Bad British Architecture

THE BLADE BUILDING, READING BY SHEPPARD ROBSON

2010-04-15T21:42:00.004+01:00

Oh god, it's an icon! Just when you thought it was safe to reenter architecture on the grounds that noone can afford iconic office buildings any more, the Blade arrives. They couldn't afford to do an iconic building either, so they just used some left over cladding panels to give the building a ridiculous Hoxton fin haircut.

I think the Blade theme might be a reference to Reading's claim to fame as the stabbing capital of the UK.

I've only seen this from the train, admittedly, so I might be missing something about the subtle relationship the building has with the public realm. But I doubt it.

Here's the back:

I hate it when towns get shat on by a terrible commercial architect from London selling some inane, poncey form and calling it design. This is not architecture, it's bad branding crossed with floorplate.

SAINSBURY'S SUPERMARKET IN CROSBY, LIVERPOOL BY HADFIELD CAWKWELL DAVIDSON

2010-04-09T17:33:00.010+01:00

A plaintive cry reaches Nairn's inbox. "Help us BBA, you're our only hope... well nearly. This 'ethical business' has just put in this absolute crock of white box and car parking hell for planning." I'm assuming the ethical business is Sainsbury's, but the architect Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson also has a thrilling 'culture' statement on their website that I urge you do go and read. The hyperventilating rhythm of 159 words of flatulent good intentions goes beyond the normal corporate bollocks and enters the realm of protesting too much. "We believe that good design can make a positive difference to economic and social value [sic]," they pant. "We are good people, please believe us. We just want to make some money before we retire..." - that's me interpreting. The culture statement should come with that spread better's caveat: "while good design can make a positive difference, we also do some bad design, which can make a negative difference..."

Happy to oblige you, dear reader from Crosby. The funniest thing about this piece of crap is that the image comes in the middle of a long and comprehensive Design and Access Statement that shows how sensitively the architects have considered the urban context and so on. They did loads of research, photographed the area meticulously, etc etc. Then they dumped this cereal packet on the site. They did design some elevations, though. Let's take a look (you might need to click):

I sometimes think that on projects like this, the architects don't really draw elevations, which is why they turn out so awful. In this case, they drew the elevation, had a meeting about it, thought "that looks great!", buffed it up in photoshop and sent it out. Stop guys! Listen to that voice inside that you've been trying to kill for decades. You're designing shit, and all the ethical company statements in the world won't save you from the devil at the final architectural reckoning.

Oh yes, they've also designed a few other buildings around the store, including another cereal packet-like transport interchange with a cladding of grey sticks. But this is one caught my eye.

This is a 'community use' building for da community. Presumably this is the section 106 payoff for letting Sainsburys dump on Crosby in such offensive style. The architects explain the elegant form by saying: "The massing and scale of the design responds to the building's purpose and surrounding context as well as providing extensive landscaping and planting around the proposal."

Let me translate.

"We are hoping that this piece of undesigned crap that we have imported from a business park we did in 1997 will serve as some kind of public building, and we have specified some trees that will eventually cover it up so you won't have to look at it. Don't push us on this - our client will just walk away. There's a recession on, haven't you heard? This building is for the people. They can do whatever they like in it. Just don't ask us what - we don't hang out in community centres..."

HERNE BAY REGENERATION IN KENT BY CLAGUE ARCHITECTS FOR DENNE AND COPLAN ESTATES

2010-04-09T17:18:00.004+01:00

This might well be a perfectly reasonable, anodyne, mixed-use masterplan. But the images are just so, so depressing. They've bothered to make jaunty colours for the awnings and parasols, complete with a highlight showing the merciless sun beating down on the North Kent coast as if it were the Costa del Sol. But they couldn't really be bothered to make any decisions about materials or detail for the buildings.

This is the kind of thing you do when you don't want anyone to think the buildings are going to be too good, because the developer might then actually have to build something of high quality.

"Keep it vague lads, and stick a hot air balloon in it - that always makes people feel like we're down with whole seasidey, public space vibe."

The fucking wavy roofs are just embarrassing, as is the likely justification for these pointlessly jaunty forms. They look like waves. The sea is nearby. Ergo, the building is contextual. You sorry, sorry bastards.

Loving the vision and subtlety in the paving proposal, too.

VISION@SEABRAES, DUNDEE BY KEPPIE DESIGN

2010-02-17T13:08:00.008Z

This project is actually a conversion of an old jute factory in Dundee into part of a digital media park. Park, in this context, presumably referring to the car park.

I mention that it's a conversion so you understand that Keppie probably had many limits on what they could do, constraints that held them back from really fulfilling their ambitions for the project. The biggest constraint of all is their COMPLETE LACK OF ABILITY TO DRAW A SHAPE THAT ANYONE MIGHT LIKE.

Here's a closeup of the facade:

It's tricky to know exactly what they were going for with the big viridian panels (solar cells, I think) with their slopey, 1970s-album-cover forms and the equally bizarre lozenge shaped windows. I think they're going for a, you know, dynamic, media, digital, new media kind of thing, which, to Keppie, means some sloping bits.

It's just fucking undignified. Like a middle-aged person trying to rap.

I think what finally does it is the combination of these pretentious, silly, cack-handed green gob-ons with totally standard glazing systems and the off-the-peg green glass canopy above the door, plus the business park standard parquet brick pathway (very new media) with spindly trees. Gesamtkunstwerk, this is not.

Keppie's view on the subject is hilarious. On their website, they say: "Exernally, the playful elevational treatment is in tune with the world of computer games." Maybe, if you haven't played a computer game since 1979. In fact, there is no computer game in the world today that has as low design values as this building, and certainly not a single one that uses a more horrible typeface than the inept 'Vision' sign above the door.

Vision@Seabraes was designed by a bald man who is 'an ex-shinty player and drives a Skoda .' [Note: they've changed their website and this quote is no longer there - but it's true... GoN]

Dundee has loads of shit new architecture in it, which I'm indebted to a correspondent for bringing to my attention - I'll get to more of it...

TESCO, IPSWICH BY MOUNTFORD PIGOTT

2010-02-13T20:17:00.005Z

Wow, check out this bad boy. The supercar in the foreground (how many supercar owners shop at Tesco? In Ipswich?) tells you everything about the fantasy world that Mountford Pigott were living in when they designed this one. I'll cut to the chase. Only a man with a very small penis could design this building.

Quite where all the shopping is in this incredible monstrosity is a bit of a mystery to me. But the dynamic roofs and the transparency and all that other jazz must have really got them going around the boardroom table. Perhaps the clients had small penises too.

A proper journalist (here) has written before about how bad Tesco is at doing buildings, and in that story, he quoted the head of CABE as saying: "From an aesthetic point of view, there is a lot of snobbery surrounding Tesco. In fact, the company works with some highly respected architects." Don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to CABE under Mr Finch leading us into a brave new future for architecture in this country.

The above building is a planning application, and is pending a decision. Check it out here if you want to make a comment.

But because democracy is not really what we're all about here at BBA, I instead urge you to check out Mountford Pigott's website, navigate to the retail section, and belly laugh with all your work colleagues about how fucking proud they are of the incompetent approximation of architecture that earns them their daily bread.

With many thanks to a correspondent for this...

MERLIN TOP PRIMARY SCHOOL, KEIGHLEY, YORKSHIRE BY RACE COTTAM ASSOCIATES

2010-02-13T19:50:00.007Z

This is the image that Race Cottam presumably paid someone to create of the hideous new special needs school they have designed in Keighley. They had to pay for an image with dramatic sky and jolly looking children jumping up and down, because their own drawings look like this:

I suppose this image really shows how the strange bike-shed structures help the school relate to the landscape/car park that forms the compelling context that Race Cottam created for itself.

