Shadowplay

http://www.draculas.info/dictionary/definition_of_nospheratu-16/

If every book needs an opening para which hooks the reader in, then every blog requires a striking picture. I thought that posted above abundantly 'fit for purpose'.

When viewing the videos below I had a niggling feeling of familiarity; then it came to me.

There of COURSE any resemblance ends as I couldn't POSSIBLY compare the movie of architect Malcolm Fraser giving a lecture to council members and planners of Edinburgh with the 1922 movie Nosferatu  (although the latter possibly had higher production values) and naturally I have not increased the household supplies of garlic to any significant extent. No sireee.

Image courtesy of www.sporeflections.wordpress.com


Thought these needed wider publicity as in the main a great deal of what Malcolm says I agree with (and vice versa?)  and mostly have touched on (see selection below*) in this 'ere blog before:

• the madness of VAT inequality on zero rated new build v repair/re-use, which attracts the full 20% ;

• the infuriating barminess and loss of industrial & transport heritage of the permission given for demolition of the Cat B listed Madelvic factory in Granton by the City of Edinburgh Council, which could & should have been re-used;

• sustainability not always about high tech solutions which are complex, off putting for many, and may not recoup the outlay;  see Scottish Housing Expo posts, also the MFA 'people's choice' winning house design (you read it here first...). Sustainable design should be big on re-use of what we have, excellent insulation, natural ventilation, and use of sustainable materials (another plug for  timber & zinc);

• architects should be designing for the 21st century without recourse to slavish copies of the past, with sensitivity to context;

...and no doubt other stuff besides (RMJM, and er.. RMJM... oh and Mr Duany...)


The Whitecross development, winner of the recent government Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative competition, which Malcolm Fraser Architects won, against stiff opposition, was the reason for this lecture, though Malcolm clearly took the opportunity of a captive audience for a wee rant (I mean that in a good way) about a number of issues.

http://www.malcolmfraser.co.uk/projects/?contentid=415&parentid=251

I hope those attending listened.

So here it is! Malcolm Fraser: The Movie (in three parts, so you can have an ice cream AND a popcorn break):










*Here's that staircase scene from 1922:




Most  of the movie is here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyzubFvBsA


Enjoy!

Nem

*
http://www.malcolmfraser.co.uk/

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/05/angry-men-crap-housing-our-cash-vat.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/02/elizabeth-pascoe-is-finally-evicted.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/01/seeing-red.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/04/dont-destroy-madelvic-factory.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/08/scottish-housing-expo-2010-inverness.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/10/sustainable-housing-sustainable.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/12/old-new-towns-new-old-towns.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/09/duanyising-britain.html

Sustainable housing, sustainable communities, Scotland

                               Pic: Malcolm Fraser Architects

"Good Homes, Good Jobs and Good Neighbourhoods.”

Nicely alliterative headings there. Can't say I don't try for a bit of wider culcha in me blog.

Anyhow,  post to say warmest congratulations to Malcolm Fraser Architects for the win in the  Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative (SSCI) Design Ideas Competition, which was run by the Scottish Government in partnership with Assets Ltd.  It is  Whitecross, Linlithgow, on the site of a former brickworks.

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/malcolm-fraser-wins-rias-whitecross-housing-competition/8607054.article

Here is the background:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/212607/0083301.pdf

and the whole ethos and planned community sounds remarkable. Let's hope it all happens and does become an exemplar.

At the competition launch in June, the press publicity said that it was to seek 'a new Scottish vernacular' which seemed a contradiction in terms:

Scottish Government Sustainable Housing Ideas Competition

As part of the Scottish Government’s Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative (SSCI) the RIAS is managing a design competition based around the SSCI exemplar site at Whitecross, near Linlithgow. The competition, launched today, seeks housing and urban design proposals that combine high levels of sustainability and reductions in carbon emissions with a sensitive response to place and context.

It is expected that design proposals will reflect a ‘new vernacular’ for Scottish architecture that demonstrates how environmentally-sensitive designs might influence both the architecture and urban layout of contemporary development. “I look forward to seeing high-quality and creative responses developed for Scotland. What is different about this competition is that designs, while inspiring and innovative, must be realistic and commercially viable. Designing original and inventive buildings that can be realised and replicated is a vital element in supporting the construction sector to deliver the low-carbon communities that Scotland needs.”

