For more details of how the service works visit the Ask The Architect section of this website and for details of the live sessions in January, February and March go to the website of Lanyon Bowdler.

For those who can not make it to Shrewsbury, the email & twitter service will be running as usual.

Planning and Change of Use

The afternoon started with a semi retired couple, who I shall call Mr & Mrs Brown, who live on a small holding of about 6 acres with a large fishing lake set in attractive countryside.  They had recently completed the build of a boat house with workshop, that was originally given planing approval in the 80’s.  As you might imagine the late completion of an old approval gave rise to some complaints being made, resulting in a visit from an enforcement officer, which must have been a little worrying.

Fortunately the planning approval had been secured as work started very soon after the approval was given and the enforcement officer went away happy that all was as it should be.

At the time of the planning approval, the Browns owned the lake and land around it and the building of the boat house was put on hold, because the Browns bought an adjoining plot of land with a house on it and were busy moving in and getting on with other things.

Like a lot of people, the Browns have reached a stage in their life where they want to live in a smaller house that will suit them for now and the rest of their lives, I don’t think the word ‘downsize’ really manages to explain the details involved with this process.  Quite understandably, the Browns would like to sell their home, they even have someone who is keen to buy, and move into the boat house after giving it a bit more space and making it suitable.  This is where things start to get more difficult.

As luck would have it they had a visit from a planning officer, regarding the building of the boat house, who told them without prompting, that they wouldn’t get approval for a change of use.  I thought this was refreshingly direct for a planning officer, especially when the Browns have not made any applications to do so.

I think the help of a planning consultant is required so the Browns can get a full understanding of their situation.  Unfortunately they have already approached a consultant but did not get a very warm reception and as a result were less than impressed with their approach.  I suggested someone I know who I think would be very helpful in this case.

I think there are a few areas that might help in the case for a change of use.  The first comes down to proving a need for the boat house as a dwelling as the building lends itself to living in retirement years much more than their existing home.  The second possibility is to explore covenants on the building linked to the owners and use of the land.  Finally I would like to know more about the terms of the original application to see how it categories the boat house, is a boat house really that different to a garage?

Hopefully I shall hear more when a planning officer gets involved.

World Class Architecture

The most interesting session, from an architectural point of view, came later in the day.  Due to the nature of this session I shall have to keep some of the details to myself, but I want to share some aspects with you as this is a very interesting project.

I met someone who is planning a unique social enterprise based on a grand vision of community, education and awareness of a particular topic that we as a society do not know how to deal with, talk about and react to.

After our introductions I was given a brief and interesting background to my visitor and they went on to tell me why they were setting up a new venture and what they wanted from a building as part of the enterprise.  As part of this introduction the work of Daniel Libeskind was mentioned in detail, with particular reference to the Jewish Museum in Berlin and bookmarked pages of his book Breaking Ground.  It turned out that my visitor wanted to approach Libeskind and work with him on this project, this had been suggested to them recently by someone who knew Libeskind and thought it he would be interested in the project.

We started talking about the theory of architecture, how buildings can make you feel or think and the way that the decisions made during the design process all come from the concept and context of the project.

I found it very exciting to be discussing such an interesting project and approaching a brief by talking about emotive and subjective concepts.  The idea and theory behind this project and what the building should be like and how people respond to it, could be set as a project for a diploma course in architecture.

I hope to be able to tell you more about this project and I look forward to seeing it develop.

All in all a very enjoyable day helping people and I’m looking forward to more in the New Year.

Once again the kind people at Lanyon Bowdler will be providing the venue for the day and bookings can be made directly with them or me. Please see the other posts on this website & you can always follow us on twitter.

Ask The Architect On Tour - Live and unplugged, in full 3D and stereo

The kind people at Lanyon Bowdler have agreed to host a series of Ask The Architect sessions starting this Friday afternoon in their Shrewsbury office.

I will be holding a sreries of half hour sessions where anyone can ask me about architecture and design.  For example, you might be thinking about a building project or need help with design or construction.

So if you want to make a booking all you have to do is contact Sarah Jones at Lanyon Bowdler and I will see you on Friday.  If you want to know more about Ask The Architect please tweet me on @ShropsArchitect or get in touch using the mbf DESIGN page on this blog.

We will be tweeting on the day so you can ask questions on line and if you want you can follow our blogs about the live sessions.

I hope to be able to report more in the coming weeks and would like to thank everyone who has supported me and helped me so far.

As I have said before the aim of this is to promote architecture and design in the UK.  If those who take part benefit from the exercise too then that’s all well and good.

