Architecture: More than the Architect

I’m often asked who my favourite architect is, the honest answer is I don’t have one. I am much more inclined to have favourite buildings because it’s the buildings in use that really matter. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – one person’s favourite building may be hated by someone else.

A building can look like magnificent statement architecture but not necessarily be fit for purpose, and it is the impact of architecture on people’s lives that matters to me. When it comes to design, for me, rather too many new buildings fall into the category of ‘Just because you can doesn’t mean you should’.

Elevation Pantheon Rome, Architect, Architecture, Urban Design, Town Planning, WWA Studios, West Waddy Architects

To me, a good building is easily accessible and with clear wayfinding as well as beautiful. It needs to respect its environment and not dominate it. There is a tendency to make a statement building and not always consider the full impact on its surroundings. It needs to be sustainable, not only environmentally friendly in use but designed wherever possible to be adaptable to last for more than a few years.

Buildings need to promote well-being in those who use them or live in them. An extra care scheme or care home should not only be a safe and relaxing place for those who live there but a welcoming place that is a pleasure to work in for members of staff.

Neither do we need to design a slavish copy of what is around. Too often we are constrained by the planning system to ‘match’ what is there. You only need to look around to realise that more often, than not, beauty is in variety, not in endless repetition.

I understand there are economic constraints, but too often variation, particularly in the mass housing market, seems to be stuck on just for the sake of it rather than given proper consideration of how and why variation traditionally occurred.  I have seen houses randomly clad up half their façade when traditionally the cladding would have had a purpose and would have been led by the building style and form, not just have been applied to make one identikit building appear different to its neighbour.

So, to me, a plain and unprepossessing building that is a pleasure to use is much better architecture than an all-singing and dancing ‘icon’ that in practice may have many faults. After all, I suspect that all great architects have at least one building they think they could have designed in a better and more fit-for-purpose way.

Having said all that, one building I do admire is the Pantheon, a beautiful form made with clever technology that has had various incarnations over its lifetime.  Apologies – I don’t know the architect…

Written by Jean Hanna – Design Director

Images: Pantheon Elevation: https://smarthistory.org/the-pantheon/

Interior: Adobe Stock

Elevation Pantheon Rome, Architect, Architecture, Urban Design, Town Planning, WWA Studios, West Waddy Architects