Posts Tagged Construction industry
Liverpool council attacked over plan for 50-storey Shanghai Towers
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on February 7, 2011
Three Graces are cast into disgrace, says maritime dweller
Council leader accuses heritage lobby of blocking regeneration
According to Tugboat Cath, whose vessel bobs gently in Albert Dock's choppy grey depths, it looks as if someone has recklessly scribbled over a postcard of Liverpool's waterfront with a marker pen.
She is appalled by the recent building work on the city's iconic river frontage, which she says has significantly diminished the Unesco world heritage site and besmirched the Edwardian "Three Graces" – the Royal Liver, Cunard and Port of Liverpool buildings – which have elegantly defined the skyline for almost a century.
The next plan for the area, a proposed 50-storey skyscraper called the Shanghai Tower, simply fills her with dread.
Cath, 46, whose real name is Cathy Roberts, looks from the dock towards the Mann Island development, a controversial black granite building: "It's spoiled the view." She should know – her maritime home means she looks at it every day. The Liver Building is her kitchen clock.
Finally residents have an opportunity to take a detailed look at the £5.5bn planning application for the Shanghai Tower by Peel Holdings, the owner of Manchester's huge Trafford Centre shopping mall. The plans have been a long time coming – first mooted three years ago, a formal application was finally submitted to the council after discussions with heritage groups.
Tonight the developers have organised a PR exercise to try and woo the doubters with an open public event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Princes Dock. New images of the scheme will be unveiled.
The plans include a cruise ship terminal, shops, restaurants and 9,000 homes. Peel Holdings argues that the Liverpool Waters plan will regenerate former and currently disused dockland in north Liverpool to create a central, high quality waterfront zone. It will supposedly bring thousands of jobs.
Across the Mersey a complementary £4.5bn scheme, Wirral Waters, was granted planning permission in August before being granted final approval by the secretary of state.
Cath saysnew buildings have already ruined the vista: "One of the best views of the Three Graces has now gone. I call the new buildings the Three Disgraces. I'm worried that Liverpool will lose character and it feels like the city's for sale. If these buildings keep going up, it will lose its soul."
She concedes that new buildings will bring investment but fears the city is in danger of losing its uniqueness.
"Anything that breathes life into Liverpool is good," she adds. "But I do worry that it is going to be homogenised. So much of Liverpool is associated with the waterfront. I think it's dreadful that the Three Graces are going to be dwarfed and I do not know how they have got the plans through. It is supposed to be a World Heritage site."
Others are more positive. Besh Perez, 22, a civil engineering student-turned barman at Albert Dock, loves the idea of having the UK's tallest building outside London: "Shanghai is my favourite city waterfront, it would be great if Liverpool is like Shanghai and that they can replicate its skyline. It would be a big improvement.
"I'm not sure if it is because it is so familiar, but to me the Liverpool skyline looks dead industrial and worn down. I think it looks a bit poverty stricken."
The leader of Liverpool's city council, Joe Anderson, has criticised English Heritage for objecting to the development. He is irked that the Shanghai Tower has already been shifted back from the waterfront and reduced in height.
"Every time there is talk of a new building, we have some form of interference by some group of heritage lobbyists," he told a local newspaper. "The checks and balances have gone too far in their favour and restrict the council trying to create jobs and opportunities."
Henry Owen-John, English Heritage's regional director for the north-west, says the debate with the council should have been dealt with away from the gaze of the media.
"I can quite understand that Joe has been elected as leader at a very difficult time. The Liverpool Waters development is far and away the most significant regeneration programme in the city at the moment and a huge amount hangs on it."
Scottish architects RMJM sued by US staff
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on January 12, 2011
• Holyrood designer accused of withholding $664,000 in bonuses
• Lawsuit follows merger with US firm Hillier
RMJM, the architecture firm that, in partnership with EMBT, was responsible for the Scottish parliament, is being sued by employees in the United States over claims that it owes them hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Scottish firm – which gave Sir Fred Goodwin his first job since his departure from RBS – is at the centre of a bruising row with its US staff in which it is also accused of siphoning off cash from an American company it merged with in 2007.
