Transcript
Jim Eyre
Yes, good afternoon – just. I’m calling my talk Making the Public Realm Count. Wilkinson and Eyre architects; we’ve been very lucky to have a huge range of projects to work on and I have to say that the ones that are most prominent in the public realm are also the most rewarding to design. They are bridges, of course, but also, you know, railway stations. But I would count in the public realm also universities, museums; in fact, really any building that you can see from any part of the public realm is part of the public realm. It’s just a matter of degree.
Architecture is a discipline which crosses art and science. It’s fairly unusual in that. I mean, aspects of design do to. And you heard earlier, I think from Jony Ive, I mean, one of these is measurable and the other is not really measurable, it’s extremely difficult to measure. Actually, both could be pretty confusing.
Science; this is Watson and Crick’s DNA model in the science museum and Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud Two down at, near the Millennium Dome, O2. And I would question really or speculate, is public investment in infrastructure an art or a science? I think it’s sort of part of the philosophy of civil engineering, for example, that you should spread scarce resources very evenly and perhaps as thinly as possible and I think we’ve also heard that… from somebody just a little bit earlier that perhaps you need to concentrate them where they’re most effective. I would go along with that.
I think if you spread them very evenly there’s a danger that that philosophy leads to what I would call super-utilitarian structures. This image of a bridge that still thinks it’s a tunnel is a good example of that. Cost should not be the sole measure. You’ve got to remember, civic pride is actually incredibly important.
Highways and transportation have a big impact. It’s not just the buildings. It’s the spaces between the buildings and good design, beyond the first idea, you’ve got to take it all the way through and keep the designers on board, don’t just switch designers because you think the concept designer does one bit and somebody else does another. And I think the best-built projects show that this actually is the case.
Now, even in America, a very powerful economy, they hate spending money on public infrastructure and here we are at Chicago. They’ve come a long way since the soup kitchens of the ‘30s and have built the Millennium Park. I think it’s an incredible place, right in the centre of the city and an amazing piece of public realm. And you’ve got to start the regeneration somewhere. Chicago’s got all sorts of problems but you’ve got to start somewhere and they’ve started it in the middle. Let’s hope it can radiate out, in a sense, mirroring the decay that radiated out from the centre of Chicago.
Now, the projects I’m going to show you all have had the benefit of a close team collaboration with the other disciplines, of engineering and so on, and technical skills to deliver them have been there in the team. And of course, we’ve also had determined clients.
So starting with the Jubilee Line, you hear a lot about the cost of the Jubilee Line. I think the stations themselves are a relatively small part of that cost. The architectural cost is small but it’s a fantastic legacy for London. The… We were responsible for Stratford station and originally only two-thirds of the station was going to get built and the reference scheme faced the other way. It didn’t face the town and they thought, well, it’s just for an interchange, never mind Stratford and Newham.
Luckily, Newham managed to find the money for the remaining third of the station and it all went ahead. And the scheme that we built is light, it’s airy and you get a real sense of arrival. I think that what it’s done for Stratford is it’s created a front door for Stratford and improved its identity and I’m glad Newham pulled it off. And of course, the other thing is, it became the physical focus for the Olympic bid.
Now, all of this is only possible with an investment in design. We’ve been working on Crossrail too for 17 years. It’s meeting some fairly strict cost parameters and I just hope – it is going ahead – I just hope it can meet the same standards that the Jubilee Line did, where there was an architect in a powerful position.
Innovation; vitally important. The designer’s ingenuity is what makes this work but it’s not just about the initial idea. There’s a little structure just around the corner from here in Floral Street called the Bridge of Aspiration. It only really had two purposes. One was to give the Royal Ballet School a presence in the street but the other was, of course, to, you know, with the sense of movement that it gives, to give the students a sort of physical but also a subliminal connection to the Opera House opposite where they would perform when they grow up, if you like.
Now, the school loves it but it only really works because of the attention to detail. So I like Mies van der Rohe’s famous quote, God is in the details. And with that I’m going to take you to Kew Gardens next, where we did a project that was all about lightness and transparency but actually, it was essential to keep these little alpine plants alive and dry and healthy.