I am delighted that the winner in fact does appear to be informed by the past while certainly being of the 21st century.  Lovely. Look forward to learning more in due course, in the sure and certain hope that there is an afterlife re the current housing hiatus, and that all goes forward and gets built. Timber and zinc are featured, both very sustainable materials and ones which look good in urban, suburban and rural settings.

As I wrote here:

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/08/scottish-housing-expo-2010-inverness.html

I felt on the whole the MFA houses, a detached and a pair of semis, were the most easily livable in designs at the Scottish Housing Expo; it seems the wider public also thought so and in the public vote for 'favourite house' a Malcolm Fraser Architects' design, the catchily named House NS came top:

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/scotland/scotlands_housing_expo_winner.htm

http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/plot27.php

Click on pics to enlarge

followed by HLM Architects' Passive House:

http://www.sphc.co.uk/highland-housing-fair

http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/plot11.php

and Rural Design, based on the Isle of Skye ('rural design for the Scottish countryside' ) Secret Garden :

http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/plot17.php

http://www.ruraldesign.co.uk/

whose 'contemporary buildings for rural places' I hugely admire, and was delighted to see 15 Fiscavaig win in the 2010 Saltire Awards:

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/scotland/fiscavaig_house.htm

Further pics and plans:

http://bartlettyear1architecture.blogspot.com/2010/03/fiscavaig-project-by-rural-design.html


http://www.archdaily.com/42143/fiscavaig-rural-design/



Saltire Medal

We were delighted to be awarded the inaugural Saltire Medal, at a ceremony in Edinburgh on the 13th September. The medal was presented  by Chairman of the Jury, and World Architect of the Year John McAslan.

The award was for our project at 15 Fiscavaig on the West Coast of Skye.

McAslan said: ‘The Medal winner, Fiscavaig, stood out for its innovative use of materials and design which took account of its surroundings and setting.

The standard of architecture being produced in Scotland is truly world class and Fiscavaig is a perfect example.’

I can only concur; Scotland at its best is producing wonderful architects and architecture (and yes plenty of rubbish also, see previous blog, but let's celebrate success) and it does need shouting from the rooftops. If only the Londoncentric architecture writers for the UK press would leave their cosy enclaves and write a little more about the rest of the UK, and if only Scotland would stop feeling it has to run 'international design competitions' and give the best spots to  Big Names like Hadid and Holl and encourage its own... but I digress and will stop ranting.

Here are pics of all the shortlisted designs for the 2010 Saltire Housing Awards:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saltire_society/sets/72157624557226634/

and results

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/scotland/saltire_awards_2010.htm

http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk/news/2536/Fraser_voted_People%E2%80%99s_Expo_favourite_.html

and an Urban Realm report on the Whitecross competition here with decent sized images of the five shortlisted entries:

http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk/news/2586/Fraser_wins_Whitecross_design_comp_.html

and here:

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/competitions/ssci_design_ideas_competition.htm

Very strong shortlist of five whittled down from an initial forty-one entries.

I have blogged before and no doubt will again re the problems I perceive of a retro regressive approach to design, which Scotland is embracing in part with Prince Charles developments and Duany masterplans.

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/09/duanyising-britain.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/12/old-new-towns-new-old-towns.html

I appreciate Mr Duany's masterplans could be carried out with contemporary designs, but, alas, the 'codes' which accompany them seem to be  a wishful-thinking return to a past 'vernacular' based  on watching too much Disney.

Therefore the competition in association with the Scottish Government, and shortlisted five practices' designs, demonstrate that quality and sustainability allied to attractive places to live can be achieved without resorting to the  ill-digested 'paraphenalia of the past pastiche n pediments' school of design.

Here's the official press blurb:

Result of Whitecross Design Competition

As part of the Scottish Government's Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative (SSCI) RIAS Consultancy, from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, has been managing a Design Ideas Competition for a proposed sustainable housing development at Whitecross in West Lothian.

The competition sought design idea proposals from registered architects, working in partnership with developers/housebuilders, for a proposed low carbon community at Whitecross, near Linlithgow. The Whitecross project has been selected as an exemplar project by the Scottish Government as part of the SSCI.

Forty-one pre qualification submissions were received and a shortlist of five was selected by the judging panel. The shortlisted practices were (listed alphabetically):

- Elder & Cannon Architects Ltd

- Gareth Hoskins Architects Ltd

- HTA Architects Ltd

- Malcolm Fraser Architects Ltd

- RMJM Scotland Ltd.