According to a lawsuit lodged last month in New Jersey and detailed in Building Design magazine, RMJM director Sir Fraser Morrison and his chief executive son, Peter, have reneged on the $24m (£15.5m) deal that saw the firm merge with US-based Hillier.
RMJM denied yesterday that it had siphoned off cash from Hillier but said it expected to pay staff the $664,000 they were owed "in the near future".
According to the legal papers – filed on behalf of a number of US-based principals by former Hillier owner and shareholder representative Bob Hillier – the company still owes $664,000 of a $1.5m cash bonus pool promised to staff for 2009 under the terms of the merger agreement.
The lawsuit, which seeks to recover the money plus interest and costs, also accuses RMJM of:
• Asset-stripping and "siphoning off corporate funds" worth up to $8m from Hillier, now known as RMJM Inc.
• Planning to cease "most or all" of its operations in Princeton this month following the closure of its Philadelphia operations in June.
• Trying to disguise the fact that Sir Fraser and Peter Morrison are the "alter egos" of RMJM and should thus be held liable for the cash.
"In the last three years … the plaintiff believes that RMJM Inc has transferred to RMJM Group and/or RMJM Ltd cash in the amount of approximately $8m and yet … has refused to meet their obligations," the lawsuit stated. "Upon information and belief, RMJM Group's principals divested RMJM of assets, transferring these assets to themselves and to other entities owned or controlled by these principals, without regard to the obligations."
The papers added that RMJM had cited "cash-flow difficulties" in its correspondence and noted that Fraser Morrison owns about 10m company shares and lives in New York, while Peter owns 400,000 shares and lives in Connecticut.
According to Building Design's 2011 World Architecture 100 survey, RMJM is the eighth-largest architecture firm in the world, dropping down from fifth in 2010.
Referring to the allegations, a spokesman for RMJM said: "We're surprised and disappointed at this move, as it's well-documented that, like virtually every practice, we've had to manage our cash carefully for the past 18 months. However, we fully expect the final $664k payment of the $24m we paid for Hillier to be made in the near future and for the matter to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
"Separately, the allegations of asset-stripping are both outrageous and completely and utterly untrue. In fact, the direct opposite has been the case, as millions of dollars have been injected into the US business since the beginning of the recession."
The news of the lawsuit came amid fresh rumours about Goodwin's status at the firm. Scottish media have suggested that the disgraced former banker had not been seen at RMJM for weeks.
A spokesman for RMJM said: "Sir Fred remains an adviser to the business and we call on his services as required. This encompasses periods when increased input is helpful and others when we require to call on his services less."
Sources close to Goodwin insisted the relationship had not changed and that he was still an ad hoc adviser to RMJM.
• This article was amended on 12 January 2011. The original said that RMJM is the sole company responsible for the Scottish parliament building. This has been corrected.
Chelsea in talks to leave Stamford Bridge and move to Earls Court
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 8, 2010
Exclusive: Chelsea FC considering move to site of Earls Court Exhibition Centre – but move could torpedo plans to build 8,000 home complex
Chelsea Football Club are in talks to quit their 105-year old home at Stamford Bridge and build a ground on the site of the soon- to-be-demolished Earls Court exhibition centre to hold at least 60,000 spectators, the Guardian has learned.
The Premier League champions, owned by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, are considering a move to the prime west London site just half a mile from their existing home amid growing concern they are losing ground to rivals with bigger and bigger stadiums.
