I’m working as an visiting lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University again this term.

We took a guided tour of the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal  tunnel last week, which was very interesting given the Deansgate and other major streets in the city centre are right above our heads.

The first years will be thinking through a narrative and use for these abandoned tunnels having been talked through the history of the canal and the uses of the tunnels since by Jonathan Schofield, a local historian and Manchester advocate. I won’t tell the whole story here, but leave that to Jonathan who I can highly recommend. To book him for the same or other tours in and around Manchester you can find him here;

http://www.jonathanschofieldtours.com/

I revisited a train of thought I often come across in my work with buildings and their spaces, about how much changes so quickly in our cities, and that what goes before doesn’t completely disappear. It just gets buried underneath everything that comes later.

A building designer should always have archaeological thread to their thought process to understand that their work is just a point in time. It will be the subject of endless revision and reinvention. I always think about what traces of each project might get let behind, and what that will tell people about me, my work and my clients.

Design and detail well a great big shed. Build it to last, not to leak and be flexible.

Invite multiple retailers in to lease a patch of space. Clump them into similar offers. All the butchers go together, so its easier to shop.

Give them free reign to be themselves as a business.

Apply some basic rules on space, height restrictions and signage but otherwise loosen your control within these rules to allow for the human/brand character to come through.

Not that much different from the modern shopping centre. I suspect Halifax market was initially controlled every bit as much as any new shopping centre is. Rigid rules on all elements that make up each stall/trading space.

Over time, Halifax market has become less of a centre for economic wealth in the town. Its slipped off the radar of the style police and is all the better for it.

The market feels alive, not sterile and manicured like your local shopping centre. Not contrived or used as a exercise in how companies can out design each other. Its all pretty cheap and pragmatic. I love how the old rules are starting to melt under layers of cabling, signage and other elements.

And if the market fades which I hope it doesn’t, the building is still there, a loose fit structure that could accept pretty much any use.

So the idea of the shopping centre was never that new. Halifax market will have displaced other local traders, and forced a shift in the fabric of the town, but it did at least stay in the town and provide a focus for trade. It dealt with the inclement weather of the Pennines but didn’t force people to travel across the county.

I am not a fan of the modern shopping centre and what they do to our cities but as a building type in some ways they are not much different from the traditional market hall, just bigger in scale to feed our voracious appetite for stuff. I

I wonder how the mega shopping centre will look in 100 years in a world of shopping on the web where we use our cars less due to the cost of fuel . The distribution centre (I’m thinking amazon) is already the new kid on the block.

It may be that the in-town market hall might well be prove to be the right balance between local and mass. Time will sort all that out.

Its been a long summer of hard graft, hence the last post being in April. I did get away on holiday once and managed to find the time at least to think about the blog, even though its taken me until now act on that thought.

Readers in Pembrokshire will recognise the building above, the Tafarn Sinc in Rosebush. Its a familiar haunt for my family, well the Welsh half at least.

Vernacular buildings are often of the place, built using local materials, techniques and traditions so the Tafarn Sinc has always intrigued me.

You usually see the veranda building type in tropical climates, where its extended roof-line shades windows, provides cooler outdoor living space and allows separation from the ground promoting airflow under the building.

The appalling weather we had during our week convinced me this building type can also work well for a wet British summer, allowing covered outdoor space and a connection to the landscape. A place to be outside without fully committing to the elements.

Perhaps some building types can translate across climates and cultures. I’d love to see a new housing development with veranda’s promoting street side living, with residents out on the street. Better than the dingy hallway surely.

http://tafarnsinc.co.uk/

Mostly in the world of commercial interior design and architecture, you are limited to what you can draw, set down on paper, quantify and schedule.

Obviously, this is the only way any building work can be costed, and it takes time to produce this information.

There is a real skill in bringing the identity of a design concept and the vision of the client through in the final scheme.

Its a battle to preserve the character of the design. To stop it getting lost in the paperwork and bureaucracy of the process.

Increasingly, the magic I see in completed building design comes from owner/builders, that control their own project, and even their own contracting team.

Here is where you see spaces and places that have a soul, and an identity.

As it happens, this was the only way to approach the latest work we are doing with Fforest over in West Wales.

Here we are developing a complex piece of landscaping using difficult to work with materials, dealing with many levels changes, and all the time seeking to make these old building accessible to all.

We tried a few times to draw our intent, but frankly it was too difficult to make it work in either standard CAD layouts or 3D visualising.