These practices prepared proposals for the judges to assess in association with interviews held on 14th October 2010. Images of the submissions can be viewed on the RIAS website http://www.rias.org.uk/

It is proposed that the shortlisted competition entries will be on public display for viewing at the Urban Room at the ground floor of Edinburgh City Council offices at Waverley Court. Further details of dates and times for viewing will be released soon.

RIAS Consultancy is pleased to announce that the winner is Malcolm Fraser Architects.

Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop said,

“The delivery of high-quality sustainable housing is at the heart of what this Government wants for communities across Scotland. The SSCI design competition has illustrated the depth of design talent in Scotland, with the five short-listed practices presenting bold and challenging architecture.

“I am delighted that all of the submissions demonstrate high-quality and creative solutions, taking account of commercial viability and responding to the particular requirements of the Whitecross site. These solutions showcase how innovative responses can help deliver places of real and enduring value in a time when the economic backdrop forces us all to be more resourceful.

“The winning team of Malcolm Fraser Architects has submitted an original and innovative proposal that I hope will be an important exemplar for the design and construction sector and help deliver low-carbon communities and sustainable economic growth for Scotland.”

The Chair of the judging panel, David Page of Page \ Park Architects, said,

“A strong shortlist of architecture and development teams competed for the first phase of development of the community extension for the village of Whitecross. Working to the masterplan conceived by Cadell2 the five consortia explored variations on the themes of creating a new sense of place on the site of a former brickworks near Linlithgow working to the brief of providing homes to meet the 2013 building regulations with their requirement for a 40% reduction in CO2 production. This Scottish Government initiative with Morston Developments is one of a number to lift the standard of place making and energy efficiency of new communities.

Elder and Cannon Architects enthused the jury with their sense of crafted place through the synthesis of courtyard typology and earthy brick materiality overlaid the CCG prefabricated timber frame technology.

HTA‟s partnership with Dualchas promoted a modular plan and sectional typology explored through their innovative work in the west coast of Scotland uniquely fused here with HTA‟s community based initiatives to promote community ownership of streets and public spaces.

RMJM boldly reconceptualised the masterplan with the identification of a wide variety of house typologies and settings to deliver a closer linkage between the existing village and proposed new settlement extension.

Gareth Hoskins Architects‟ careful reworking of the masterplan with Crudens was commended by the jury for its manipulation of a modular frame system to create a variety of street settings that would quickly establish a sense of contemporary place".

First place was awarded to Malcolm Fraser Architects with Stewart Milne Homes for development of themes explored at nearby Bo‟ness and more recently at the Scotland‟s Housing Expo. This consisted here of groupings of housing arranged around a sequence of courts and rows linked by a pedestrian spine stretching from the masterplan proposed civic garden in the north down to the river woodland walk to the south. Clever manipulation of the building typologies adapted to the Cadell2 masterplan through adaptation of Stewart Milne Homes‟ prefabricated timber frame systems with innovative suggestions to the commercial development of the anchoring High Street.”

David Dodge, Chief Executive, Morston Assets Ltd said,

“We are delighted that our vision for Yours Whitecross has generated such exciting high quality proposed design solutions throughout this competition. The key focus of the „Yours‟ brand is that the homes are sustainable in both design and use, are built within home zone layouts and facilitate home working and entrepreneurialism. We believe that this has been achieved by all of those shortlisted and was especially apparent in the winning entry. We look forward to delivering a truly sustainable community at Whitecross which delivers Good Homes, Good Jobs and Good Neighbourhoods.”

Nem

Scottish Housing Expo 2010 Inverness

 The planned but so far not executed 'garden' of one of Malcolm Fraser Architects designs for the 2010 Scottish Housing Expo, Inverness. 'Minimalist'? Certainly is! Doesn't so far exist... although the accompanying houses do. Not all houses at the Expo are completed or even as yet built. Plots 22 and 27, which, while not perfect,  are at least amongst those which could actually sensibly be lived in by real people, and be attractive to 'volume' developers,  although without the architectural pretension of some.  The unfinished garden is a victim of, and possibly a metaphor for, the Expo problems.  Click pics to enlarge... a second click will enlarge even further, but use the 'back' button to get back to the page or you will lose the post.