Discussions have been kept secret because the move could torpedo a plan by the leading architect Sir Terry Farrell to transform Earls Court into a new residential enclave with more than 8,000 new homes. The scheme enters the latest phase of public consultation this week and is being undertaken with fellow landowners, Transport for London and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
"The discussion is now on again," said a source close to the deal. "It is largely because the owners are progressing alternative uses for the site and there's lots more urgency for Chelsea to make a decision. From Chelsea's point of view this is their last opportunity to get a new ground and stay in the same area they have been in for over a century."
Chelsea flirted with acquiring the same site four years ago but talks came to nothing. Now the site is larger and Chelsea's chairman, Bruce Buck, has been warned the club faces a "deficit" as a result of Stamford Bridge's lack of capacity.
"There have been discussions about it and the club is clearly considering its next step," confirmed a source close to Chelsea, who added that negotiations are at an early stage and no deal has been signed.
The club has met the site's owner, Capital and Counties, in recent months and Chelsea and its advisers are holding "a series of key meetings to decide whether to pursue a bid or not", according to a source close to the talks.
A new stadium would not be ready until 2015 because Earls Court is scheduled to host the 2012 Olympic volleyball competition before the exhibition centre is demolished. After 73 years in which it has hosted gigs by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Oasis and Madonna, its economic viability has been compromised by the establishment of major new concert and conference venues elsewhere in London, including the 02 arena at the Millennium Dome.
Tonight Buck said it was "very difficult for us to make the philosophical decision that we are going to move on", but conceded that the lack of capacity at Stamford Bridge left it out of pocket compared with other clubs.
"Certainly we wouldn't leave west London or thereabouts and there are very few sites available," he said. "We have to do things with our other commercial activities to make up the deficit that is created by the fact we don't have a 60,000 seat stadium. We can't say that we will never move or have a new stadium but at the moment, it's not at the front of our agenda."
However, Chelsea insiders said Buck is keen to boost matchday takings because Uefa is introducing rules limiting the ability of super-rich owners to bankroll clubs without squaring spending with revenues. Despite winning the league last season, the club was only fifth in terms of average attendance in football's top flight behind Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool. Stamford Bridge accommodates around 41,000 fans compared with 76,000 at Manchester United's Old Trafford ground and 60,000 at Arsenal's Emirates stadium.
Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United recently made bids to occupy the 80,000 seat Olympic stadium.
The emergence of Chelsea's renewed interest in Earls Court is awkward for Capital and Counties, which has launched a public charm offensive for its housing project employing Edelman, the international public relations company. It is promoting the "four villages and a high street" vision for the area and declined to comment on negotiations with Chelsea.
"Our vision for Earls Court is for a world class residential-led development delivering thousands of new homes and jobs, and creating a remarkable new place in London," a spokesman said. "As part of that we maintain discussions with a wide range of stakeholders and neighbouring landowners including both local authorities, TfL, the GLA and the local community."
London Olympics 2012 could flunk golden chance to be green
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 2, 2010
Commission for Sustainable London 2012 calls for transfer of low-carbon lessons from Olympics to the wider UK industry
Organisers of the London 2012 Olympics risk missing a golden opportunity to inspire a step change towards a low-carbon economy, the green watchdog for the games has warned.
The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 released its annual review on how the games' sustainable vision is taking shape. The UK's green promises were key reasons why Seb Coe and his team won the bid in Singapore in 2005.
Although the report said that the Olympic Delivery Authority, which has responsibility for construction and design of the venues and infrastructure, had maintained a high standard of sustainable design, the benefits to the UK's wider green economy could be lost before the games even begin unless "the knowledge in people's heads is captured before they leave".
With just over two years to go until the games begin, planning has now reached a critical stage as the ODA scales back in anticipation of the completion of venues next year.
The Local Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, responsible for running the event, will take on an increasingly greater role in delivering the sustainable targets for London 2012.
The report, Raising the Bar, says: "Our main area of concern lies in the wider commitments that were made during the bid or just afterwards. Broad promises have been made in official documents: 'to make the Olympic Park a blueprint for sustainable living' and 'to be a catalyst for new waste management infrastructure in east London'.
