talent. Mostly that’s not a noticeable problem as my contemporaries suffer similarly, but every now and then I end up somewhere and the exceptional surroundings remind me of my own inadequacy.
Without realising where I was, I ended up in the crypt of Sir John Soane’s St Peter’s Church on Walworth Road, for some consultation on Aylesbury. The consultation was the start of a process aimed at achieving a great new place, the surroundings were a reminder that everything can be exceptional, even when it’s underground.
Perhaps for balance, I spent the night in Stratford. A different reminder: just because everything can be brilliant, that doesn’t mean it will be.
Mind you, last week I had breakfast in the Brunswick Centre. It used to be pretty bad, but seems well loved now, so perhaps everything will turn out ok for Stratford, and for Aylesbury?
Ian Fleming’s Retirement Lunch 28 March 2014
In Ladybank in rural Fife for Ian’s lunch. It’s a sleepy place, Ladybank, with a sense of quiet when the train leaves you standing in the station that’s reminiscent of that scene in Trainspotting. 
The meal was fun and I enjoyed hearing about what’s made Ian’s business work well for 40 years and what it’s like to support East Fife. We started working together a decade ago on our Muirton project in Perth. It’s been a job for the famous namesakes, Muirton. We’ve had Ian Fleming, Euan McGregor, James Brown and Donald Campbell.
The drawing shows Ian talking, but looking out the window to the golf course.
British Library with HTA Sketch Club 25 March 2014
The spectacular interior of the British Library. 
It’s being observed by our own Steve Newman on the left and the building’s designer, Colin St John Wilson, in the niche on the right. The dark in the distance is a wall of books. The foyer is a surprisingly comfortable and welcoming place to sit: lots of comfortable chairs and benches in lots of different nooks and crannies.
I went with HTA’s sketch club, who’s drawings will be here (soon):
Immediately after the sketch I got ill and went off to be sick on my own in a hotel 450 miles from home. I was ill when I coloured this up and I think that’s why I avoided the buildings attractive and welcoming warm brick colours and made it so cold and grey. Apologies to the designer, who took more than enough flak for this place when he was alive.
Low cost housing at the House of Lords 13 March 2014
From the terrace of the House of Lords, our man Mike De’Ath launched the Housing Forum’s report into how to better provide low cost housing.
As he talked about it I was thinking ‘what’s more important than this?’. A society that has some making huge capital gains on rising house prices whilst others can’t afford to either rent or buy is a divided society heading for disruption.
http://housingforum.org.uk/knowledge/publications/making-place-low-cost-housing-report
The night before I stayed locally and bumped into some folk from the Berkeley Group in a bar on the Thames, beneath some unashamedly unaffordable housing. I knew Berkeley were ahead on customer service, but nice of them to go to the length of filling the pub in their development with their own friendly staff. The characters of the people matched their brand differentiation too.
The train home from Brighton after the CIH conference after talking about institutional private rent, a part of the answer.
This my view of London as I arrive. It’s the capital of the world now, or so I’m told. About 80% of the new jobs created in the UK in the last few years were in the south east, but I’m sure a good proportion of the other 20% is people servicing the London economy from the rest of the UK, like we do. If a twin track housing market with the majority priced out is divisive, a twin track economy is equally so.
AJ Sketching Competition 26 February 2014
I was on the long list for the AJ sketching competition so went along to Saint Gobain’s innovation centre to see the work of the winners and talk about sketching. Felicity Steers won.
Watching football in the pub after.
Earlier in the week the kids dressed up to get into Deep Sea World for free and we visited the hospital (coincidentally).
My long listed sketch was this one.
http://www.saint-gobain.co.uk/infocentre.aspx
The Yard, Bristol 6 February 2014
Listening to the engaging Jackson telling us about this community of self build homes. It’s an inspiring story about what can be achieved when housing is designed by the people who’ll live in it.
We’d like to give people more choice over what they live in without having to overcome the obstacles that these guys did. We spent the afternoon discussing how to do this in the setting of our own Hanham Hall project. A very different approach, but significantly innovative.
Scottish Parliament Lobby 4th February 2014
These people are here for the cross party cancer group. I’m not, I just sat down to sketch this interesting lobby when they began turning up, so I am happy to draw them instead.
The space could feel like a theatre lobby or an airport departure lounge, but it doesn’t, it has a different atmosphere. The architecture contributes to that, but it’s largely the fact that people are here for serious business. Up in the chamber (where sketching is not allowed) they are voting Yes to gay marriage.
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