I'm an Architect and I have worked on large projects in London, although not this one thankfully[0], so I thought people might like to know how the process of designing a building like this works.
A developer hires an international 'starchitect' like Viñoly to design them an office block because the architects reputation for design helps them to get away with a larger building on the site and therefore get more net lettable area for their investment in land.
I don't know anyone who works for Vinoly, I've no idea what it's like to work for him, but I know other people who have worked in similar 'gesture architecture' practices and this is how it usually plays out:
The big boss will do a nice sketch of how he thinks a walkie talkie shaped skyscraper (or whatever shape is in fashion in the office) will fit on the site and then hand it off to a more junior member of staff to solve all the real problems. Meanwhile, he will have to go back to the international lecture/meet/greet circuit that pulls in the jobs and maintains their reputation for world class architecture.
The project team will then usually have a very tight deadline to produce the initial design, probably mostly drawn up by a team of recent architecture graduates who would be pretty low paid[1], and who will almost always end up working very long hours and weekends unpaid overtime to meet the deadline. Where the lead architectural practice is not based in the UK there will also be a local architect who will advise on local regulations, prepare the submissions for planning permission and generally deal with other regulatory authorities.
There will also be a large consultant team on a project of this scale. Probably consisting of two teams of civil engineers; one for superstructure and one for substructure. A geotechnical expert for the foundation design. A whole spread of HVAC engineers, probably separate mechanical, electrical, drainage and ventilation specialists. A facade engineer who specialises in problems specifically to do with the design of the glass cladding system. A fire engineer to design the fire escape strategy and help negotiate the fire fighting strategy with the local fire brigade. A vertical circulation engineer to design the lift and escalator strategy. A bomb blast engineer to model the effects of various bomb attack scenarios on the cladding and structure. A security consultant to advise on how defendable the building is and to design the cctv, active tramp deterrent systems :-( etc. Finally a quantity surveyor will advise on how much this will all cost.
All of these people will have been consulted briefly, probably mostly by video conference, across a couple of time zones, before the planning permission submission[2]. All their requirements have to be juggled between the different disciplines by the architect. As an architect who has done services coordination on skyscrapers and international airports, I can tell you it's not easy. One of the most frustrating things is that engineers from different disciplines don't talk to each other, even if they are working for the same firm. On top of this, the time allowed to prepare the planning submission will be a few months at most, and a lot of the effort will be spent on optimising the design and more importantly the presentation strategy to get through the planning permission process.
Once the planning permission submission has been approved, the overall shape of the scheme is fixed and hence the parabola shape can no longer be designed out. Therefore, if no-one notices a problem like this until after the planning submission, or perhaps fails to get someone higher up to take it seriously enough to change the concept design, then they will have to remedy it by using special anti glare coatings or just plain hoping it wont be too bad. This is for a couple of reasons: because the developer will be exerting large pressure to speed up construction as they will be paying a large amount of interest on the loan for the cost of the land, because consultancy fees to redo the design would be in the order of millions at this point and because getting planning permission for a scheme like this is very politically controversial so you don't risk doing it twice if you can avoid it.
So, you can probably see how something like this could easily have happened.
[0] Because it's pug ugly, not because of the solar death ray thing, that's quite amusing really.
[1] Something like £20k per year in London, which is a crap salary after 6 years in University.
[2] In the UK this is a semi-democratic consultation process which occurs at local government level and involves publicly presenting the designs to local councillors to give residents of the area a chance to raise a formal objection.
> A developer hires an international 'starchitect' like Viñoly to design them an office block because the architects reputation for design helps them to get away with a larger building on the site and therefore get more net lettable area for their investment in land.
Ah. I've always wondered why people pay "starchitects" to design horrible, hideous, poorly designed buildings. I've always figured that they were paying more to get something of worse quality, but figured that people were paying the premium just to be in vogue.
The reputation allowing them to get away with a bigger building on the same plot of land is a new explanation to me, and makes lots of sense.
>Ah. I've always wondered why people pay "starchitects" to design horrible, hideous, poorly designed buildings. I've always figured that they were paying more to get something of worse quality, but figured that people were paying the premium just to be in vogue.
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every 6 months" -- Oscar Wilde
I'm an ex-architect -- or, more accurately, a recovering architect: it's like an addiction in that way -- and I have to say that you really do know what you are talking about here. My sympathies!
(Although I'm far from enthralled by this building, I have to say that it actually looks better than I expected it to based on the utterly fugly renderings from a while ago. I can't imagine how it got through planning consent based on those.)
I'm fine. The practice I used to work for treated people very well compared to other 'names', the big boss was very nice and would listen to your opinions in a design discussion, they're not all bad. I do my own thing now though, which is nice :-)
It's funny, but that sounds EXACTLY like a high profile research lab! The more I look, the more different professions seem to be the same in terms of principles of work.
Yeah it sounds like a lot of things. Human behavior in groups is kinda predictable. Part of it has to do with knowledge assymetry. Researchers and architects generally know more than their customers, so they have a lot of latitude to "sell".
In general high profile labs get there by having high through put (lots of experiments, lots of papers). The lab PI becomes a publicity guy, giving lots of lectures and wheeling and dealing with funding agencies. The actual bench work is done by postdocs and graduate students. Many labs begin to resemble departments with the PI as chairperson. But not in a good way. The PI loses touch with the science, no longer fulfills their role as mentor to an apprentice and the quality of the work is a crapshoot - depending entirely on postdocs. The PI becomes a brand.