"With the exception of a few worthy initiatives, there is no comprehensive plan to make this happen. Furthermore, it is not clear what definitions lie behind these expressions or who is responsible for making them happen.
"With just over two years to go before the 'inspirational power of the Games' moves to Rio, never to return to London, these issues need to be resolved."
Shaun McCarthy, head of the commission, said: "Having an Olympics is an inherently unsustainable thing to do. To build all this stuff to watch some people run around – what's sustainable about that?
"We have to ask ourselves is it good enough just to have some great sustainable venues and put on a sustainable games which we are increasingly confident about, or will the Olympics really make a difference?
"Is this going to be something in isolation so we have one great big sustainable Olympics and then go back to business as usual?
"Or will the games actually change things? Because that was the promise that was made when we won the bid.
"A lot of carbon has been saved by comparison with business as usual construction techniques. If we can transfer that knowledge to the wider industry, we can save a lot more carbon than will be emitted in the whole of the Olympic Games.
"How can we use the magic of the Olympic Games to make that happen?"
McCarthy cited lower-carbon cement, low-toxin plastics and a zero landfill waste target as some of the achievements so far.
The stadium is the lightest Olympic stadium, using a quarter of the concrete used for the Beijing games, and features a lighting system suspended from a compression wheel made from re-purposed gas pipes left over from a different construction project.
McCarthy singled out the velodrome as an especially good example of sustainable design, with its ultra-lightweight roof and natural lighting and ventilation.
But he admitted that results have been mixed on the Olympic park. Zaha Hadid's feted aquatic centre, with a roof made from 3,000 tonnes of steel, was a "sharp lesson" in sustainable construction.
"That is a lot of steel just to cover a swimming pool and it is not necessary to have that much," McCarthy said, adding that the architect had simply been asked to design "a beautiful building" before the bid gained momentum.
But he said he was "very disappointed" that the energy centre in the Olympic park would run on gas, not biogas from onsite waste.
He also said he had concerns about London mayor Boris Johnson's approval of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower in the park.
"It's very early days for the Orbit tower. Yes, I am concerned that it is a lot of steel. We are asking the Greater London Authority questions about it but we haven't yet had a satisfactory response.
"We would expect the mayor's office and the GLA to work to at least the same high standards of sustainability as the ODA."
An ODA spokesperson said: "We welcome the scrutiny of the commission and will continue to work with them to address any concerns they may have.
"The report states that the commission is pleased with our progress and they believe we are on track to meet challenging and extensive sustainability targets that have never been achieved before on a project of this size and scale.
"Our sustainability strategy was embedded into our processes at the start of the project and is already being delivered onsite.
"We are currently pulling together the best practice and lessons that have been learnt from the project so that they can be used by the industry for future projects."
Architect job losses soar as crunch hits construction
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on March 25, 2009
• Institute urges ministers to 'unblock' funding
• Building workers' union seeks social housing boost
• Professions worst hit by the recession (pdf)
Architects are joining the ranks of benefit claimants at a faster rate than any other profession, according to a Guardian analysis of figures for the last 12 months.
Other jobs related to the construction industry, including managers, surveyors, engineers, bricklayers, carpenters and scaffolders, also feature prominently among the 20 professions that have seen the biggest increases in benefits claimants.
Construction unions and professional bodies said the actual numbers out of work were much higher than the official figures suggest and reiterated their pleas for the government to revive the industry by underwriting public building projects.
Office of National Statistics figures released this week show that between February 2008 and February 2009 the number of architects claiming benefits rose by 760% from 150 to 1,290 - the biggest increase among recorded professions.
The second biggest increase was among architectural technologists and town planning technicians.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) said the figures came as no surprise and estimated that the level of unemployment and under-employment among its members was at least 30% higher than official figures.