I also think that orangey brown and blue stripes speak to all of us so clearly of contemporary civic identity and our optimism about British education. They also have yellow and green stripes in some of the internal courtyards. Niiice.

I'd be interested to know how Race Cottam came up with the plan for this school. I'm guessing that the design process involved a late night game of Mikado or something. Anyway, Kalzip will be happy.

Race Cottam are one of those practices, that seem to appear a lot on BBA (this one, for instance), who get prizes from Building magazine for being a good employer. They're almost always bad architects aren't they?

PRESTWICK ACADEMY, SOUTH AYRSHIRE BY RYDER ARCHITECTURAL

2009-11-25T16:59:00.003Z

This is just deadly, isn't it? This is an academy, the pride of Britain's schools system. The academy programme has created a generation of buildings that by and large are made of render, in white and coloured panels, designed by terrible architects like Ryder who treat them like just another developer piece of shit.
Like this one, academies often have glassy atrims to try to look less forbidding and more democratic than Victorian schools, but usually end up looking like they should be on a low-rent business park somewhere in, er, Ayrshire.
I like to imagine what the conversation in the Ryder office was like when they chose where to put the yellow panels in the wing on the left hand side. 'No, a bit left.' 'Put three yellow bits in that one." "Move that one a bay to the right." "That's it! Perfect."
The public realm outside has been comprehensively galvanised, with only the bits of timber on the benches giving a hint of what might have been.

MOUNTBATTEN LEISURE CENTRE, PORTSMOUTH BY SAUNDERS ARCHITECTS

2009-11-10T16:52:00.003Z

Mountbatten Leisure Centre hosts many events every year, including Robot Wars. So when Saunders Architects got hold of the brief for this beauty, they decided to make a weird, wavy alpine roof with a giant piece of pipe smashed into it, in homage. It's basically an innocent wooden shed getting fucked by a giant robotic cock.
I know that you guys love the sections that architects like Saunders draw, so here it is - the 'concept drawing'.
Brilliant. It really 'emphasises the vibrant nature of the city of Portsmouth', to my eye.

PHOENIX PLACE, BASILDON, ESSEX BY DOVETAIL ARCHITECTS

2009-10-08T17:12:00.002+01:00

It's quite an amazing feat to make a building that has so complete a lack of texture that it looks like the windows are drawn on to the facades. This is curtain walling at its most bland, taking the building beyond bad into the realms of the hyper-real.
Dovetail (?!) Architects seem to be bad at bits of buildings that need to stick out, so they do as few as possible.
The ones they do do are great. I'm really digging the 'giant eyebrow' motif at the top of the entrance tower, together with the robotic quiff of the roof itself. And, in particular, the tiny little entrance canopy, which gets its own gutter and two (count 'em) downpipes. Do it's a bit like a classical portico. With a bit of sheet steel and some downpipes.
Go Basildon!

MURRAYFIELD HOUSING, EDINBURGH BY ARCHIAL FOR RUMNEY MANOR LTD

2009-10-02T16:30:00.006+01:00

ARCHIAL, I AM TRYING REALLY HARD NOT TO PUBLISH SO MUCH OF YOUR SHIT. I HAVE NO PARTICULAR AGENDA, I DON'T WANT TO HATE YOU ANY MORE THAN ANY OF THE OTHER SHIT ARCHITECTS IN THIS COUNTRY. BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE WHEN YOU KEEP SENDING OUT IMAGES LIKE THIS.
THIS IS A HOUSING DEVELOPMENT (DESPITE LOOKING MUCH LIKE A 1980S BUSINESS PARK). IT'S IN A CONSERVATION AREA IN EDINBURGH AND HAS PLANNING PERMISSION.
ARCHIAL'S IDEAS ARE SO PISS WEAK THAT THE DRAWING KIND OF FADES INTO TRANSLUCENCY. THE CAD/SKETCHUP MONKEY WAS PRESUMABLY SIMULATING THE LIMP-WRISTED INABILITY OF ARCHIAL'S DRAFSTMEN TO PUSH DOWN HARD ENOUGH ON THE FUCKING FELT TIP.
THE SITE WAS PREVIOUSLY OCCUPIED BY BALFOUR STEWART HOUSE, A QUITE HANDSOME POMOBRUTALIST RMJM OFFICE BUILDING. THE PERNICIOUS MAX HUTCHINSON, FORMER RIBA PRESIDENT AND BOARD MEMBER OF ARCHIAL, PREPARED THE WAY FOR HIS OWN PRACTICE'S PIECE OF SHIT BY COMING UP WITH A SOPHISTICATEDLY DAMNING ASSESSMENT OF THAT BUILDING. HE CALLED RMJM'S PREVIOUS INCUMBENT AN 'INITIALLY SEDUCTIVE COSMETIC WORK OF ARCHITECTURE, WHICH, SADLY, IS CRITICALLY FLAWED IN EXECUTION'. BY WAY OF A REPLACEMENT, ARCHIAL VOUS PROPOSE A NOT-AT-ALL-SEDUCTIVE WORK OF JERRY BUILDING IN THE DEVELOPER VERNACULAR.
THE DEVELOPMENT ENGAGES WITH THE STREET BY BUILDING A GIANT FUCKING WALL BETWEEN ITSELF AND THE PAVEMENT.
THIS IMAGE BEGGARS BELIEF. REALLY.
THE ONLY THING THAT'S POSSIBLY WORSE, IS THE INITIAL, REJECTED APPLICATION. EVEN A TORY FUCKING COUNCILLOR COULDN'T GIVE THIS PERMISSION:

OAKLANDS COLLEGE IN ST ALBANS BY BOND BRYAN

2009-09-30T17:38:00.004+01:00

Despite the funding falling through for almost all further education colleges in the country, Oaklands College in St Albans is so desperate to build this beauty that it is going to put up the money itself.
The college has already spent £12 million on professional fees and taking the building through a public enquiry (successfully) after the proposal was called in by the secretary of state. Now it wants to spend another £100 million inflicting this strange catherine wheel of a building on the landscape in reality.
I really like how carefully the architect has thought about the parking, so that the building relates to the landscape around it about as well as an American supermall might. This building was called in because it was in the greenbelt. What on earth made the government decide this was ok?
I think someone at Bond Bryan has been spending a bit too much time with his or her mandala.

BSKYB HEADQUARTERS, OSTERLEY, LONDON BY ARUP ASSOCIATES FOR STANHOPE

2009-09-24T18:02:00.005+01:00

Oh, this one's shaping up really nicely, isn't it?
Surprisingly, the cranes in this picture are actually not demolishing this giant slab of greeny-blue glazing, they're building it, putting the finishing touches to a building that will contribute as much character and joy to the city as it will carbon to the atmosphere - almost none.
Arup Associates say that this will be one of the most sustainable broadcasting facilities in Europe (I wonder how much competition there is for that title?), and that 'the architecture of the building dramatically expresses the integrated and world-leading sustainable technology'. Those big white things that look like lift cores are actually natural ventilation chimneys. Why couldn't they make the architecture of the building 'dramatically express' something that actually means something to someone, rather than cladding some big chimneys in white steel to make us aware of how much Mr Murdoch loves polar bears?
Lovely work boys, an absolute picture. Hey, Stanhope! Just because it's sustainable, doesn't mean we can't see it's a piece of shit.