In the end the scheme progressed with a series of sketches by both myself and the client which slowly directed the site work so it hangs together as a scheme.

I know that if we had turned up at site with a finished drawing it would have been flawed in many ways.

This might be counter to the accepted way of directing a building project in the commercial world, but it won’t be news to self builders of residential projects were an intimacy with the build is a given.

I also can’t think of a big commercial project I’ve worked on where there hasn’t been some sort improvisation at points despite what you might believe.

Change doesn’t wait for a design process to run its course. Sometimes you have to respond to what is in front of you instead of drive some abstract intent on a drawing.

The site is now nearing completion, in readiness to receive guests for the Do Lectures coming up at the end of this month. Its also a great wedding venue for Fforest.

http://www.coldatnight.co.uk/

http://www.dolectures.com/the-event/

Think about the difference between the factory space and the workshop.

One is about production, the other is about craft.

Remodel has helped design a new manufacturing facility for Hiut Denim.

One particular challenge was key.

Can you have a modern production space, geared to the high speed needs of the marketplace.

But still create a place that supports the workflow and thought process of craft.

The finished space has the space planning and organisation of an efficient manufacturer.

But also allowed to creep in here and there, is the mild chaos of the creative space, the workshop and the artists studio.

The new space tells the story of a serious little company, with its roots firmly in the craft tradition.

These are no ordinary jeans.

http://hiutdenim.co.uk/

Something that made me smile recently. A now defunct business in Keighley.

Electrical services for two very different markets and all under the same roof. I’d have liked to have been a fly on the wall in this establishment. Just to see how it worked.

I have this image of a greasy leather clad biker (motor cycle customer) stood next to gent in tweeds (gramophone customer) at a wooden counter with lots of drawers and pigeon holes in it for electrical spares.

Some thoughts on the Dolls House;

-A totally flexible plan

-Infinite possibilities of layout

-No intruding elements of immovable structure

-Accessible Site

-Change is controlled by the occupants/users

-Time to play with different possibilities and learn about the best configurations

Of course, a dolls house is an abstract thing, but it points to a number of useful ideas that should drive useful commercial space in buildings.

The main appeal of the Dolls house for me is the idea of user control over interior space, something architects and designers are often reluctant to do.

In good newer commercial space, there is an increasing realisation that total flexibility is useful. Some older building shells also lend themselves to this approach.

We have to be careful here though. Often the possibilities of flexible space are never explored. Its not as easy as with the dolls house. Its costs money to play.

The real challenge perhaps is to achieve Doll house flexibility, (the right amount of useful change potential) and then mate this with an intent for users to make the space their own, like they would in their home over time.

Change will happen in a healthy way if driven by user need, not by a designers predictions. All we can do as designers is anticipate a number of different outcomes and then allow for these.

I think if you champion a degree of chance in interior design and allow for occupants to grow into their space and change it, you make better buildings.

You get closer to an ideal interior, that is different for every user, at least to some degree, and is fun to be in and contribute to the future of.

*Note – There was a queue of kids for this Dolls House. Each time they changed its configuration, searching for the ideal layout for them. None accepted what had gone before. They all wanted to participate in some way to change it. Definitely a lesson for building designers, who in my experience, almost never fully engage with the users of buildings.

My dad has just built and fitted-out his own workshop, the realisation of a lifelong dream and an escape from a dark an cramped garage.

Common with other structures of the type, here’s a few ideas we could borrow to some degree when building bigger interior design schemes;

-Simple materials. They can be modified at will with local non industrial scale skills ie. your neighbourhood carpenter or in this case, Dad. Timber frames can be easily adapted, simple wall linings and cladding that is screwed rather than nailed can be swapped out. What if he needs a bigger door to move larger projects in and out.

-Basic Finishes. The concrete floor can be left as is, honed, painted, covered. Its all adds to flexibility.

- Indecision is OK. If there is hesitation about an element of the build (in this case the floor finish) its usually for a reason so can you then leave it unit later. No point in going down the wrong road.

-Re-use of old Building Elements. In this case, dads old kitchen units make ideal workbenches. Also the old back door from the house and a fully double glazed window found by the local timber merchants lurking round the back of their warehouse.

-Spend money on the things that matter. Dad’s made an amazing beech workbench (which he planed by hand before he bought a flat bed planer!) which will be critical to the quality of the work he produces.

-Organisation. Fix what is known to be more static, like machinery, plumbed services etc. and allow for flexibility around what will change, like storage.

