I’ve also been wondering what the processes might be for retrofitting badly-designed facades that not only are visually intrusive on the outside, but malfunction on the inside too. Given that we have a huge amount of retrofitting to happen to residential stock, how will this be extended to workplace buildings?
The architecture and urban designs of new urban and civic centres are too important to leave to professional architects and contemporary urban designers
But then that applies to so many things in life:
- Politics to politicians
- Media columns to columnists
- Businesses to businessmen
- Music to full time musicians
- Art to professional artists
I quite like Natalie Perri’s definition of the purpose of architecture in this video – which she said is to accommodate and enable people to best live in their urban environment.
Can we avoid a Commercial-Estates-Group-style future like the one below?
I expect we’ll be seeing them again as they seek to get their plots of land removed from the Green Belt in South East Cambridge.
It’s just boxes and blandness enabling the developers and financiers to extract as much wealth from the land as possible while leaving little for the residents who end up moving there. (The lack of genuine open green space speaks volumes too).
If the architecture and urban designs of our towns and cities are making the people who live and work there feel unhappy, or even worse, ill, then that’s the failure of the architects and urban designers.
More on Neuroarchitecture
What’s really interesting in the emerging field of neuroarchitecture is that researchers can now measure and quantify that increase in mental stress. Which is what makes Dr Cleo Valentine’s research ever so important. If the city of Cambridge adopts the learning from one of the research students that lived in and earned a PhD while living within us, then maybe we might have a chance of creating something truly inspiring.
Above – a miserable visualisation of Cambourne Railway Station and lazy can’t-be-bothered with anything imaginative station squares.
What would design competitions through up? How would they be amended if they were instructed to accommodate far more responses from the public, and what if we had a means of getting the public to engage meaningfully that did not involve time-consuming mentally-intense tasks that result in vey little meaningful change?
Pictures of local carbuncles – real and CGI ones.
The reason I get pissed off with developers working up schemes in Cambridge is because they keep building stuff that Dr Valentine’s research demonstrates increases the levels of mental stress in the brain – and furthermore that risk is even greater if you have a neurodiverse disposition. Which I have. Part of what I do involves trying to keep an eye out on who is proposing what. Here are some that have appeared over the past five years that collectively make me feel ill. Maybe I’m taking it too personally!
Above – ugly stuff proposed for Kett House, Trinity Hall Farm off Milton Road, and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Above – abandoned proposals for the Cambridge Airport site in the late 2000s, and two Cambridge Science Park carbuncles
Cherry Hinton Road post-war bank that has been unoccupied for years, more science park carbuncleism, and St Edmunds College who replaced the top building with the bottom building.
Ugglington, more ugly grey stuff on Hills Road (although I think residents persuaded the developer to change their mind), and more Ugglington some of which went for seven figures
Are you miserable enough yet? No?
All of these feel like a warning!
If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:
- Follow me on BSky
- Spot me on LinkedIn
- Like my Facebook page
- Consider a small donation to help fund my continued research and reporting on local democracy in and around Cambridge.
The Cambridge Town Owl 