THRELKELD VILLAGE HALL, THRELKELD, CUMBRIA BY GREEN DESIGN GROUP

2009-09-23T10:08:00.003+01:00

WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS GOING ON HERE? WHEN THE GOVERNMENT GIVES OUT ECO GRANTS TO STOP BUILDINGS DESTROYING THE WORLD, THEY SHOULD REALLY FUCKING READ THE APPLICATIONS TO ESTABLISH WHETHER THE BUILDINGS THEY ARE FUNDING WILL INSTEAD DESTROY OUR RETINAS WITH THEIR EXTREME FUGLINESS.
LOOK AT THE BIG PURPLE SLOPEY COLUMN. LOOK AT THE 'FULLY DDA COMPLIANT' ENTRANCE SEQUENCE. LOOK AT THE TRULY BIZARRE INWARD SLOPING WINDOWS ON THE RIGHT.
THIS HAS ACTUALLY GOT PLANNING PERMISSION, BUT THEY'RE STILL FUNDRAISING, SO WE CAN STILL MAN THE BARRICADES IN THRELKELD. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THRELKELD IS, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE IT'LL BE ON GOOGLE MAPS. WHO'S WITH ME?
AND WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE CHILDREN DOING TO THAT DOG IN THE FOREGROUND OF THIS PICTURE?

DERBY COLLEGE CAMPUS, DERBY, BY MABER ARCHITECTS

2009-09-22T17:55:00.005+01:00

This building is part of a broader masterplan for Derby College, made up of buildings of bad-to-mediocre quality by Midlands-based Maber Architects. But this one is utterly shit.
The strategy was to make a really big box, based on the form of a cereal packet, and then 'break down its scale' (this is me putting words in their mouths, by the way) by using a shitty modularised cladding system in grey and black. They had one good idea - the canopy - but that emphasises just how much this building belongs on a business park.

ROCHDALE TOWN CENTRE MASTERPLAN, BY ROCHDALE METROPOLITAN BOROUGH COUNCIL

2009-09-15T18:10:00.001+01:00

The image above, referred to as a 'masterplan' by Rochdale council, is the city fathers' compelling vision of how they will turn the space around Rochdale town hall into one of Europe's biggest public spaces. I tell you this in case you were labouring under the impression that said image was created by a child in a remedial class with only three felt tips to choose from: puce, flesh and powder blue.
If you will permit me to take a quote completely out of context, council leader Alan Taylor knows it shit but added: "We make no apologies for this." Well, thanks Alan.
You might think that this schematic is a little light on use and programme (beyond the visionary 'water features' that multiply offensively across the Stalin-style steppe that constitutes the new public space), but you'd be wrong. Look at the visualisation below:
They've thought hard about an innovative mix of 'cafe' on the ground floor with outdoor seating next to a dual carriageway, with 'mixed-use' space above it. Helpfully, they have placed two people in the 'mixed-use' space, presumably doing a mix of things. So you can really feel that mix happening.
Finally a key plank of revitalising the city centre will be to plant some trees, and then spray paint them purple:

Can anyone from Rochdale shed any light on this amateurish nonsense?

With many thanks to a contributor for this one...

BURNS MONUMENT CENTRE, KAY PARK IN KILMARNOCK BY EAST AYRSHIRE ASSET IMPROVEMENT SERVICE

2009-09-08T18:39:00.006+01:00

Wow. This is one of those projects that the local authority architect thought: "I can do this. This is my big chance. Those fancy-dan architects from Glasgow/London will finally recognise the genius of us Ayrshire natives." So the local authority didn't have a competition, didn't take any advice and went with its own, terribly untalented architecture office. The result is this embarassing lump of sandstone, stranglingly enclosing what remains of a listed monument.
The Robert Burns monument used to be a charming and slightly mad folly of a tower, which burned down in 2006. It was in sandstone, with a mad mixture of Scots baronial, neo-gothic and baroque providing a suitably romantic/absurd setting for the Scottish bard's memory. For its replacement, the designers went with slopey-roofed shit-bikeshed style, with a liberal dash of Kalzip and a touch of Hackney Marshes changing rooms (the old ones).

Really loving the powder blue window frames, guys.
Many thanks to 'anon' for this one.

UNITED REFORMED CHURCH, EAST WITTERING BY HOME PLAN-IT AND SCOTFRAME

2009-09-07T17:50:00.007+01:00

Now, I realise the United Reformed Church is not that interested in the architecture of its churches, and that it hasn't really contributed much to the history of sacred buildings. But this is ridiculous.
I suppose you could say that this is the plain style - a shit developer house, scaled up with a cross stuck on the gable. It's not meant to look any different from the places you live. But surely, surely there could have been a little more love taken here without compromising the Calvinist roots of the church? Some pleasure to the entrance sequence instead of an acre of tarmac, for instance?
From the outside, it looks as though the internal volume could be ok, an airy space with exposed glu-lam rafters. But no. Instead, they did this:

I'm sorry, but I'd rather burn than spend my Sunday mornings in this place...

SKY PLAZA STUDENT HOUSING IN LEEDS BY CAREY JONES ARCHITECTS

2009-09-04T16:54:00.011+01:00

This is a recession, which means that land values are lower than they were, which means that student housing developers can afford to get in there and build some shit buildings for young people to live in. Then, the poor students get overcharged for the privilege of having sex and throwing up and setting off smoke alarms in an eyesore.
Unite is the developer of this building, and they're responsible for loads of shite in cities all over the country (this one in Manchester looks like an old people's home, this one in Edinburgh is a shit bit of Scottish contextualism and this one in London like 1980s housing for people likely to harm themselves). Unite is by no means to only developer doing shit buildings for students, and this will not be the last student residence to appear here.
Sky Plaza, above, is in Leeds, and is the tallest student housing IN THE WOOOOOORLD as if that is either here or there. 37 storeys. 103 metres. Look at the pic above: the buildings next door are pretty big. This one's a monster. The proportions are fat and deadening as the lumpen mass of it obnoxiously blots out the sky.
The composition of the facades, or lack of, is, in my experience, what really distinguishes bad architects from good. Bad architects don't so much compose facades, as choose a pattern and use a tiling command to extend it across the whole facade. When they do try to design one, this happens.
Here, Carey Jones opted to make loads of tiny windows march across the facade with a monotonous lack of verve.

When the architects at Carey Jones were students, do you think they dreamed of doing buildings like this?

NATIONAL CURLING ACADEMY IN KINROSS, BY ARCHIAL ARCHITECTS

2009-08-25T17:27:00.000+01:00

You might have to click on this one to see it properly, but it is a quite remarkable drawing of possibly the ugliest sports hall you'll ever see. What's really, really bad about Archial is that they can't just accept they're rubbish. They feel a pressing need to 'do design', making funky (as in 'offensively malodorous') windows as in the right-hand side of the north elevation, and bizarre supergraphics.
The supergraphic totally confused me to begin with, until I realised it's a cack-handed version of an Otl Aicher pictogram. It's someone curling, of course. Although it looks at best like an Edwardian rugby player, and at worst someone readying themselves for a painful shafting.
OK, a little competition with this post. Can you make head or tail of Archial director Charles Smith?
From the press release: Charles Smith, director at Archial Architects, said, “The general design features of the building reflect the intentions for a world class facility. The elevational treatment of the building is suitably distinctive and will enhance the site’s sense of identity and linkages to the adjacent rural character, using natural, sustainable materials such as timber cladding within the scheme, which creates a horizontal emphasis to the building."
Hm, OK. I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean.
“The use of different materials externally relates directly to the internal composition, therefore linking the internal space arrangements with the external appearance which, in turn, relates to the site and its origins."
Sorry, Charles, you've lost me there.
“Whilst the development is to become an integral part of one of Kinross-shire’s main settlements, the palette chosen specifically reflects the rural setting, enhancing the natural materials and complementing the landscaped setting.”
Yep. Absolutely no idea what you're getting at. Good luck with the planning application, though. The committee should be like a Beckett play if he carries on like that. Might be worth sitting in...

