archive 2006

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19 June 2006

Culture Minister David Lammy's keynote address to CABE: 'The Cost of Bad Design'

Introduction

1. I am very grateful to CABE for inviting me to speak at this event.  At the start of Architecture Week last Friday I launched "Laying the Foundations", a joint DCMS-DfES publication at the RIBA.  It contains case studies on using the built environment as an educational resource, to encourage teachers to use this rich cultural asset on their doorstep.  On Wednesday I am also looking forward to attending a Design Review session to see how CABE promotes high quality design in practice. 

2. Throughout the last year while I've been Minister for Culture, in the normal course of my work I have seen some great new buildings, like the Jubilee Library in Brighton and the Peckham Library, and the week before last the Eden Project.  I have also met with David Adjaye to talk about architectural issues, and with David Chipperfield in Wakefield to discuss his great design for the new Hepworth Gallery.  I have discussed the plans for the inspirational new museum in Liverpool with Kim Herforth Nilesen of Danish architects 3XN.  I have more recently been to see the imaginative designs for the new extension at the Whitechapel Gallery and met their designer, Flemish architect Paul Robbrecht.  I look forward to announcing the shortlist for the Prime Minister's award for Better Public Buildings later this summer. 

Portfolio – Historic Environment

3. I am also responsible for the historic environment.  Being Culture Minister is a bit like being that Roman god Janus – you look both ways, preserving the historically and architecturally important buildings as guardian of the Listing system, and forward to exciting new architecture through responsibility for architectural design, and sponsorship of CABE.

4. Our reform of the heritage protection system is one of our strategic aims for the built environment sector, and is an important part of the planning reform process.  Parts of the heritage protection process may work well, but the system as a whole is confusing and complex. 

5. Our reforms are necessary and designed to tackle this by streamlining regulation where we can, and by introducing greater openness and flexibility to the system as a whole.  We have begun to make changes to improve the system now by streamlining the administration of the listing system, and we will be introducing clearer guidance on the criteria used for listing buildings.

6. In the longer term, we intend to unify the different forms of listing buildings; scheduling ancient monuments; and registering parks, gardens and battlefields into a single Register of Historic Sites and Buildings of England.   This will help people to find out what is protected and why it is important.  It will make designation decisions easier to understand, and enable more effective management of historic properties.  I hope that because it will be easier it will help to reawaken the public's interest in their historic built environment.

7. We want to introduce a single heritage consent, replacing scheduled monument consent and listed building consent to streamline the consent process.  And we want to introduce a new option of Heritage Partnership Agreements, statutory management agreements that will enable a proactive approach to managing large historic sites and reduce bureaucratic burdens on owners and local authorities.

8. This Review represents the biggest change to heritage protection legislation in a more than a generation. These are complex changes, and it is important to get them right.

Bad Design

9. You will have heard about some outstanding examples of bad design tonight and in that sense tonight's topic is close to my heart.  As some of you will know I grew up in Tottenham.   It was a Tottenham during the very tense 1970s and 1980s.  For many of us living on the terraced streets and estates it was really very depressing.  The area wasn't liberating, the public services were unresponsive, the authorities dismissive, and all too often the architecture wasn't right. Many of those housing estates were a legacy of the Modernist utopians, instead of solving problems they were built to address, such developments created new and worse problems. Bad design and lack of sufficient investment combined and planners and local authorities failed to work together.  Broadwater farm today is a beacon of success and has won many awards for successful regeneration but I remember many times walking in the tunnels under the estate amongst the burnt out cars and drug paraphernalia seeing just how wrong things were .

10. I am sure its architects and planners meant well – but it is not an abstract theoretical game.  All too often I wince at the poor buildings my constituents have inherited from a previous era which they experience everyday.  Bad design affects people and their life chances for years afterwards.  There are many people in our city areas who live in a postcode that by virtue of the area's image means it's difficult for them to get a job or move up in the world.  As Jane Jacobs said, "Architecture and urban design may not determine human behaviour, but bad design can numb the human spirit".

11. Of course architecture and design are not the sole ingredients of our experience.  Design has to be good but it also has to be well maintained, to avoid the "broken window" syndrome of decline through neglect which can happen to any building however well designed.  Unless a community's environment 'belongs' to it, it will not be cared for. 

12. How do we encourage this sense of belonging, of place?  I have seen the transformational role culture, and architecture as part of culture, can play in tackling poverty of both economically, and perhaps more importantly of the spirit.  Hence why in DCMS we have been campaigning to ensure that culture is at the heart of regeneration, both at a local and national level.  If a community cares about its environment and has pride in it, it tends to look after it.   We must not make the same mistakes as the past, building houses but putting in the infrastructure. We need to be ambitious.

