A turning point – a personal view
The draft City Plan 2040 is at its Examination in Public. The Corporation has abandoned plans to move Billingsgate and Smithfield fish and meat markets to Barking and to close them, with traders to be compensated and presumably freed to fend for themselves. Michael Cassidy, an ‘architect’ of today’s Square Mile and a founder of this Forum at an earlier turning point, has retired after 44 years as a leading City politician. These and other signs tell us the City has embarked on a new era. The City Plan 2040 seeks to accommodate a changed post-Covid world, to make the Square Mile a ‘destination’ for visitors, and much more desirable for employees and therefore businesses. Underneath the optimism lies a permafrost of existential concern and debate. Firstly in financial terms, the ability of the City’s principal public expression, the Stock Exchange, to compete effectively with global rivals. This is a problem for all stock markets when compared to Wall Street and its sustained bull market driven by tech and its dominance in the US economy. Perhaps a more protectionist US will prompt investors to revalue London’s and the European exchanges. And secondly, expressed by what former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone rudely used to refer to as ‘the Heritage Taliban’, the fear that adding 1.2m sq m of office space in the next 16 years, the chief policy of the new City Plan, will damage the historic built environment. A debate expressed in the battle between Bevis Marks Synagogue and proposals for 1 Undershaft, and more general debate around new-build versus re-use. See the Examination in Public for how it plays out. We had a similar debate in the mid 1980s, over a different set of threats, for similar reasons. It’s always been like this, as Michael Cassidy would testify. Hard fought-over turf with blows exchanged between old and new in an undersized ring (with plenty of underused corners). The City remains an engine of growth, as the refashioning of Broadgate and the vertical thrust of the Cluster testify. The new plan seeks to re-import more desirable urbane qualities neglected in Big Bang’s dash to globalisation, and essential attractors in the unending war for talent. New schemes pay for that. Recent criticism in the FT of proposals for Smithfield meat market, that the new Museum of London and whatever happens to the, er, rump of the market and its surrounds, will in some way be ‘sham urbanism’ are understandable. It is a shame the market is going (even 30 years after traders embarrassed the Corporation by packing not only meat but also their local ward). Such criticism is however ‘nostalgie de la boue’ as the French put it. We are unlikely to persuade woolly mammoths to reinhabit northern England, no matter how much that might appeal to conservation, or indeed conservative, instincts. A ‘Saved’ Smithfield meat market would end up equally sham, unrealistically financially privileged, and markets generally do not thrive in aspic. CAF events in the second half of the year exemplified the changes the City is experiencing. We visited Fletcher Priest’s refurbishment of One Exchange Place on the north east flank of Broadgate now underway for La Salle Investment and a Malaysian pension fund. This behemoth was one of SOM’s larger experiments in Post-Modernism when completed in the early 90s, contrasting with the robust modernism of Exchange House which bridges the rail tracks. New cladding, extra floor space, reduced atria, the introduction of a much more generous public link, with retail, penetrating through the scheme will create vital connections between Exchange Square and Bishopsgate, omitted from the original design, and vastly improve what this very large building has to offer, crucially avoiding redevelopment. A fruitful combo’ of good architecture and more powerful urbanism. A joint presentation from Fleet Street Quarter Business Improvement District and the City’s Built Environment team at Temple Bar later in the autumn proved popular and revealed how the area will be transformed. The Corporation however now has no less than five BIDs competing to transform their respective areas and this caused some concerns to be raised by members at a meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee in November, not least around the Corporation’s capacity to deliver the public realm improvements the BIDs are promoting and the one-size-fits-all model for BID management which has rapidly evolved. To cap the second half, CAF’s annual dinner in November was a sell-out. The Corporation’s New Built Environment director Katie Stewart confirmed she is a breath of fresh air, promising collaboration between public and private to achieve the City Plan’s aims. She paid tribute to Michael Cassidy who had announced his resignation on the same day. Her co-speaker, 20th Century Society Chair, Hugh Pearman, had a pragmatic proposal. Why not treat City office buildings as the temporary structures they appear to be, as the planning system treats large industrial plants, and by-pass all that agonising about whether and how they should be redeveloped? They could be cheaper and more adventurous…and there goes another squadron of flying pigs. He also gave a sneak preview of City buildings now sufficiently ancient (more than 30 years old) for the Society to be receiving petitions for their listing. The Gothic PoMo cathedral Minster Court, for example. You have been warned. With revived energy and waxing influence, the Forum will continue to offer an enjoyable space for debate, learning, and observation of the new momentum in the City’s long life – the new schemes emerging, the market and social forces and policies shaping its future. Membership of the City Architecture Forum is one of the best places to acquire and augment knowledge of what the City and its built environment is all about. Essential, in fact. With seasonal felicitations, Lee Mallett, CAF Committee member
What if we were to use circular economy as a business strategy?