UNDERGROUND CONTROL CENTRE, WEST LONDON BY MORGAN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

2009-08-24T17:29:00.010+01:00

This is the kind of shite that London Underground commissions these days. While in Switzerland you get signal boxes by Herzog & de Meuron etc, in our nation's capital you get a giant bunker that isn't so much ugly as completely undesigned. It's just acres of grey surface, undifferentiated apart from what appears to be four downpipes marching across the facade. Interesting how shit architects are always very precise about downpipes in their visualisations.
Morgan Professional Services is the kind of multi-disciplinary that believes in 'creative collaboration', the kind of platitude that today's construction industry sprouts like acne on a teenager's face. It's impossible to not believe in creative collaboration, of course, but when all you have to send press releases out about is a building like this one, you have to ask yourself what all that creativity and collaboration has brought you to.
Here's the back:
A close up of that green wall (designed to 'minimise visual impact' and 'soften' this humungous building), two years on:
No, not really. That's DSDHA's little bit of Paradise. But it's a fair approximation.
Inside, it's the normal Dr Strangelove/Gattaca kind of thing:Many thanks to an esteemed correspondent for this one...

DORCHESTER MEDICAL CENTRE, BREWERY SQUARE, DORSET BY CZWG

2009-08-17T16:43:00.003+01:00

CZWG are bad architects, peddling their weird brand of postmodernism up and down the country. But this one's gone too far. It's cartoon art deco, with a stupid, cartoon art deco typeface above the door. It does nothing to dignify its sullen but very English context, just shouts as loud as it can.
Possibly CZWG is trying to provide the next logical progression in the Prince Charles pastiche
around Dorchester. That isn't real Georgian, and this isn't real, well, anything. It's probably trying to be bingo hall, Wurlitzer, popular architecture, but in fact it's three sets of curvy goalposts. It has no richness, no detail.
There are 24 CZWG buildings in this masterplan. So the town's basically fucked.

BLAR MHOR HOUSING IN CAOL, FORT WILLIAM BY ARCHIAL FOR LORNE DEVELOPMENTS

2009-07-22T18:14:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will be aware of what I consider to be just about the most prolific bad architect in the UK. Step forward Archial, the conglomerate that will be shitting out something awful in your neighbourhood very soon. I've had reason to think that they read this blog before, but now I know they do. Imagine the scene.
"Lads, we have a 300-home masterplan to do in Scotland, but we're shite at masterplanning. What shall we do?"
"I can't remember where I saw it, but whoever it is who made those great drawings of the Leyland Bus site has got real talent - we should hire him/her."
And they obviously did. This masterplan is much, much worse, though, with an even bigger array of Brookside Close moments, and a truly flagrant disregard for any existing geographical or architectural features of the place. Councils! You can have better than this! Just commission a good architect (there are other websites with some of those on them) rather than an utterly shit one who will transplant an urban and architectural language from out of their arse into your town.
One helpful rule of thumb, from Nairn to you. When someone presents a masterplan with a perimeter of a line of trees, it means they're trying to hide something. Do not trust these people.

And the housing itself? Mush. Just mush.

SPIRE HOSPITAL, THE GLEN, BRISTOL BY STRADFORM

2009-07-21T18:42:00.008+01:00

Spire Hospital is a national centre of excellence for 'cardiac, brain and spinal surgery', apparently. It's a private hospital, so it has loads of cash. But not only can they not afford an architect for their extension, but they don't pay their contractor enough to use a proper CAD package. Sketchup hell ensues.
As for the building itself, is it just me, or can I detect influences of Elizabethan theatre architecture in the above picture? In any case, it will win the award for 'greatest number of differently pitched roofs in the smallest possible building'.
Whereas this part of the extension adopts a more modern idiom, the image excelling in expressing just how bad the chequerboard cladding will look on completion. The roof appears to be made of corrugated iron.
There was one architect involved in this, as planning consultant: Turley Associates, you are hereby named and shamed for your part in this atrocity.

WOODLAND COMMUNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL, ROCHDALE BY NPS ARCHITECTS

2009-07-20T18:26:00.008+01:00

FAT SHED WITH TINY WINDOWS. THAT'S WHAT WE SHOULD EDUCATE THE VERY YOUNG IN THESE DAYS. IF IT FAILS AS A SCHOOL, YOU CAN ALWAYS TURN IT INTO A FUCKING DISTRIBUTION SHED. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN, LIKE NPS, YOU HAVE A BOARD OF DIRECTORS WHO LOOK LIKE NEWS OF THE WORLD PAEDOPHILES.

CARPENTERS PLACE, KNOWLE, BRISTOL BY CIRCLE CONSTRUCTION FOR EMINENCE DEVELOPMENTS

2009-07-08T17:56:00.006+01:00

This building is the reason we started this blog. Absolute drivel, posing as contextual housing. The inexplicable symmetry, accentuated by black plastic extracts and downpipes; timber cladding that is varnished so hideously that it no longer looks like wood; 'balconies' that are not balconies (the three bonsai shrubs behind the top balcony in the middle are a heartbreaking expression of what the residents really wanted); regulation beige brick; the mud borders showing how money ran out before the landscaping was finished.
The building replaces a pub called the Venture Inn, which faced this square in West Knowle. Housing developers and local authorities care not a toss for social spaces like pubs and corner shops. They'd rather have flats full of junior management consultants than communities.
The inn's replacement is the architectural equivalent of porridge. Bland, formless, cloying, does nothing more than fill a hole.

PIER HEAD FERRY TERMINAL, LIVERPOOL BY HAMILTON ARCHITECTS

2009-07-01T17:21:00.005+01:00

Hmm, I wonder what they've been putting in the tea at Hamilton Architects? The practice has what you might euphemistically describe as a 'mixed' portfolio, ranging from fugly Georgiana to a plasticky hospital. But here they were clearly given a bit of a budget, and decided to give free reign to their frustrated avant-gardism.
It riffs on the new (and nearby) Museum of Liverpool by 3XN, with a stone-clad slightly angular form. they've then gone ahead and made some hideously ill-considered glazed cut outs that collide horribly with the already deeply questionable geometry.
This building is what happens when a bad architect reads a few too many architecture magazines, and think that doing shapes is a good idea. The result is this anti-context, anti-scale, uncivilised building, exuding a staggering lack of decorum on the benighted World Heritage Site that is Liverpool's waterfront.
When shit practices do shapes, it also reveals the absolute stupidity and rampant subjectivity of architecture today. This was the winner of an international competition - the jury probably thought they were getting a B-team Libeskind or something.
Liverpool people will be relieved to hear that the programme of this building is an absolutely essential addition to the city's cultural landscape - a second Beatles Museum. The museum promises a "magical journey through the music of the Beatles, complete with motion, sound and water". Sounds like a museological fucking revolution.
According to the architect, the building has become popular with 'photographers' because of its 'quirky' 'angles'. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos above, it has become popular with really shit photographers, who barely know how to hold their cameras up straight.

WATERLANE SPORTS CENTRE, LOWESTOFT BY DV8 DESIGNS

2009-06-30T18:00:00.005+01:00

It's very difficult for the uneducated observer to understand what the jazzily named DV8 ("We pride ourselves on providing a friendly, down to earth, supportive and competant [sic] service") is doing, spatially, with this building from their 2D elevation rendering.
Helpfully, they provided the section below to explain the scheme better, so we can really understand the 3-dimensional complexity of the proposal, feel the play of light and sound, and have evoked for us the intricate mix of programmes that make this into so much more than a D&B leisure centre.HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Look at how the dance studio is evoked in this section as a place ideally suited to the joyous expression of the human body. And how the staff are given the best space in the building, dignifying their important role as guardians of the community's health and fitness.
1st year student... my mum can draw better... worst section I've ever seen... etc...