-Time. Its taken a while. No set of blueprints has been drawn. There is a reason for the location of nearly everything in this space, fitted precisely to the way he works with wood.

-Not quite finished. I think this is a good thing. There’s always a new project, something left to chance. He might decide he needs to work with metal.

-Worry less about what it looks like. Worry more about how it works. If it works, it will have a beauty of its own.

-Limitations. The scope of this project was based on what he could do himself. This drove many of the design decisions in the direction of economy, re-use and practicality. No bad thing in building design.

For evidence of how our towns and have changed and will change again, take a trip to Cliffe Castle in Keighley, one of my favorite gritty ex-industrial northern towns.

These images are part of an interesting collection of exhibits on the history of the town and how it developed from the industrial revolution to today.

I was struck by how the motor vehicle has opened up our towns centres (mostly with inaccessible and inhuman space) and that we now fight to reclaim our streets with the kind of pedestrianisation we once had.

Agreed, we can do without the sanitation problems and overcrowding of the past. We ourselves are much healthier people physically, but our communities paid a high price.

The price is we lose a human scale and civic purpose to our towns that sanitised re-development and retail space alone cannot put back.

Time will have a hard task softening what we have done to our urban space, but as these photos show, it will do its work.

http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/venues/cliffecastle/index.php

Three restaurants.

One Italian, One Spanish, One Turkish.

All are independent businesses, family owned in fact.

They are not held back by the corporate guidelines of a chain.

They are filled with the kind of customers who value an authentic experience.

These places are not consciously designed.

Rather the spaces are an accumulation of ideas from different people, sometimes generations.

They are about the informal enjoyment of food, not just its presentation

They create and add to the community. These are real places. Comfortable and unpretentious.

They have what Christopher Alexander describes as ‘the quality without a name’. *

The ‘quality’ is something remarkable that makes a place feel whole. It’s not possible to describe it specifically Alexander says, but it’s a feeling you get in a place or space when you feel most ‘alive’.

My three restaurants  feel ‘alive’. I feel ‘alive’ in them. A result of the building, the diners, the owners, and the atmosphere all being in some sort of sync.

My interpretation of this is that we as humans have the ability to discern whether this quality exists (the space is alive) or not (the space is dead). This is a basic instinct that makes us feel comfortable or uncomfortable respectively. This must be a natural response from way back that we extend to our current human/urban environment.

Designing buildings or at least bits of buildings, its assumed by many that this ‘quality’ can just be conjured. Surely it’s easy to create a space with this complex layering of feeling, atmosphere and social vibrancy.

Here’s the reality.

Something this complete must be arrived at over time.

You might get some of the way with a few good decisions but often a ‘designed’ space can miss the mark.

If you try to fake the ‘quality’, it’s obvious.

You must program a space to work towards the ‘quality’. Plant the seeds that will grow. Prioritise slowness in the spaces development. Allow for flex.  Don’t fix things in stone.

A good restaurant will concentrate on delivering the food in the most simple, beautiful way. They reduce the menu choice to a handful of great dishes but rotate and develop these over time depending on feedback, ingredients and seasonality.

A restaurant space should be the same. Do a few things well and grow into the space. Keep what works and discard what fails.

Pretty soon you will have a more amazingly complex space than you could ever have designed in one go. A space that has evolved with the ‘quality’.

Small independent businesses often grasp this approach more easily. They are constrained by budget which limits growth. They find themselves creating a space in a series of steps. It’s exactly this process that allows for the ability to change things as they go along.

It’s exactly this evolution that leads to the ‘quality’. An interconnectedness of context, building, layout, customers, food and service.

These spaces have character, not sterility. They become unique to a particular business and place.

It doesn’t matter so much what my three restaurants look like.

In fact I deliberately won’t share images here. They are best judged on how they feel to actually be there, which is the point of the ‘quality’.  An image reduces things to a visual assessment which is only one part of the ‘quality’.

There are similar venues in your neighbourhood.  They are without doubt the best places to eat.

Go and look for the ‘quality without a name’. How would you start to work towards it in your space?

For more insight into Alexander’s  theories on space and place get his book here;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Timeless-Building-Center-Environmental-Structure/dp/0195024028/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1323985146&sr=8-3

If you run a business from a building, it would be good to remember that humans are pre-programmed to look for the ‘quality’ If you manage to create this, they will come.

*Christopher Alexander – The Timeless Way of Building (1979)