Lahore through the car window - 2014

The first stage in addressing the context of the city is the experience of living and working in that environment. In this working experience most of the city is limited to what is viewed through the car window as security concerns prevent any real direct interaction.

From the dark heat of the guesthouse that is typical of what is called architecture being treated as a style picked out of a catalogue. The guesthouse on the outside resembles the high-end villas that are being built on projects across the Arabian Peninsula, from Dubai to Saudi Arabia. Here we have a large rendered building with no insulation in the roof or walls, large areas of glass which is ironic because nobody believes in opening the curtains, probably due to the fact that the windows are single glazed and as a result the interior gets very hot. Wall mounted air conditioning units labour to keep the environment cool, electric lights labour to provide adequate lighting that is if the power stays on. Every day there are what in the UK are referred to as power cuts that have probably not occurred since the 1970s. Here the locals refer to it as load-shedding implying that there is excess power being dumped which is clearly not the case. 

Stepping out into the heat of the day some 40+ degrees into a gated walled forecourt and into the cool of a Toyota Corolla, the exact same as I used to be run off the road in when driving in Saudi Arabia. The drive to the office takes many routes, often varied for security reasons although each route appears to be the same in that the car is passing high walls, gates patrolled by armed guards, beyond the walls villas, all large all the same basic shell dressed up in architectural styling, fake Venetian, next to fake modern, surrounded by trees. The street is lined with electricity poles with cables strung between them above the trees. The narrow streets form something of a maze, each one the same tree-lined, punctuated with low shrubs in front of the ever present high wall, uniformed guard and rifle, some sit outside, while others hideaway behind locked gates. 

There are no landmarks to define the end of the road it is the same throughout this planned community that is anything but a community as there is no interaction except between security guards and house staff. There’re many mosques that look identical as the car picks its way through the green maze, or is it that we are passing the same one on numerous occasions who can tell? Workers slowly cycle along the road on a bicycle that is synonymous with the subcontinent, usually black with a single gear and rod brakes and the name that originated in England during the first half of the 20th century. Passing the cyclist with a pair of shears clipped onto the standard rack, with the rider constantly talking on a mobile phone, probably talking to their family members doing exactly the same in Bahrain.

The gap between the walls and gates reveals what can only be described as anarchy in slow motion, the traffic, nobody gives way, everybody honks the horn, and the pushing and shoving exhibited on foot at the airport, is motorised by all manner of vehicles. Cars predominantly small boxlike vehicles made by Suzuki named ‘Mehran’. Toyota ‘Tonka’ trucks, Tuk-Tuks much like those experienced in Sri Lanka and Thailand, except the passenger compartment is closed. Then there is the unregistered version that seems to be adapted from a motorcycle. The front end is still a motorcycle with the driver on the saddle and using the handlebar in the same way. Behind him (because there are no female riders) is a bench facing forward with enough space for three men, that invariably becomes five. The bench supported on the rear axle is double sided with the women relegated to facing backwards, again enough space for three, quite often with children sitting on their laps, A single ‘Chingchee’ can have 10 to 15 people riding on it at any one time. 

Having crossed the traffic with vehicles stopping at what seems like millimetres from the window, the feeling of claustrophobia is unavoidable. On the journey through DHA (Defence Housing Authority) seems that everywhere has a military connection. Villas Hidden behind high walls, locked gates, trees and electric poles. It is time to join the traffic once again and the overall air of impatience and self-importance of every single road user: Beep! Beep! Lurch forward. Screech to a halt. The road is 4 lanes wide, that is 2 in either direction but with the number of motorcycles it could easily be 6. Motorcycles, all identical with the red fuel tank bearing the name Honda. Being ridden by so many people quite often at the same time. From the married couple with wife riding sidesaddle always facing the pavement side Younger ones, with their arm around their husband, some just holding onto the seat. Then there is the young family where the mum is holding a baby in her arms, the older child sandwiched between the mum and dad with the middle child, probably aged two sitting on the fuel tank with an expression of sheer joy on the face because they are riding in front. Crash helmets are mandatory so in some cases they are worn, but only by the rider and not his family, in some cases the rider is wearing a helmet on his elbow???

Lion Rock - Sri Lanka 2010

On setting out from Kandelema just after sunrise, the vapour rising from the jungle paints the landscape in a series of misty layers, along the dirt track to join the jungle road, to find precisely that which is not visible from the observation decks of Kandelama A city, not a modern buzzing metropolis, but an ancient city, Sigiriya, situated in plane view of from the hotel, but invisible from the distance, despite it being situated on the top of a large rock, some one hundred and eighty metres high.

Turning off the jungle road into a clearing in the trees to a very ordered environment. A perfectly straight water channel, a moat some ten metres wide, and a wall that is inpenetrable, built of large stone blocks, set at a batter, sloping back from the moat. A giant standing Buddha Statue marks the end of an east-west vista framed by the trees, the vista then leads over the moat across a bridge and into the remains of a walled city. The same sloping walls, that frame steps that form a path up through green terraces has very much the feeling of a Mayan pyramid complex as seen in books and Television documentaries, as I have not yet been to South America. According to UNESCO the city is dated around the fifth Century AD, although the organization acknowledges that the site has not been sufficiently excavated. A bit of research places the city contemporary with the classic period of the Mayan civilization, interesting…

Much of the city has been reclaimed by nature, large trees stand in courtyards and cisterns, grasses grow on the top of the walls, and it takes a bit of imagination to visualize this as a bustling city, the buildings were most probably simple open structures timber posts set atop the stone walls, probably coconut, and pitched ‘cadjan’ roof construction, a thatched roof made from coconut leaves bound together, to throw off the monsoon rains.