Details:
http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/index.php

Pictures:
http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/plot_updates.php


http://ht.ly/2vUNc


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=198911&id=164636957634&l=973ac1125e

This week, I visited the Scottish Housing Expo, aka the Highland Housing Expo, Inverness.  It was a bizarre experience. I have no doubt in years to come it all will be Listed by Historic Scotland, and visited as Portmerion is as something slightly surreal. Certainly it is a very unsettlingly strange place indeed. What is worrying is that some think it all a great success, and are considering repeating this all over Scotland. It's no way to plan for the future...




I would love to take a number of the architects involved through their buildings, and point out exactly what would make them difficult/impossible/improbable/greenwashery /unsustainable to live in. If I really had to, there is only a handful of houses I would be willing move into. Maybe I will blog more when it isn't so raw and immediate and actually, upsetting. Next week possibly...  I might be a little more coherent about it then. And by then some architects might have realised that a house where a scaffold tower is needed to change a lightbulb isn't really very practical. One 'grand gesture' house, with its upstairs all-in-one kitchen/dining/living area, too small to sensibly accommodate the number of people a four bedroomed house will require, appeared to have nowhere to put a washing machine. There were kitchens without enough workspace to sensibly prepare a meal and some which would have been dangerous to work in. From the macro to the micro level, so much could have been better.

I so wanted to find this a positive experience. I didn't. I do appreciate all the problems, the delays caused by the market downturn, the terrible winter, and all the rest.  How I wish I could get a group of non-architect folk to sit with  some of the architects and developers and discuss what makes a home for normal families which isn't 'wanky wilful shapemaking' to paraphrase one involved, what is a decent amount of space in which to live, and what makes for an affordable, sustainable future. I would love to talk to the  Scottish Housing Minister  and do likewise. I do appreciate that architects had a brief to which to work, and that all have constraints. But hey, couldn't we all learn from this?

I'd also love to be able to write about it all in the architectural press, but alas I doubt anyone will ask me.  So far very little attention has been paid, apart from Building Design, and of that, well, it's been a little banal and focused not really on the diverse and important issues this has raised. 

A few architects, from the renowned to the 'local', showed they had some idea. However, from the possibly internationally known to the emerging and thrusting, and the small and established but not nationally known, too few understood what makes a home, as opposed to an architectural gesture, and what is really sensibly, affordably sustainable.

And then there were the Rabbit Hutches...  it seems the less well off don't deserve decent living space. An atrium and a mezzanine may give the illusion of space, but don't compensate for tiny rooms, especially bedrooms.

Parker-Morris, we need you now.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Morris_Committee

Large areas of glass, too, featured in rooms which were overlooked... as one visitor remarked,  "Some of these architects must have shares in a curtain factory!"

Anyhow, the Expo ends at the end of August. Wish I had taken two days to visit as there wasn't enough time in one. The cake in the marquee was wonderful. The Portaloos were clean and more than adequate.

But it's Scotland, so really, in the wider world, no-one gives a fuck. The architectural press is all off at the Venice Biennale, and that's much more exciting and important than global warming and the future of housing, isn't it? Had this taken place in the south of England, so much would have been written about it, but it was Inverness, and beyond Nottingham Contemporary all is a barren waste, it seems, where none dare to venture.

Meanwhile, some views on youtube of the exteriors of some, and very odd bunch they are, lumped together, but let's face it: we mostly live in interiors. And there lies much of the problem.

The first tranche of houses for sale prices:

http://www.scotlandshousingexpo.com/houses.php

For private sale plots: 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 contact


Rettie & Co on tel: 0845 220 6565 or email: scotlandshousingexpo@rettie.co.uk

or visit www.highlandhousingalliance.com/expo

Plot 7 – Guide Price £ 300,000


Plot 9.2 – Guide Price £ 220,000


Plot 17 – Offers Over £ 300,000


Plot 18 – Offers Over £ 350,000


Plot 26.1 – Guide Price £ 230,000

 I leave the reader to work out how affordable this is to many, and if this Expo served the needs of the public and a sustainable future, or was more about the architects and developers.  It's certainly going to be a 'mixed' community, when and if the houses and flats are eventually fully occupied; it remains to be seen if it ever becomes a genuine community.


(movies by Abbozzo Architects)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz1H5E0tuW8



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFyrzFwcjMA&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdhK6DazFA4&feature=related


Nem