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Better Public Buildings

13. High standards of architectural design are just as important to the Government today as they were when we launched the Better Public Buildings initiative in 2000.  As you may know, Tessa Jowell was appointed Government Design Champion last October, and she has undertaken a series of engagements in this capacity, to ensure that the Better Public Buildings message is still very firmly on the agenda of other Departments' capital programmes.  

14. Indeed it is more important than ever given the enormous public building programme now underway.  We've got, "Building Schools for the Future", new health buildings, and new homes.  Sixteen thousand schools and children's centres will be built or refurbished.  Over £18 billion will be spent on health buildings, and 1.1 million homes are needed.  I know CABE is closely involved on all these fronts, and I wholeheartedly support its efforts to ensure that high standards of design are achieved.

The social value of architecture

15. Architecture synthesizes a large number of often conflicting pressures to produce something of beauty and grace that engages our emotions and intellect, and tells us something about who we are. In other words architecture is building that works well, lasts well and communicates well.   The meanings buildings carry make their experience such a big part of a culture.

16. This is not about what has been called the 'wow' factor of modern architecture, important as that is, but about the social values that architecture reflects.  We know that design quality contributes to a safer, less intimidating environment.   But it is also a symbol of the value that society grants to its members - respect is a two way street and you have to give it to receive it.

17. To ensure that public institutions are taken seriously they need to be designed to respect the public who use them.  I am sure we can all think of examples that achieve the opposite.  It is therefore vital for us to remember that the wider quality of our built environment and our public buildings are powerful signals to the people who live with them and use them.   We cannot afford architects who revel in being neglected artists, a misunderstood elite in retreat from the world.  They need a dialogue with politics and the public, architecture should be very much part of our political discussion.

Public buildings more than just efficiency

18. For our part we need to invest properly in the fabric of public buildings; we think that the design of these institutions and where they sit in their locality can be as important as their role and purpose, for example look at banks and many Government buildings at a local level; each reflects the value placed on their users by the institutions.

19. Buildings are a potent symbol of our identity as individuals, as institutions and of society – the better public buildings agenda in government is important because it offers an opportunity not just to improve public services but also to reflect the way we see ourselves as a modern democracy, our identity as a nation.

20. So that means going beyond service efficiency and economy - it goes without saying – we don't simply have to build public buildings that are 'good enough'.  Through design excellence we can raise the aspirations of those who work in them and use them.  The quality of our new architecture and the built environment gives us an opportunity to create a physical legacy comparable to the Victorians.   Amidst the biggest building programme since the war it's important that we ask ourselves what we want to say about our society today.  How do we want Britain to be remembered at the turn of the millennium? How can we live up to the very best of the nation and be true to the spirit that won us the Olympics?

21. The Olympics is a case in point.  It's not just about delivering to time and budget.  That of course is essential - but the Games will be about saying something about Britain in the early 21st century.

22. The cultural symbolism, reflecting our identity and social values, of architecture links to 'happiness' as described by Richard Layard, and people's quality of life.  Visual quality enhances life satisfaction – surveys support the idea that better places make us happier people and this is after all what this Government is about.

Government's record

23. What have we achieved?  We created CABE in 1999 to promote high quality design – for the many, not the few.  Since it was set up DCMS has invested over £20 million in CABE, and by the end of 2007-08, nearly £30 million.  To its credit, CABE has also attracted funding from old ODPM (now DCLG), and many other Government departments.  CABE has been a great example of joined up Government in action.  Much has been achieved to get architecture into the blood stream of the nation.  There is much evidence that the tide is turning, for example the Prime Minister's award winners, the new Home Office, the Sage, Islington Idea Centre, the Gherkin, the story goes on and on.

24. CABE has worked closely with the Treasury to ensure that high design standards are embodied and promoted in the PFI process.  It has worked with OGC to ensure that they are well embedded in the OGC's "Common Minimum standards".  These explicitly state that building projects must be selected on the basis of whole life value for money not just capital cost.  All public building projects now have the incentive to match the standards set by the best buildings in the country.  I endorse John Sorrell's call for the Treasury to ensure that its "Green Book", the bible for achieving efficiency in public capital projects, to require long-term thinking on design quality.  We need to acknowledge the potential risks of higher long-term costs and poorer performance from buildings that are poorly designed.  

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But much more to do

25. CABE's Housing Audits suggest that there is still a lot to do. There is too much unacceptably poor design, a quarter of all private housing built recently in North and South East.  We should know better by now not to repeat mistakes and I am glad CABE is till acting as the watchdog in this area, occasionally biting us and producing reports that make us feel uncomfortable.  However is nothing if not constructive in the way it works; for example it is working with the House Builders Federation and the major large volume house builders, in particular to have design champions within the industry to drive up standards.