This all started when I was watching television and the British Gas ‘our world’ advert came on the screen.  If you want to see some pictures of the advert look at Helen Butterworth’s blog.  As I was watching the animation I found myself thinking that there wasn’t much of a representation of modern architecture in it and in a little while I had the following idea.

A national competition supported by British Gas and the RIBA to design your ideal home based on the theme of the advert.  The winners could be featured in an advert or two and the other entires could be showed on a website.  There could be a number of categories based on age to widen its appeal and keep it fair for entrants.

I have contacted both British Gas and the RIBA and sent them a few details of my idea and with a bit of luck it might come to something.

I would love to hear what you think…

The next day I decided to start things off using Twitter.  I found @BritishGas, tried tweeting them and soon discovered that they were not really engaging with people on Twitter, but that’s another story.

I changed my approach and tweeted for help and got some great responses.  David Sharpe sent me the press/media number for Centrica so I called them and sent them an email.

Yesterday I called the RIBA and had a telephone call from Centrica, which gave me the chance to explain how I thought my idea could promote modern architecture and be a great marketing exercise for all concerned.

I now have a bit of a dilemma as I am reluctant to explain my idea at this stage and risk losing control of it.  If anyone has been following my tweets and this story they have probably been able to work out what I am banging on about so I may have given it away already!

Once more I turned to my twitter network to ask for help and advice on what to do and got some good ideas and offers of help from Michaela Hardwick, Su Butcher, Graham Norwood and Keith at Pa Group.

The purpose of this post is to start telling the story of my idea and get something out in the public domain.

If you have any ideas on what I should do next I would like to read them.  Thanks

So what are some of the Architect stereotypes?  Off the top of my head I have listed some below which can affect how the public sees us.  You are more than welcome to add to the list with your comments.

 1 Architects are expensive or a luxury

Imagine trying to order food in a restaurant when only the wine menu has prices on it.  How would you know if the wine was good value or not when you don’t know how expensive the food is?

Architects are used on all sorts of projects that vary in size and cost and we can help the client get better value for money from their budget.  The cost of an Architect on a project is normally relative to the overall value of the job.  However, as we are often first to be approached and first to give a fee proposal the client has no other costs to compare our fee projection with.  This is where a lot of sucking of teeth can occur!

2 Architects specialise in modern buildings or new houses or offices or public buildings, etc (delete as required)

As a creative person an Architect should be able to turn their hand to design anything.  The reason some companies or individuals specialise is the same reason why some musicians play blues or some novelists write thrillers, they like it and are good at it.

Obviously there are commercial reasons involved with specialising in certain project types but a specialist practice often undertakes other projects too.

So why do people think we are like surgeons and do the same thing for our entire career?

3 Architects ignore their clients and design what they want

So how would this work?  I don’t even need to use the restaurant example to show you that this doesn’t make sense.

Part of our job is to advise our client in their best interest and this can lead to having to say what people don’t want to hear.  For example, a client might like to have an ornate wall mirror in a minimalist kitchen, or one of their design ideas contravenes legal protections.  As a result, we end up being the bearer of bad news by saying things like ‘Sorry you can’t do that’ or ‘Do you think that is appropriate to your brief?’

Everyone has a stereotype and I could go on but my black turtle neck is back from the dry cleaners!

The owner of a large Victorian terrace in a conservation area, is converting the building back to a house after it has been used as a block of flats.  They have used an architectural technician to produce a set of drawings for building regulations and asked me to help them with the removal of an existing wall to create an open plan kitchen/dining room and a the installation of a new external staircase to the basement. 

The engineer has designed brick piers to support the new opening but they are wider than the existing wall and the owner is concerned about the appearance of the opening in a period house and the potential loss of original features.

My suggestion was to discuss this in more detail with the engineer and see if there was any way of making the supports narrower.  As a last resort the whole wall could be made wider and the features could be replaced to retain the character of the room.

I also noted that the opening was too high for its width making it look awkward in the room, as it is important to look at the scale and proportions of a new opening in its context.  The plan showed a central island under the opening and I felt that the kitchen layout might be improved if this island unit was replaced with a run of kitchen units linked to the rest of the work top with an opening above.  This would increase the useable kitchen space and still provide the open plan feel for the room.

The property owner was concerned that appearance of the new basement staircase was not appropriate to the house and that the hand rail and balustrades stuck out like a sore thumb!

My response was to look at combining the existing front door staircase with the new basement access or just turn the new staircase through 90 degrees as both of these options could reduce the amount of protection required and make the new stairs feel more like part of the existing house.  The use of glass instead of metal for the balustrades would also help the staircase become less of an issue.

These problems show how important it is not to let the technical and legal processes of planning and building regulations applications override the design intent and poorly affect the end result.