GREATER MANCHESTER POLICE AUTHORITY HQ, CENTRAL PARK, EAST MANCHESTER BY AEDAS

2009-06-10T18:54:00.005+01:00

Oh Aedas, you make really bad architecture quite a lot of the time. Here is a quite monumentally ordinary building for the police on a business park in Manchester. What I like about it most is how it marks the corner entrance with a full-height void, a big glass atrium and one spindly column sticking up. And what does this sculptural corner, wherein all the architecture of this building is contained, face? A roundabout.
They could have at least make it convenient for the cops, who, arriving by car and parking presumably at the back of this building, will have to walk all the way around it to get inside. People driving by won't care anyway. They'll be too busy crashing after belly laughing at the pathetic piece of public art that occupies the centre of this roundabout. I wonder if Aedas designed that, too?

QUICK LINK LITE DEPLOYABLE BARRIER SYSTEM BY CORUS, HYDE PARK, LONDON

2009-06-04T09:14:00.000+01:00

A VBIED is a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. A car bomb. When you absolutely, positively need to keep fundamentalist terrorists or ecosocialist nutters from carbombing your shrubbery, you can deploy the Quick Link Lite barrier system like this...

at the impressive rate of 30 metres of barrier per hour with 'minimum disruption'.
This is the architectural expression of how the government has allowed the police, through terror legislation (specifically in this case Lord West's terrorism strategy CONTEST2) to militarise our public realm unabashedly and completely. The top picture looks like a checkpoint along the Berlin wall, and I think it's really interesting how the photographer has tried to give it the maximum intimadation factor by taking the picture from down low.
Quick Link Lite was first used at the G20 summit in London in April, and is coming soon to a perfectly legal and peaceful demonstration near you...

HOUSE POD BY ECO-MODS, ANYWHEREVILLE

2009-06-03T15:30:00.001+01:00

The picture above is of the bleeding edge of the British construction industry, the technology that will solve the crisis in British housebuilding in terms of environmental sustainability, build quality and aesthetics. Behold, the House Pod.
There was a time when the future looked like the future, and so on and so forth, but now all the future aspires to be is profitable. And that means shite like this. We've seen this before on this blog.
They're weird, though. The roofline on this terrace alternates high gables and dormer windows to try to give the impression that these are triple fronted detached houses, when noone could make that mistake thanks to the oversized porch canopies (with flashings and wheelie bins in syncopated rhythms along the street).
These houses will be substantially built off site in a factory. We've heard this before (almost every six months. The biggest noise I remember is Yorkon and its Murray Grove flats in London. Yorkon seems to have given up on resi now, by the looks of its website), and it hasn't transformed the supply chain yet.
Listen, though, there will be 'no compromise on quality' in this factory-made future, according to the press release, because 'The House Pod is building regulation compliant'. Well, that's a relief! The future of mass-manufactured sustainable housing will keep the rain out. The text also describes how the pod 'can currently meet levels 3, 4 and 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.' So you can choose how slowly you want your modular development to kill the planet.
Naked, the House Pod looks like this, which is, to my mind, an improvement, although there are DDA issues with the front door.

FOREST WAY SEN SCHOOL, COALVILLE, LEICESTERSHIRE BY HUNTERS

2009-06-02T16:28:00.000+01:00

You know how architects always tell their clients that the proposed timber cladding will 'weather down' into a shimmering grey colour? Well, they're lying. In this case it's Hunters' sweet chestnut cladding on a special needs school in Leicestershire, looking pretty ropey a few months after opening. Click on the picture for the close-up horror.
This school is sustainable. So sustainable, in fact, that trees grow inside the building!
This might be my first example on this blog of something that's so bad, it's good.

ST MARY'S ROAD HOUSING, PECKHAM BY ALAN CAMP ARCHITECTS FOR L&Q

2009-05-01T12:53:00.000+01:00

WAIT A MINUTE, NO, YOU CAN'T DO THAT. YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED FUCKING DESIGNING IT YET. YOU CAN'T JUST SEND OUT AN IMAGE OF A LOAD OF GREY WALLS IN SKETCHUP. OH, IT'S ALREADY GOT PLANNING PERMISSION? OH. OKAY THEN. FUCK IT. JUST PUT SOME TREES ON IT AND SEND IT OUT.

BMW DEALERSHIP, BEDDINGTON, LONDON BY TALBOT CONSTRUCTION

2009-04-29T18:10:00.000+01:00

Car dealerships are a breed of their own in British architecture. I don't know whether there are dedicated building regulations for them, or quite how this genus of the species 'bad architecture' has developed in the way it has. They always look uniquely clipped together and temporary. It is as if car dealership design has developed on Easter Island: you can see where it came from, but at some point it stopped having any relationship with the rest of the construction industry.
The constructional logic is derived from the sign - a structure with clipped-on symbols. Like all buildings like this, the cladding system is a law unto itself with strangely small panels contrasting with the over large and annoyingly reflective glazing. Look at the picture above: in its vertical expression, there is no hierarchy between glazing member, structural column, downpipe and advertising hoarding.
This is unreal architecture, the same wherever it appears. It embodies nothing about BMW, nothing about the excitement of the expensive machines inside. It's the kind of building that shoddy planning authorities allow to pollute the roadside when they can't think of anything else to do with a site.
By the way, I love that this super-generic building intended to promote carbon-guzzling machines is in the same town as the godmother of eco developments, BedZed. Way to have a joined-up strategy, London Borough of Croydon.

SWALLOW FIELDS HOUSING IN TIPTON, WEST MIDLANDS BY CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS

2009-04-20T18:00:00.000+01:00

THIS BUILDING IS THE DEVIL, IT IS THE ENEMY, IT IS SO UNREMITTINGLY FUCKING GRIM THAT IT'S HARD TO EVEN LOOK AT THE PICTURE WITHOUT IT DAMAGING YOU.
IT'S A COMBINATION OF BOTCHED CURTAIN WALLING, WINDOWS THAT DON'T FIT THE HOLES THEY'RE IN, ALL TOPPED OFF WITH A HAT THAT LOOKS LIKE AN ARMY SENTRY POST IN WEST BELFAST. JUST NEEDS A BIG FUCKING GUN TURRET ON TOP AND IT WOULD FIT RIGHT IN.
SMALL OBSERVATION - I CAN HONESTLY SAY THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN EFFLORESCENCE ON THE MORTAR BETWEEN TERRACOTTA BOLLOCKING TILES.
THIS BUILDING WAS SHORTLISTED FOR A FUCKING AWARD. IT COULD HAVE WALKED AWAY WITH 'BEST RSL-LED LARGE DEVELOPMENT' AT THE AFFORDABLE HOME OWNERSHIP AWARDS. ADMITTEDLY THAT IS NOT A PARTICULARLY COMPETITIVE CONTEXT, BUT FOR FUCK'S SAKE. THE REF MUST HAVE BEEN BLIND.
APPARENTLY 'THE CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS TEAM IS RECOGNISED THROUGHOUT THE MIDLANDS FOR ITS EXPERTISE AND INNOVATION.' EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING MIDLANDS SHOULD GET OUT MORE.

LEYLAND BUS REDEVELOPMENT, LEYLAND BY STEVEN ABBOTT ASSOCIATES AND TAYLOR YOUNG

2009-04-14T17:23:00.000+01:00

Urban design in Britain must be about the worst in the civilised world. This masterplan shows why, with a variety of autumnal shades used to demonstrate how little clue we have about making real streets, real neighbourhoods or real connections with the fabric of the city. Look at the perimeter, to start with. The site is almost entirely removed from any engagement with its context by lines of trees. Look at the shared surfaces at the road junctions - a shitty brown colour picks out the spaces that no kids will play on (still too dangerous) but that will cause maximum annoyance to motorists. Look at the sub-Brookside close in the bottom left. This is town planning done at the developer's behest, with no regard to what makes a town work. There's no real public space, just the semi-private kind masquerading. Look at the small blue spots - these denote what the architect refers to as 'garden squares'. They look more like car parks to me. Urban planning in this country has assimilated the propaganda about placemaking from bodies like CABE, and carried on doing the same old crap the housebuilders always wanted from its pathetically pliant consultants. Here are some of the houses:

Oceans of indeterminate watercoloured green space and some sketchy housing helpfully obscured by the trees. A party wall (to the left) left white because they don't know what to fucking do with it. That's a problem that English architecture has had for 300 years, and the designers of this scheme don't even try to dignify the problem.