26. As well as this, there is still too much bad design where people work and shop.  That's why I want to say something about buildings other than public ones, the commercial ones going up around the country.  The soullessness of artificially lit offices, offices that make their occupants sick.  Chains have in the past dumped faceless and ugly buildings on Britain's towns – I'm sure you can think of plenty of examples.  Too many supermarkets and DIY stores that look like huge faceless boxes or badly converted warehouses that induce a headache within minutes.

27. It is ironic that superstore chains have spent fortunes on marketing style-conscious and cheap furnishings while appearing to give no thought to what their shops look like from outside.  On the outside stores like Ikea, Sainsburys, Tesco, Homebase and B&Q look like enormous versions of the Tetra Paks they sell inside.  These companies need to recognize they have a huge impact on the look and feel of communities, particularly new communities.

28. True there have been some improvements in design of new retail developments, in particular new developments in town centres, but many are still lacking in design quality.  The impact of modern retail development on the built environment is a key challenge that designers must address.  New retail developments should relate to their surroundings in a positive manner.

29. We want new retail development to create vibrant and viable places which attract investment. The design of buildings and how they link into the surrounding townscape is a key part of that.  From 10 August, I am glad to say that the government's new design and access statements will mean that any application for a new supermarket will require a statement of design principles in order to be approved.  This is important. Those of you who have traveled in America will hope that what you see in some places there is not repeated here.

The challenges

30. We face many daunting challenges and architecture has to respond to them:

• Climate change and pressures on natural resources; buildings account for 45% of all the UK's carbon emissions
• Ageing population, with the particular needs that come from that
• Security
• A more global economy
• Increasing pace of technological change and innovation; and of course
• 2012 Olympic Games

Global economy - architecture as one of the creative industries

31. Just to take one of these.  Our creative industries already account for more than 8% of our GDP; more than 4% of our export income.  They provide jobs for two million people.  In the last eight years, they have been growing by twice the rate of the rest of the economy, creating three times as many jobs and exporting four times as many goods and services.  However the UK's current strength in creative industries depends on its willingness and ability to innovate.  Only if we nurture the creative industries will they continue to provide us with real opportunities.

32. To meet this challenge DCMS launched the Creative Economy Programme in November last year.  It aims to create the best framework to support the innovation, growth and productivity of our Creative Industries.  Our goal is to make the UK the world's creative hub.  The Creative Economy Programme will bring together publicly funded bodies and enable them to develop pioneering new projects in partnership.

33. The Programme hopes to gain coherence over existing public programmes in the creative economy; identify new projects emerging in the field; and policy ideas to develop a strategic framework for this work in the future.  We want to engage architects importantly in that process, and already Julia Barfield is on the Industry Steering group. 

34. CABE are ably running one of the seven working groups, the Infrastructure group, and representing the sector at high level meetings with the Secretary of State. 

Government's aspirations

35. To conclude, architecture and design does matter – it communicates identity and values.  A sense of place encourages social cohesion.  It is a vital part of quality of life. If you look at some of the challenges facing Britain at this time – civil renewal, the interface of race and faith, multiculturalism, respect, anti-social behaviour – architecture and design are an important part of that.   It is important for us to ensure that

• the public's awakened interest in building design through such programmes as Restoration and Demolition is channelled in a positive and forward looking way 
• architects and planners consult and communicate with communities in a meaningful way
• we have the skills needed to make our new communities sustainable – I applaud the establishment of the Academy for Sustainable Communities which DCMS looks forward to working with more closely; and
• the next generation is properly equipped to understand and engage with their built environment.

36. On this last point, I am pleased to say we are at the threshold of an exciting project which will be piloted in the three regions from September, "Engaging Places", to promote the use of the built environment in a holistic way as an educational resource.  We need to strive to create an ethos in society that values quality in buildings and public spaces.  To do that we need to instil as early as possible in the educational process the awareness and capacity to understand architectural values.   We don't just want young people to know about it, we also want them to want to become architects themselves.

37. As the Architects' Council of Europe says:

"Architecture is a fundamental feature of history, culture and the fabric of life… it represents an essential means of artistic expression in the daily life of citizens and it constitutes the heritage of tomorrow.  A sense of belonging, of identity is an important feature of human society and culture.  Architectural expression is frequently the carrier of such cultural and social needs and it is therefore important that these influences are adequately accounted for in design". 

I could not agree more. Thank you.

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