Riba's president, Sunand Prasad, said the problem was "gigantic". He added: "I would estimate that those figures represent a fraction of the reality, based on our returns, anecdotal material and our projections. And the reason is simple: construction always gets hit in the neck in a recession. It's one of the first casualties of a decline in the economy."
He predicted levels of unemployment in the industry would get worse: "Architects are a bellwether for what's going to happen to the construction industry - buildings that are not being designed today are not going to be built tomorrow."
Prasad said that in spite of the government's commitment to public projects, work had stalled because of a reliance on private finance. Riba had urged the government to "unblock the pipeline" by funding the building of schools, clinics and other public buildings directly from the exchequer for a period of three years, he said.
Riba is also pressing for a project to make social housing more energy efficient as an eco-friendly means of creating jobs. Prasad added: "The biggest danger is that we lose people that don't come back and we are unprepared when the recovery does happen. In the early 90s we lost a whole generation who went on to do other things and that's noticeable in the profession now."
The construction union Ucatt said the numbers out of work might be double the ONS figures because about half of its members were self-employed and did not qualify for some benefits.
The union wants the government to back a huge social housing building project to help create jobs in housing - the worst hit sector of the building industry - and to help the 1 million people living in inadequate accommodation.
"If the money spent on propping up the banks had been spent on social housing then the economy would be in a much healthier state," said Alan Ritchie, Ucatt's general secretary.
Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, said: "Large parts of the construction industry is on its knees.
"The GMB has asked the government to acquire unsold blocks of flats and turn them into social housing but that programme is stuck. The government needs to look again at getting it working."
The legal profession has also been badly hit. Lawyers came ninth among the professions with the biggest increases in benefits claimants - up from 350 to 1,570 over the last 12 months - an increase of 349%. Legal secretaries came 12th.
The Law Society said it had set out a detailed agenda to help solicitors survive the recession, including practical guidance for members facing redundancy, a pastoral care helpline and online seminars on "surviving the downturn".
The society's president, Paul Marsh, has also written to Revenue and Customs asking it to suspend its system of taxing law firms before they have received payment for their services.
• This footnote was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday 25 March 2009. Above we quoted the Royal Institute of British Architects as estimating that unemployment and underemployment among its members was at least 30% higher than official figures. In fact, Riba's president, Sunand Prasad, said that in his estimation 30% of architects were currently unemployed or underemployed.
Jonathan Glancey: There’s a recession – but architecture courses are booming
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on March 20, 2009
The building trade is struggling, yet architecture courses are more popular than ever before. It makes perfect sense
It seem paradoxical – yet as the recession bites and building projects grind to a halt, a record number of British students are applying to study architecture. With so many architects underemployed, or plain unemployed, surely these legions of young people must be either oblivious to what's going on around them, or else slightly mad?
But no: they're simply following a burgeoning passion and, however they might express this themselves, they are optimists. And, they have many reasons to be, not least because even the deepest recessions have proven to be short in comparison with the length of an architect's career and with the life of buildings themselves.
Architecture students study for around seven years before serving the modern equivalent of apprentices and then establishing themselves in practice. Few really get going until their early thirties. So students starting off this autumn can expect to wow the public with their first notable buildings in the early 2020s. We should, hopefully, be out of recession by then, although, perish the thought, we could even be entering the next.
Even then, many former architecture students will find themselves gainfully employed, or setting up in business, in spheres other than architecture itself. Why? Because an architectural education is both happily demanding and hugely varied. Which other university course combines art, science, mathematics, history, philosophy, politics, economics together with some understanding of media and marketing? No wonder so many young architects are employed as chefs, restaurateurs, set designers, developers, publishers, fashion designers, teachers, chief executives of companies and Le Corbusier-only-knows what else.
With this level of adaptability, many architects – although they may well have to tighten their belts considerably – are better able than many other professionals to ride out recessions. The brightest will write, teach and consult. They will use the lean times to think hard about the directions architecture might take when the good times roll once more.