So, why are these houses so awful? Roger Lomas of Taylor Young can enlighten us: "The objective of the proposals was to create homes not houses, places not spaces and a community rather than an estate." I wonder how they're measuring such scientific metrics?

Urban designers in this country talk crap all the time, government-approved crap that reassures planners while pulling the wool over their eyes time and again.
The elevations? You'll be sorry you asked...

DAVINGTON PRIMARY SCHOOL, FAVERSHAM BY CATTELL SKINNER DESIGN PARTNERSHIP

2009-04-13T20:20:00.000+01:00

I'm torn over this one. I think the architect tried hard. It's just an awful result. You can see what they were trying to do - some very small clerestoreys and banded brickword probably made them feel a bit like Jim Stirling. But it just ends up looking like a faux-postmodern lock up. I congratulate the photographer on waiting for sunny weather, but it doesn't make much difference, does it?

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE, BY ARCHIAL AND THE UNIVERSITY OF BATH

2009-04-08T22:09:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well. Archial appears to read our blog. The BBC has covered its proposal for a 'sustainable' house made of Hempcrete (as if it's the first time anyone had ever thought of it). But Auntie said that the proposal was from the University of Bath, rather than this blog's favourite shit architect. We, dear reader, know different.
The image that the BBC ran (the second from the top) is a little less architect-ed up, but it's the same old shit. Archial/Bath Uni couldn't even be bothered to change the angle of the visualisation. The thing I'm sure about is that they saw our comments about how bad the render of the render looked, and took the Tipp-ex to it. Now we have a pristine, white 1980s executive home rather than a slightly grey one.
Thing I'm wondering is, which one came first? Did they add the timber adornments to charm the design press, or did they remove them because the BBC wouldn't understand the architectural sophistication of the timber proposal? What did Archial pay the University of Bath to keep its name out of the frame for this hideous concoction?
Whoever created the BBC version even toned down the lens flare. Which reminds me...

EXCHANGE PLACE, FOUNTAINBRIDGE OFFICES IN EDINBURGH BY CRE8 ARCHITECTURE

2009-04-05T16:31:00.000+01:00

With many thanks to one keen-to-be-anonymous reader, I bring you this commercial development by an architecture practice with a truly embarassing name. Who 's have thought that the word/number hybrid Cre8 (are there 8 of them?) would find its way into architecture? According to Google, Cre8 has already been used by a 'concept design and marketing' company, a photography agency and an organisation that 'exists to provide kids and teenagers with an opportunity to develop creative arts skills in a Christian environment'. Even so, these guys felt that there was still mileage in the brand.
As for the building, it's a combination of corporate cityscape style (see most of central Leeds) with a smoked glass 'feature'. The corner's a great lesson to us all. When you really can't decide to do a curve or a sharp corner, do both!
My correspondent on this one coined a beautiful phrase to describe the checkerboard facade treatment and gives an eye witness' detailed critique: "If you notice on the second image, those bizarre vertical bits of fridge magnet cladding are a different finish to the other cladding elsewhere on the building. Otherwise, it looks like sketchup. Exactly like sketchup." I couldn't have put it better myself.

CAPITAL EAST II IN DOCKLANDS BY RMA ARCHITECTS FOR BARRATT AND CIRCLE ANGLIA

2009-03-30T18:35:00.000+01:00

Eurgh. This one's just horrible, isn't it? This is executive mass housing done on the cheap, tarted up with a 'landmark tower' (say the architects) to try to suit its dockfront location. But they forgot that the gunmetal sky you see here is pretty typical of east London, and all hopes of transparency in glazed facades founder under its relentlessness. It's just grey.
One point on scale. Although Docklands is a high-rise environment, that doesn't mean you can just take a four-storey design for an apartment building in Slough off the shelf and stretch it a few storeys. And the trend for little hats on buildings is now so ingrained that we almost don't notice it, but isn't it strange? Clumsily set back upper storeys will be a kind of defining legacy of 1990s architecture in this coutry.
Sometimes, Docklands can feel really impressive in a 1990s corporate video kind of way, but there's always a cheap piece of crap around the corner that destroys the effect. That piece of crap will usually either be by CZWG or by this lot, RMA Architects. RMA has built a load of terrible buildings in and around Docklands. In this case they took an existing planning permission by Squire & Partners (not the world's most gifted lot themselves) and made it cheaper until it was really horrible to look at. Then they built it.

HOUSING IN FARNWORTH, BOLTON BY CONTOUR HOMES

2009-03-30T18:19:00.000+01:00

There are some projects designed to give people as little as possible to talk about. And, sure enough, as you try to think of something to say about the above proposal, you descend into existential crisis, nothingness becomes tangible, and the gaping vacuum of your mind swallows any design criticism instinct you (and the planners) ever had.
This is inoffensive architecture at its most offensive. Most telling to me is how the image puts lots and lots of detail into rendering the blue Renault Megane, a bit less into rendering the houses, and none at all into the people (or the dog).
Look out for more of this rubbish, as our glorious housing industry and planning inspectorate revert to what they know in the face of economic disaster.

THE LOCKHOUSE, CAMDEN, LONDON BY PKS ARCHITECTS FOR BARRATT

2009-03-24T17:53:00.000Z

This might look like the usual crap to you: piss-coloured render and a characterless window system with some white supercalamodernistic projecting balconies and profiled zinc that's supposed to make us believe this isn't really a six-storey building hard up against the canal (the zinc's a roof, you see...). But this one is emblematic of a wider malaise.

There are lots of shocking things about British housing in the first decade of the 21st century: the shoddy materials, the inappropriate density, single-aspect flats, and the multiples required to make a profit driving awful, lumpen urban forms. But another shocking thing is how we are sold a vision, that can then be watered down (after planning) by an utterly cynical developer until it is nothing like what we imagined it would be. Below is PKS Architects' first attempt at this scheme, in a form that was exhibited at the New London Architecture Gallery.

This is a poor quality image, and despite this still terribly clumsy and obviously oversized proposal, at least it was painted white (a bit like the warehouses further along the canal), and there's the suggestion of timber on the projecting sections. Ther emight even be some public space implied along the canal front. What it turned out as, you can see at the top.

Actually, none of that really makes any difference, really. It's still absolutely awful in a anaesthetised, run-of-the-mill kind of way. This dull, stupid building will now afflict the canal until after we're all dead. Thanks PKS and Barratt.

RENEWABLE HOUSE BY ARCHIAL FOR EMPYER HOMES

2009-03-16T17:40:00.000Z

Not only is the above house 'modular' and 'energy efficient', it is also 'fucking ugly'. The first two quotes are from the press release, the third is from me.
Things I hate about this building include the downpipe, the completely blank flank wall, the tiny windows on the ground floor, and how the visualisation makes it clear just how horrible the sustainable Hemcrete render will really look if it ever gets built.
Archial's reaction to the credit crunch is cynical. Noone's buying any housing, so let's go back to what housebuilders do best, detached houses, tiny windows, fucking ugly, a few modern gob-ons but mostly redolent of some kind of tiny, bastardised, 1980s version of a farmhouse.
Also, on a lighter note, it seems that people who design ugly buildings have found a new button in photoshop - lens flare. I'll be posting more lens flare pictures by bad architects very soon.

