The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
As we push through yet another difficult lockdown, it feels like a good time to focus on the achievable, positive changes that the profession can make to position itself for a better future. This new year brings opportunity, even at the darkest time.
Our ‘In Practice’ issue highlights the people and the approaches that connect with architecture’s core. Wright & Wright, our cover stars, continue to inspire and delight: they’ve been producing thoughtful buildings for decades. They work in small teams of six to make sure everyone’s voice is valued.
The practice’s considered, nurturing culture is evident in their buildings. Lambeth Palace Library is going to be around for the long term. Understanding materials, trying to be as pragmatic and sustainable as possible, eschewing the throwaway – it’s no wonder that Wright & Wright Architects has been quietly driving forward passive design since the 1990s, refusing to give in when people said it wasn’t possible.
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You get the very clear sense that this is a practice that sticks at things. We can all learn from that.
The drive towards increased retrofit is gaining pace, and practice has an important and realistic role here. Each retrofit project you take on, each client you engage and learn with, will help reduce embodied carbon and improve our shared environment. Putting your voice to our RetroFirst campaign is bearing fruit.
Spearheaded by Will Hurst, 35 people, from David Chipperfield to Doreen Lawrence, signed a joint letter published in The Times calling for the government to prioritise retrofit. MPs are taking notice and, with the UK hosting COP26 in November, there is much to work towards. You are making a difference.
Remote working is challenging, but it also necessitates change. Mental health issues and how we connect with each other are at the forefront of practitioners’ minds. The profession is learning more flexible, sensitive ways of working. Let’s work towards a kinder profession.
As Paul Stallan of Stallan Brand writes: ‘Covid has brutalised our studio. We can be bitter, or we can be better. We are being better. We are learning important lessons from Covid about how we make our designs for new communities, learning spaces and workplaces more joyous for when we come out the other side of this.’
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Perfect? The profession will never get there. Better? That’s achievable, step by step.
I’m not entirely conviced of the need for such a large, plain tower for the Lambeth library. It neither matches the original campanile nor seems to say much new and fresh to justify its presence. Perhaps in a different material, like Portland stone or even with some facetting it might have worked. Not actually seen it in person though of course
For me, the bricks work beautifully on many levels, speaking to the brickwork of the original garden wall and the palace itself, the scale of the individuall bricks being small, but combining to create an almost monolithic appearance from afar, much like the somewhat intangible idea of the vastness of the collection of books within vs the individual book as an object you can hold …. hat’s off Wright and Wright