While I do admire modern buildings, somehow another year of RIBA buildings are here, and yet again expanses of glass, pillars of modern materials be they steel or concrete seem ubiquitous. I grasp the concept that designers have to design for their clients, but surely someone wants a different looking building in the whole of the modern world, and not one that looks as tho you could design it with lego bricks and then do some sort of computer modelling “substitute sheet glass for lego plastic”. DONE.
I mean they’re all quite striking. But just heft and weight. Not something you can really say “wow”. Last week a Vulcan bomber flew overhead, on its last public flight. The Vulcan has been flying for 50 years. You still look at it and go wow, same with a Jaguar E-type, it just exudes sheer design style.
Burntwood School: Nearly £41million. Please can someone pay a bit of attention to the cycle stand outside the school. Presumably quite a lot of kids could arrive on a cycle. What do they get?. A cold windswept corridor of stark metal hoops. Oh and there’s a rubbish bin right beside them, as if to say this is an area for a right mess, the naughty kids and smokers. Oh and you can park your bike here. Not under cover, not protected. No. just against a metal hoop, near a rubbish bin. Great. Actually maybe it is a striking design feature – the blurb says they have “produced grown-up buildings for Burntwood School, which make kids raise their game, instead of pandering to them” so there! Raise your game don’t arrive by bike.
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