Previous recessions have encouraged or led to major shifts in architectural design. Brutalism and controversial concrete public housing projects came to the end of a rocky road with the 1973-74 oil crisis. The decorative excesses and sheer kitsch of postmodern design (think wacky Docklands apartment blocks, offices topped with jokey split classical pediments, Porsches with spoilers, padded shoulders) that characterised the 1980s fell from favour with the stock market crash of 1987.
And now? Well, we're likely to see an end to the kind of flamboyant, look-at-me architecture that we have come to expect in every city centre since King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia opened the Bilbao Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry, twelve years ago.
And, yet, as anyone passing through central London will be well aware, massive buildings are still soaring into the city's cloudscape. Why? Again, because the architectural cycle is a slow one. Many of the buildings you see rising behind scaffolding were designed several years ago. They continue to employ architects, contractors and builders. Some of these buildings will be completed while the current recession is still with us. But their time may well come. Remember that the Empire State Building, for decades the world's tallest building, was opened in 1931 at a time when the US economy was very much down in the dumps. For pretty much the rest of the decade it was known as the "Empty State Building" because few companies were in a position to rent space there. Today, the 102-storey skyscraper is a cherished national monument as well as a profitable business.
With so much spare talent at the moment, though, the British government really should try to help Britain build itself out of recession. Public architecture projects could yet save the moment, holding the fort until the national and global economy booms again. Unfortunately, this isn't so very easy to do because over the past decade, a government in thrall for whatever reason to free market economics has presided, wilfully, over the flogging off and even the collapse of great parts of the public realm. This needs to be set on firm foundations once more before we can build and use architectural talent for the public good. Perhaps, though, when this recession ends, we'll have a newly invigorated public sector working hand-in-hand with a new generation of architects and new forms of design. Whatever the story, and no matter how bad the job market is at the moment, architects need to remain optimistic.
Treasury rescues big building projects with £2bn injection
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on March 3, 2009
• Lack of private finance forces government to act
• Roads, schools and waste management to benefit
The Treasury will announce a £2bn lifeline today to rescue construction programmes for motorway widening, new schools and incinerators after British and foreign banks pulled out as backers.
The cash injection is aimed at kick-starting up to 110 major projects on a £13.5bn private finance initiative programme by putting Treasury cash alongside money from contractors with, it is hoped, some contribution from investment banks.
The extra money, to be available from next month, is the latest initiative from the government to spend more to try to lift the economy out of recession. Public bodies will have to apply to the Treasury through their government ministry for help.
Yvette Cooper, chief secretary to the Treasury, hopes the cash will breathe new life into controversial PFI schemes, in which banks and contractors build new projects and then rent them back to the state for up to 35 years. The schemes were highly profitable until the credit crunch, with banks being criticised by the National Audit Office and MPs for making too much money from the taxpayer. But since the downturn foreign banks have drawn back from investing in them, on a similar scale to their withdrawal from offering loans and mortgages to customers.
Top of the list for new investment are incinerators and waste recycling schemes, including a government contribution to a £4.4bn waste scheme for Greater Manchester. The government still hopes that some private capital will go into this scheme, which is being managed by the Bank of Ireland. Investment in waste disposal is seen as essential to help the UK avoid being heavily fined by the European Union if it misses mandatory targets to halve landfill use by 2013. Some of the schemes are so big they will take four years to build. The cost would fall on the council tax payer.
Other important schemes that could benefit are plans to widen motorways, notably the M25 around London, and build schools. The £2.4bn school building programme announced by Ed Balls, the schools secretary, has been hit by the failure of banks to invest.
Cooper said: "We need to get these important infrastructure projects moving quickly to support jobs right now. That's why government is stepping in to accelerate the process and safeguard these major projects in the face of financial market problems."
The extra money could also be used to build some of the last 10 PFI hospital projects, which have been delayed for a year because they could not get money from the banks. It will also allow a number of new courts to go ahead.