The circular economy seeks to decouple economic growth from resource consumption by creating value in new ways. This directly address’ issues of resource scarcity, productivity and climate footprint through new business models and customer experiences. Organisations such as the World Economic Forum, OECD and the EU have recognised the importance of a circular economy to achieving global economic and environmental goals. The principles of a circular economy can help projects tackle even the hardest-to-mitigate aspects of their climate footprint. Below is a summary of findings from each of the tables at the CAF/ARUP Knowledge Cafe that was held in October 2019. Economics and Policy Table Discussion – Incentive for developers to design for re-use or a life of 200 years, or – Short lifecycle but hyper-reusable therefore super flexible – Think about the cost and the risk (material costs rising, would this change sell back or lease costs)? – Would this make the asset decrease or increase in value in a different way? – Who would be liable for issues with the material ie a leak? – This doesn’t really happen yet – A key question is how to build a community so people can share – Smaller flats with more communal space – like the new student housing model – A sacrifice is required somewhere in the system – How would actually adjusting pricing impact different people in society? Refurbishment Table Discussion – Raised floor tiles and external façade sent to be refurbished – Historically, contractors can add value from a job by reusing or recycling materials – For example, the demolition of a railway shed at Kings Cross went out to tender. Tender submitted for job at zero cost as they had realised the rail sleepers were lined with platinum – We need to be better at understanding value in materials – By 2050, 87% of existing buildings will still be in use – Reuse is often faster and cheaper – Changes in planning, for example height regulation, means you could have more floor space – Are we building space for the sake of building space or do we actually need it? – Could use a timber frame to expand, and therefore not demolish whole buil – Cost would have to be managed so as not to drop market – Poor financing model as loans had very high interest rates – Damaged sustainability agenda – For example, cars show emissions of car but do not show the emissions during its manufacturing – Long term and flexible material passport could help future proof costs of refurbishment – Digital boom will help – Service history informs risk therefore people know how to manage the building and retain the value – This could feed int BIM and use of AI in construction management – At 1 Triton Square, Arup refit previous facades after reusing and cleaning them – Brief specified BREAM excellent which then became to outstanding using marginal gains – Cultural shift in own thinking required Materials Passport Table Discussion – When was it poured? – What was in the mix? – Each slab can be tagged and catalogued – Makes it easier to track value of resource – Contrast between American and European views – Europe is more accepting of reused assets – The idea of leasing steel is a great way to buy into this – Could include consideration of this as an extra design stage (RIBA and GRIP) – Digital Object Identifiers are a potential way to meet this need – A counterpoint is that further opportunities are also needed to be able to purposefully use the information gathered – Clients as well as contractors should be aiming to lead in offering useful opportunities – Need to make it worthwhile to collect the information – Answer from group: Value comes from knowing and ensuring materials are used in the most efficient way possible (cost and sustainability benefit) – Also need to ensure information gathered is concise and accessible enough to be useful, as too much information will deter use – This however requires a good information management system – Need to also educate clients that value exists intrinsically locked within assets Planning Table Discussion – If we look at number of rooms in London and directly compare to number of residents, seems like London doesn’t have a housing problem – Shows the need for a change in the planning of our housing and breakdown in the housing market’s mechanisms – This will likely face opposition from the public – Does council tax cover this? – Potentially an incentive on those sharing spare space is a more effective solution – Is there a need to bring in extra capital gains tax for foreign purchasers and sellers? – Will require fundamental change in how new infrastructure is designed and planned – Rather than making mixed use of an area, facilitate multiple used of the same exact space (e.g. school buildings being used as educational centres during the day and community centres, polling booths in the evenings/holidays) – Need a way to test for willingness of occupiers to share space – Build this into stages of construction – AirBnB is a good existing commercial example of this – Should we address this issue first? – Group member introduced concept of site guardians – Normal room in ‘undesirable’ spaces – Can change according to requirements e.g. couples’ room – Great value for money – No ownership is possible however – Nordic countries have accepted shared ownership/ long-term renting as the norm – do we need to change our mindset? – Does Nordic model have an over reliance on the housing system though? – Good idea but is it scalable? General floor discussion – Space – why do we have to build more when so much is vacant? – We have a housing problem, but we have enough room. It is a matter of consumption. We leave offices empty, so could we use AI to match floor spaces which are vacant […]