MILLENNIUM HOTEL, SOUTHAMPTON BY HKR ARCHITECTS

2009-03-10T19:39:00.001Z

Southampton was where the Titanic sailed from. It undoubtedly was and still should be a great maritime city. But weirdly, it seems to have the fugliest set of hotels of any city I've ever seen. The picture above is not, to be fair, by HKR Architects. This eyesore is by WATG, or Wimberley Allison Tong and Goo, American designers of Las Vegas casinos and resorts around the world that look like the palatial homes of African dictators. When they got to Southampton, they decided to propose this, whose subtle form is inspired by a thick slice of bread.
Even the good burghers of Southampton wouldn't put up with that, so now (barring recession) they're getting this, which is by HKR:
Look, they've made it completely transparent! It's the Predator building, and therefore impossible to complain about. In this image, I'm really enjoying the lengths HKR have gone to to integrate with the vernacular-style housing on the left hand side of the image. The architect has also caught slippy-slidey-windows disease from Allies & Morrison, and has let it rip on the flank facades.
HKR has integrated one remarkable feature into this building, which merits a 'concept drawing' all of its own.
It has windows! Which people can look out of. I think you'll agree that the above picture truly does paint a thousand words.
While researching this post, I happened upon some other stupendous hotels in Southampton, which I just had to include. I once went to a conference in this one:
It's the De Vere Grand Harbour hotel, and it's quite near the station. It looks like a shit-brown, postmodern Brunswick Centre with a big glass pyramid fucked into it. As far as I could tell, the building is mostly made out of mastic. Imagine talking to the architect. What would be your first question? 'Oh, yes, I know that building. It's really... you know... contemporary.'
By the way, read this review of it in the Telegraph, which is a better piece of architectural criticism than I could muster.
To get to the De Vere from the station, you walk past this:
It's a Novotel hotel doing an impression of a giant, new-build crack den. What you can't see in this picture is the beige concrete blocks of the cladding, which are discolouring horribly and should be condemned. It's simply incompetent building, let alone design. I can't find the name of the designer, and I'm guessing the builder just made it up as they went along.
Finally on the Southampton hotels roll of shame, a Jurys Inn, whose ungainly bulk is in no way mediated by the attempt of the architect to 'break it down' into rectangles in varying shades of beige:
What is it with this city? Southampton is a tourist hell, actively trying to keep tourists away with comedically bad architecture. Perhaps there's a Pompey fan in the planning department.

Many thanks to @tragedyhatherle for the suggestion at the top, and you can read his infinitely more coherent thoughts about Southampton here on his brilliant blog.

SIDCUP LEISURE CENTRE, BEXLEY BY BURKE RICKHARDS

2009-03-09T19:31:00.000Z

I blame Norman Foster for this. Admittedly, he used to be a pretty good architect, but the problem with the British high-tech masters of the universe is that they delighted in creating problems they then had to solve with great rhetorical flourish and fake functionalism. Which brings us to to this little number.
What kind of architect decides that a really transparent south-facing facade is a good idea (I assume it's south from the angle of the shadow of the tree in the second picture), and then, on discovering the greenhouse-like environment he or she has created, decides to ring up Levolux to sort it out with a few louvres?
Well, this kind, clearly. Then Burke Rickhards goes crazy with the whole high-tech classicism thing, making a symmetrical facade with a fake colonnade (said Levolux construction). This is just ordinary, perverse, weird architecture with no character, craft or guile. Somewhere in the DNA of this building is Foster's Carré d’Art in Nimes, but so mutated as to be unrecognisible.
Also, check out the number of bollards in front of the glazed central portion of the facade, presumably to stop a Glasgow Airport-style terrorist attack. On Sidcup Leisure Centre. This is another problem, created by the architect, solved by a cack-handed highway engineer and as a result littering the public realm with more unnecessary flotsam.

PERSPECTIVE HOUSING, LAMBETH, LONDON BY ASSAEL

2009-03-08T13:12:00.003Z

Debt-loaded housing developer Crest Nicholson is not known for its patronage of great contemporary architecture. This is well documented online. But this brute is as bad as it gets. The architect, Assael, is frequently included in the Sunday Times' list of best employers in the country, but I'd need more than a softball team and a decent pension to tolerate working on a project like this. Maybe they give out free crack to their employees at lunchtime.

The project is a conversion of an office building formerly occupied by MI6. So far, so sustainable. But what Assael was thinking when it dressed it up for the 21st century, god only knows. Firstly, they created a ham-fistedly 'iconic' entrance, presumably to give the modernist building some presence on the street. The white-painted tree-like columns are horribly twiggy and supports a roof (presumably modelled on the Nike tick) that is horribly, clunkily thick.

But it's the tower that's really bad. You can see what they were thinking. Clad the bottom five storeys in terracotta so it 'relates to the cityscape', and then do whatever the fuck you like above that. The top of the tower is just hilarious. It reminds me of Taipei 101, but without the elegance.

This conversion is award winning, believe it or not. It is a truism that if you can be arsed to enter, you can win an award for anything in this self-congratulatory architectural culture.

MIDDLESBROUGH COLLEGE, MIDDLEHAVEN BY SMC HICKTON MADELEY

2009-03-07T17:37:00.000Z

Here is a building demonstrating the average commercial architect's complete inability to deal with scale, composition, decorum, appropriateness, humanity or tact. The architect (or possibly year-out student) in charge of this project probably is very proud of the cladding. They may even have worked with a local artist on the pattern.
According to Wikipedia, Hickton Madeley has long experience designing prisons, a typology that they clearly feel has a lot of relevance to the architecture of a college. They should be ashamed of this building, which is more like a lamé Ljubljanka than a seat of education to my eye.
SMC group, which owns Hickton Madely, is now called Archial and pretty much all the practices it has subsumed are rubbish, or have become rubbish since being eaten by SMC. It's a big, rebranded corporation with zero talent, and I will be proving that here over the next weeks and hopefully months.
Last thing. Press releases are full of lies. The project manager of this piece of vandalism says that 'it is exciting to be part of such an internationally acclaimed regeneration programme.' Where exactly is this international acclaim? I have searched the web and found no mentions of it in a positive light overseas. We all know press people are liars. I just want to point out that someone is reading their bullshit.

BELONG CARE HOME, WIGAN BY POZZONI DESIGNS

2009-03-07T02:45:00.000Z

Many of us will die in rooms like this. Or spend our final days playing backgammon in one. Fuck me, that's depressing enough without having to deal with this interior. You can imagine the design meeting. "Old people love hospital furniture in pastel colours that look faded when really they're new," says one experienced care home solutions provider. "Yes," replies the interior designer. "And we can pick up the puce green theme and use it for the curtains and some of the walls."
And someone will need to talk me through the lighting strategy, which seems designed to dazzle the already-half-blind residents or make them feel as if they're on stage. And not in a good way.
The exterior's not bad though:
Ha! Tricked you!. It's fucking awful, of course, as every single new care home I see always is.
The people in our society we should value the most, who have earned a bit of dignity and repose are treated to colour schemes majoring on beige and 'streetscapes' that enjoy an unlikely combination of tweeness and gratuitous modern 'touches' (these presumably to reassure the architect that he/she hasn't totally sold out - newsflash, you have) like ridiculous planes of timber and louvres.
I also love the double fencing to the left of this picture - steel for keeping teenage drug thieves out, wood for keeping dementia-fuelled oldies in. I wonder if guard dogs patrol between them.