And I want to show you that it’s because of… The elegance of quality actually comes from the attention to detail. There’s an initial idea and then we see it through, we refine it and we refine it and we refine it and we make it worthy of its setting. But in a way, but aren’t all settings worthy of something special? It’s also a very low-energy building. The entire building form is derived from the environmental parameters and we worked with Patrick Baloo [?] on a labyrinthal system that drives the ventilation, which is all derived from Australia’s Barossa termite mounds where the ants brilliantly regulate the temperature and humidity just perfectly.
So details, every little detail; sometimes working with manufacturers, sometimes on our own, to get that refinement and there are very practical reasons why we needed it on this project.
Well, the last projects I’ve just shown you; each of those had a traditional procurement method so we designed them fully and then they were tendered and surprise, surprise, what you see is what you get from the design. The clients allowed us the time to fully develop the design.
Now, at the Olympic Park we worked on the basketball stadium. Now, this is really, has many aspects of design and build in it. Now, I think, in this particular instance, it’s actually appropriate because it’s a temporary building so you need to tap into the market, to buy things that can be reused easily so I’d go along with it.
But cost was paramount on this and I think it was fine and has produced, I think, a very exciting building but with some fairly careful tactics we managed to eke out a dynamic façade and I think it’s okay, again, because basketball will be played late into the night and I’m hoping that with this, what actually is going to be a great lighting scheme, worked out with UVA, that the building will appear on television a lot so it’ll get seen.
But I think it works, the building works and actually, I think it’s the future for this kind of event, for Olympic events, is to put up temporary buildings that can be reused. We also worked on the cable car, which is going to go ahead, I believe, between O2 and Excel but we were only appointed to take it up to town planning, along with expedition. Chris Wise is sitting over there.
It’s a very fast project but despite that, the procurement method meant that the design had to stop for a longer period than we had to do the design in order to tender it. So to us, that was nuts but I’m hoping that the design and build contractors can deliver the vision as well as the ride.
Now, I think the best project to show you what can be done in the public realm is at Gateshead and here it was Mick Henry of Gateshead Council, brilliant client. He knew that a concept wasn’t enough on its own, you had to see it through and that’s why I’m going to start with this image of the bridge under construction.
We were involved all the way through, every single aspect so we could get the refinement that made it elegant. And I think the benefits of the project are clear. I mean, regeneration; it’s attracted regeneration. Visitors come to Newcastle, they come to a rundown quayside. They even went there when only the bridge was there and there was nothing to visit on the other side.
Now the Sage and the Baltic are there, of course. It’s given the two cities, I think, cultural credibility, or greater cultural credibility. I think they always had it, actually. But, and it’s enhanced their identity and I think, again, it comes back to this point; it’s engendered civic pride and that’s quite wide. It’s not just the city, it’s the region.
And don’t forget, actually, it’s a very useful focal, civic space. The stamps and coins are just a little bonus, really.
So perhaps for the cost of that bridge you could have had two bridges but they would have been two very dull bridges and I don’t think any of the benefits would have benefited from any of the benefits [sic]. So, and it was the care of the design, the sculpting of every aspect that made it work. There’s no bog-standard sodium lighting that makes us all look like muggers on this bridge.
20,000 people turned up to the opening but in case you think it’s all steel and glass, it’s not. We’re also working at Oxford University, a profound shift in the new Bodleian Library, turning it into a library for special collections, and big change for the University to open up and changing this strange building which has been likened to turning up to a black-tie event in a tweed dinner suit into a building that opens up to the street, the public can go in, there are exhibitions and events. Going to change the University a lot and change Oxford.
And we can export our skills. We’ve just completed one of the tallest buildings of the world in Granjo [?] and our project in Singapore, two huge conservatories which house plants from endangered environments, is nearing completion. And here the cooling system and dehumidification has been run entirely on waste biomass. This is all coming from the design team.
So to finish, good things in the public realm are not happy accidents. Design is a very powerful tool for economic and social benefit. Designers have got a lot more to give. Architects have got the skills to see things through and I’ve emphasised procurement because I think design and build is dangerous. PFI is dangerous. It worries me that, when I read that three billion has been made trading PFI debt. It’s wasteful potentially and it could be made a lot better.
Design must not be de-prioritised in that process but for me, the biggest danger of all is that architects and designers get divorced from the construction process. We need to see it though in order to understand it, to improve our designs.
So thank you very much. That’s my poison pill where the slides change themselves for the next hour-and-a-half but thank you.