The Tories were sceptical. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said: "We all want to see planned projects go ahead ... But this announcement looks suspiciously like Alistair Darling is applying a sticking plaster to Labour's failed PFI model. What is really needed is a wholly new approach that involves the private sector while delivering value for money for taxpayers."
Jeremy Barker, a director with accountants KPMG, said: "Any source of new money is clearly going to help free up logjammed transactions but the idea of a government bank acting like a private funder is potentially at odds with the philosophy underlying PFI."
He warned the government not to go "back to old-style procurement and the bad old days of cost overruns and delays".
The Scottish National party was highly critical of the move yesterday. Its Treasury spokesman, Stewart Hosie, said: "Labour have bailed out the bankers, and now Alistair Darling seems set on propping up PFI projects. This humiliating bail-out is not only the clearest indication that PFI has failed but is the economics of the madhouse. Why is public money being used to prop up a system that gives such a bad return compared to traditional public procurement?"
In the shadow of the Shard | David Shariatmadari
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 27, 2010
Skyscrapers with silly names are sprouting in London again, but is this 'boom' really a positive economic sign?
There's a mini-boom in construction. You may not have realised this. But I'm surrounded by it, and have a good idea of what kind of boom it'll turn out to be. I live halfway between a building named for its resemblance to an electric razor, and one known as the Shard. Twice a week, I cycle over London Bridge, and risk life and limb craning my neck to look at a megastructure taking shape in front of the 1866 train sheds. Its bottom half is now sheathed in glass, a concrete core sprouting from the centre. On this, stencilled in blue, are the floor numbers – if I squint, I can see we're up to about 56, out of 72. Guys hospital, the Shard's next-door neighbour, for a long time the tallest building in the area, now looks a bit stumpy.
This is London's most Bladerunner-esque building, looming over a neighbourhood of narrow streets and ancient relics. It is as incongruous as anything I've seen, the steeples of local churches offering up their own attempts at awe-inspiring height and seeming feeble in comparison. But this is increasingly how the capital is going to look. A predicted shortage of commercial office space in the coming years has seen property developers asking architects to dust off their plans. Those buildings that skyscraper geeks (a rare but dedicated sub-category of internet obsessive) swooned over have been resuscitated. Their silly names, meant to give the impression that they're held in some affection by the public, but probably dreamt up by PRs, are in the papers again: the Cheesegrater, the Walkie Talkie, the Pinnacle.
The aesthetics range from the intimidatingly impressive to the grotesque: together, they look dizzying, hard angles jarring with biomorphous curves. What happens when you put a load of "icons" together? Do they cease to be iconic? Do they look ridiculous? Londoners are about to find out.
The way buildings look, which is always what monopolises the debate, isn't everything. Of course aesthetics are important – they play a huge part in how we experience the places we live. And in one sense, these buildings are seductive. They have the ability to make you stare up at them in wonder, gigantic public sculptures that dazzle for existing so far beyond the scale of everyday life. But what are they really? Strip away the shiny skin and you have humdrum offices piled on top of one another – in Owen Hatherley's memorable phrase, "the aesthetic tuning of stacked trading floors". People, in this context, are reduced to the level of worker ants, expensive but necessary components in the enterprise of making money. If you remember the scene at the end of Working Girl, where the camera pulls back to reveal that Melanie Griffith's hard-won office is one of hundreds, all exactly the same, you'll know what I mean.
So from my bicycle, this "boom" doesn't look like its fruits are going to be evenly spread. And construction analysts seem to agree: the most visible signs of the upturn so far are in and around the City of London, and in that it reflects the imbalances in our economy as a whole. Will growth be driven again by a frothy financial services sector, with all the risks that entails? Skyscrapers may sprout like mushrooms (smaller versions might even spread to cities such as Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester, as they did at the height of the last bubble). But will there be anything in it for us, apart from the thrill of looking up at some new glass spike, and feeling small?
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