RAM BREWERY HOUSING, WANDSWORTH, LONDON BY EPR

2009-03-07T02:39:00.000Z

It is one of the great scandals of the early 21st century in London that we have allowed so much of this kind of crap to go up all over the place. It's quite difficult for the untrained observer to understand why this happens. After all, anyone can see that this proposal is an utter dog.
But somehow, if you mix in enough different materials, put some panels of timber in random places on the facade, give it an active ground floor (that will in fact remain unoccupied for ages), and then stick a funny hat on the high bits (as if this made the towers somehow less offensively engorged) you can rely on planners to become snowblind, and wave it on through.
This works best if you are one of the following architects: HTA, Stock Woolstonecroft, EPR, PRP or Levitt Bernstein.
I am hoping to god that this project, for 829 flats, has become comprehensively credit crunched, to save the inhabitants of Buckhold Road from EPR's deadly 'urban square' and its appalling "landmark" towers.
Note to EPR. A building doesn't count as a landmark just because it is loads fucking bigger than anything around it.

PALLETFORCE DEPOT, BURTON-ON-TRENT, BY SISK

2009-03-07T01:31:00.000Z

We know lots of architects who could have fucked this building up pretty much as badly as this, but it appears that there was in fact no architect involved. John Sisk and Son Ltd was the contractor and, we assume, the designer too. I fucking hope I never find out that there was an architect involved in this, or I'll post this picture every day for a week with his or her name in big letters beneath it.
The fetching Easyjet orange livery is clearly some kind of corporate identity for Palletforce, the logistics company that occupies this £30 million, 340,000 sq ft eyesore. I particularly like the faux clerestory at the top. I bet the boardroom is right behind it. Fat fucks.

HIGH STREET WEST HOTEL, SUNDERLAND BY REID JUBB BROWN ARCHITECTURE

2009-03-06T17:13:00.000Z

Roy Chubby Brown Architecture has created this delight, a mosaic of prepatinated copper, brick, some shit-looking zinc, some glass that's too green even in this visualisation, and plans to force 60 unfortunate hotel guests into it as many nights of the week as possible. Forgive me for asking, but does Sunderland even have tourists?
Oh, you'd like to see how that cod stained glass facade will look at night? Here it is:
Savour it, because it'll look nothing like this in reality. The real glazing system will have such clumsy plastic sections that it'll be more UPVC than glass, and the warm glow of light will be less Winchester Cathedral and more Mecca Bingo.
The architect, one Paul Hacking (a colleague of Mr Brown), calls it 'striking but tasteful'. I call it a sub-pomo embarassment that would be funny if it weren't so cynical.
Luckily, Ben Hall, the Director of the Sunniside Partnership (the regeneration agency charged with regenerating this regeneration hotspot), thinks it will "serve to strengthen the bustling local economy." I have never seen a local economy bustle, and will be heading to Sunderland to observe it for myself on the next train.

SOUTH LANARKSHIRE COLLEGE CAMPUS IN EAST KILBRIDE, BY ARCHIAL

2009-03-05T20:50:00.000Z

LOOK AT THIS FUCKER. IT WOULD BE SCARY IF IT WEREN'T SO UTTERLY, UTTERLY, HOPELESSLY BANAL.
GRAHAM MONTGOMERY, DIRECTOR OF ARCHIAL, GAVE THIS QUOTE, DESPITE APPARENTLY NEVER HAVING SEEN THIS MONSTROSITY. "Dramatic arrival is created as you approach the large volume of the hub – without being overwhelming – as the area between the vertical ‘fins’ is fully glazed, allowing you to see the activity inside," HE SAYS.
IF THIS ISN'T OVERWHELMING, I'D LIKE TO SEE SOMETHING THAT WAS. OH, WAIT. HERE'S ONE.

LEY HILL PLAY AREA, BY BIRMINGHAM CC LANDSCAPE GROUP AND ALPHA RAIL

2009-03-05T20:26:00.000Z

Believe it or not, this was sent out as a publicity photo for a new play area, and is not a set from the lowrises in The Wire. Words fail me. So here's the architect responsible.
Jonathan Webster, Principal Landscape Architect at Birmingham City Council Landscaping Practice Group, comments: “Ley Hill is a major regeneration scheme and equally as important as creating homes that people want to live in, we want to develop an attractive, public open space where families can spend their leisure time. The railings play an important part in providing aesthetically pleasing facilities that are safe and appealing.” he added.
This play area looks like it was designed and installed by a colour blind sadist, and the photo seems to have been taken by someone who thinks the litter bin is the most important feature of this new community amenity. He/she might be right.

PREFAB HOUSE BY BRIGHT BUILD

2009-03-04T22:05:00.000Z

There is a reason most houses cost more than £83 per sq ft to build. It's because if you don't spend more than that, the house ends up looking like two caravans who mated with an Everest salesman. According to its press material, this house is "aimed at first and last-time buyers" and now all I can think about is some old couple rotting away in this miserable shoebox, wishing they'd never sold up their two-up two-down to pay the deposit on their grandson's flat in Dalston.

FRANKLIN COLLEGE, GRIMSBY BY PICK EVERARD

2009-03-03T20:00:00.000Z

Pick Everard aren't the worst architects in the world. In fact, I'd say that many of their employees are not out to deliberately fuck places up. However, these drawings are singularly hateful pieces of work.
These drawings say: "Yes, I'm an architect, my father was an architect, and my architect wife and I will soon give birth to architect children. I can draw in this funny style, and as a result I have an overweening superiority complex. I think this complex comes from my undeniable dexterity at colouring in. I can also draw strange stick people in this style, and they are often accompanied by a child carrying a baloon. Clients enjoy these touches, despite the mockery the London elite lays on that kind of thing."
The author of these drawings should be reminded that they work for Pick Everard. And while this college in Grimsby might not end up being actually bad, it will be boring, mediocre and dull, and will look nothing like these drawings.

OFFICE BUILDING, 141 BOTHWELL STREET, GLASGOW BY ARCHIAL

2009-03-02T19:35:00.001Z

Architectural conglomerate and serial defacer of British cities Archial has recently rebranded, but it hasn't stopped them building nonsense like this wherever they find an opportunity. Any picture of a new building that is taken with the camera pointing upwards (to convey the thrusting dynamism of the architecture) is not to be trusted.
I haven't seen this building in reality, but I hope this is it's bad side. The ashlar stonework (a solid material) walls are expressed as planes (amplifying their thinness and lack of structural intent) in a completely unintentional paradox that would drive Archial's best out of their tiny minds if they could only get their heads around it. I can't be arsed to tell you any more about why this is so bad.
Luckily, though, Cameron Walker, director at Archial Architects, can explain the architectural intent of this monstrosity for our edification. “Designed to allow flexibility and sub-division of floor plates, the development was aimed at occupiers requiring 10,000 sq ft upwards, all benefiting from the impressive double height reception area, five high speed passenger lifts and 18 metre column free spans."

WAKEFIELD COLLEGE SKILLS XCHANGE AT GLASSHOUGHTON BY DLA

2009-03-01T19:20:00.000Z

STUDENTS OF WAKEFIELD, YOU POOR BASTARDS. YOU HAVE BEEN SHAT ON BY DLA ARCHITECTS, TRULY ONE OF THE WORST DESIGNERS IN THE WESTERN WORLD. IT DOESN'T GET ANY WORSE THAN THIS. THE PRESS RELEASE SAYS IT'S ICONIC, BUT WHAT THEY MEAN BY THAT IS THAT IT HAS A POINTLESSLY OVERSAILING TRIANGULAR ROOF AND SOME SMOKED GLASS. OH YES, AND A NAME LIKE 'SKILLS XCHANGE'. WITH NO 'E'.
WHOEVER DESIGNED THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD BY THEIR COLLEGE TUTOR THAT THEY'LL NEVER MAKE IT. EVER. AND HERE'S THE EVIDENCE OF THEM NOT MAKING IT. IF YOU'RE READING THIS, PLEASE STOP. PUT DOWN THE MOUSE. GET ANOTHER JOB.