Exactly my experience. The PI hops from one grant or consulting contract to another before the work on the previous grants and contracts is complete, and you as the postdoc or research assholeciate find yourself called into another meeting to produce something completely unrelated to the several projects that each require your full-time attention, on a schedule determined without your input. The PI has made unrealistic promises to funding agencies and clients without consulting you. It now is your job to produce on short notice. This is partly due to the grant-driven nature of the work, but personalities also play a role.
Intellectuals are driven out; mental technicians remain.
My experience is even worse. I was drafted to do system and network administration and helpdesk application support--in the PI's mind these were indistinguishable from software development--as well as the research and software development for which I was hired. As I could not afford the endless dues paying, I left.
I did a short bit of contract work for Viñoly some years ago... and while I can't attest to the entire process you've outlined (I wasn't involved in the architecture stuff), I can attest to the bit about working conditions. The long hours, deep stress, harsh deadlines -- all spot on from what I'd observed.
Thanks for the insight! In retrospect, it certainly has the feel of a project that was too expensive to fix, so we'll patch/deal with it if it comes up. It certainly happens - high quality is time consuming and expensive, and it's easy to forget how risks allow us to do more for less (with a chance of occasional death-ray).
That said, what is the likelihood the form will be held to pay out in some way for this (say, either in replacing the glass wall or installing retractable shade awnings across the neighborhood)?
Tone edit: I certainly don't mean the project looks poorly done. Just that a fix would have required such a substantial redesign as to be prohibitively expensive compared to just hoping for the best.
I like that phrase: "The developers said the phenomenon was caused by "the current elevation of the sun in the sky", and that as Britain heads into autumn the problem should disappear."
There is a WONTFIX implicit in there. Who cares if it becomes a death-ray a few days each year?
This shouldn't even be too expensive to patch. They just need to change the covering of the windows.
I always wondered how buildings avoided becoming homes and sleeping areas. Can you give some insight into what is done? I'd assumed it was passive and all about locking every service entrance.
I used to work next to where this was built and the site was empty for ages. I imagine it got delayed due to money trouble at the time. They would have had a lot longer than usual to think about potential problems.
A developer hires an international 'starchitect' like Viñoly to design them an office block because the architects reputation for design helps them to get away with a larger building on the site and therefore get more net lettable area for their investment in land.
I don't know anyone who works for Vinoly, I've no idea what it's like to work for him, but I know other people who have worked in similar 'gesture architecture' practices and this is how it usually plays out:
The big boss will do a nice sketch of how he thinks a walkie talkie shaped skyscraper (or whatever shape is in fashion in the office) will fit on the site and then hand it off to a more junior member of staff to solve all the real problems. Meanwhile, he will have to go back to the international lecture/meet/greet circuit that pulls in the jobs and maintains their reputation for world class architecture.
The project team will then usually have a very tight deadline to produce the initial design, probably mostly drawn up by a team of recent architecture graduates who would be pretty low paid[1], and who will almost always end up working very long hours and weekends unpaid overtime to meet the deadline. Where the lead architectural practice is not based in the UK there will also be a local architect who will advise on local regulations, prepare the submissions for planning permission and generally deal with other regulatory authorities.
There will also be a large consultant team on a project of this scale. Probably consisting of two teams of civil engineers; one for superstructure and one for substructure. A geotechnical expert for the foundation design. A whole spread of HVAC engineers, probably separate mechanical, electrical, drainage and ventilation specialists. A facade engineer who specialises in problems specifically to do with the design of the glass cladding system. A fire engineer to design the fire escape strategy and help negotiate the fire fighting strategy with the local fire brigade. A vertical circulation engineer to design the lift and escalator strategy. A bomb blast engineer to model the effects of various bomb attack scenarios on the cladding and structure. A security consultant to advise on how defendable the building is and to design the cctv, active tramp deterrent systems :-( etc. Finally a quantity surveyor will advise on how much this will all cost.
All of these people will have been consulted briefly, probably mostly by video conference, across a couple of time zones, before the planning permission submission[2]. All their requirements have to be juggled between the different disciplines by the architect. As an architect who has done services coordination on skyscrapers and international airports, I can tell you it's not easy. One of the most frustrating things is that engineers from different disciplines don't talk to each other, even if they are working for the same firm. On top of this, the time allowed to prepare the planning submission will be a few months at most, and a lot of the effort will be spent on optimising the design and more importantly the presentation strategy to get through the planning permission process.
Once the planning permission submission has been approved, the overall shape of the scheme is fixed and hence the parabola shape can no longer be designed out. Therefore, if no-one notices a problem like this until after the planning submission, or perhaps fails to get someone higher up to take it seriously enough to change the concept design, then they will have to remedy it by using special anti glare coatings or just plain hoping it wont be too bad. This is for a couple of reasons: because the developer will be exerting large pressure to speed up construction as they will be paying a large amount of interest on the loan for the cost of the land, because consultancy fees to redo the design would be in the order of millions at this point and because getting planning permission for a scheme like this is very politically controversial so you don't risk doing it twice if you can avoid it.
So, you can probably see how something like this could easily have happened.
[0] Because it's pug ugly, not because of the solar death ray thing, that's quite amusing really. [1] Something like £20k per year in London, which is a crap salary after 6 years in University. [2] In the UK this is a semi-democratic consultation process which occurs at local government level and involves publicly presenting the designs to local councillors to give residents of the area a chance to raise a formal objection.