Climbing through the terraces and courtyards, the city becomes more and more spectacular walls frame a walkway that hugs the profile of the rock, until arriving at a plaza known as the lion’s head, climbing is hot work, and the humidity means that everything is wet. The plaza of the Lion’s head faces true North, in fact that whole city is set on an orthogonal grid aligned to true North, the plaza is dominated by the huge sculpted lion’s paws that must be at least three metres high, the lion symbolic of the Sinhalese civilization, indigenous to Sri Lanka since fifth century BC, Sinha meaning lion, Sinhala translating to lion people, this is Architecture in the purest sense.

A flight of steps rises between the lion’s paws, to lead to a one sided steel walkway that is set into the face of the rock, depressions in the rock reveal just how treacherous the climb was before the addition of the walkway, and why it makes sense to build a fortress on top of the rock if you are trying to avoid being invaded. The climb up the face of the rock, switching back and forward along the steel walkways arrives at a pair of spiral stairs, one up and one down, the climb up the spiral arrives at a platform halfway up the rock, within an inaccessible rocky shelter in the vertical wall of the western face are rock paintings which have brought universal acclaim to the site of Sigiriya - 'The Maidens of the Clouds'. UNESCO. How these paintings were made in such an inaccessible location is something of a mystery. 

Making the reverse journey on the second spiral, and continuing the climb along the face of the rock to arrive at the rock fortress, which will probably be familiar to those who grew up in the 1980s watching music videos, as this is the location featured in Duran Duran’s ‘Save a Prayer’ video, the stone walls and terraces and pools set at the same orientation as the city on the ground, at the top, the stone bases of the great hall with the sockets to receive the timber structure, and the panorama...Amazing! Breathtaking! no amount of superlatives can describe this. It is unbroken jungle in every direction, the only mark of human hands being the axis that terminates with the giant Buddha standing in a clearing in the trees. 

So what does an Architect do?

The title Architect is the subject of some debate, whether it be about the misuse of the title within the profession, or the hijacking of the title in its entirety by the IT industry, usually with the prefix Enterprise, Solutions, or any number of IT related titles, or whether it is about feeling undervalued by clients based on the perception that nobody understands what an Architect does. For example, project management, part of the administrative function of being an Architect, is undertaken by construction professionals from any number of backgrounds, from plumbing to quantity surveying, I have worked with some extremely good project managers, I have also worked with a number that have made me think I could do a far better job myself. In some cases I have found myself actually doing the project management work whist someone else has the title.

There are also titles that pigeonhole us: Concept Architect, Technical Architect, Interior Architect, Project Architect, Site Architect, Consultant Architect, Chief Architect, Principal Architect, Senior Architect, Junior Architect, Lead Architect...and so on, it seems that the title Architect is not enough to describe what we do. In my career to date since qualification my titles have varied: Project Architect, Associate, Project Manager, Senior Architect, Lead Designer, Senior Urban Designer, Chief Architect, Lead Urban Designer. I have assumed the role of team leader on many occasions, been heavily involved in associated disciplines of Urban Design, Masterplanning , Landscape Architecture, so what does an architect do? Well actually, all of the above, and more. Drawing, model making, report writing, marketing, public speaking, the list is kind of endless.

Lost in space - Frankfurt 1998

When the traveller arrives from sunny Birmingham to arrive at its twin town, Frankfurt after flying through the turbulence, the Boeing 737 descends into Germany on a decidedly grey day to arrive at the even greyer airport. I think we really touched down in Dusseldorf and drove to Frankfurt, the runway was so long! The German organisation takes the traveller from the plane, straight onto a walkway towards Baggage Retrieval.Walking between a forest of grey steel columns, on a shiny grey tiled floor, past grey metal panelling, beneath grey steel roof beams and cladding, and past grey glazing. Following grey signs, efficiently written in German and English, the unsuspecting traveller arrives onto the main concourse at Frankfurt Airport, the grey signs inform them that there are two Baggage Retrieval areas to choose from. Unfortunately the grey signs do not tell travellers which gate they arrive at or that there are indeed two terminals or which one they are in. So choosing Baggage retrieval areas becomes a bit of a challenge. On asking a security guard, who was not dressed in grey! And looked like Thor, the Norse Thunder God, as depicted in Douglas Adams’ Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. Thor says that he speaks very little English then proceeds in in perfect English to give directions involving going upstairs to 'Baggage Retrieval E'. Already being on the top floor, and reading Thor's directions as meaning downstairs and descending some stairs, well it was actually a stationary escalator, into a totally deserted passport control area, except for Thor's mate. Thor's mate who also looks like Thor was standing outside some kind of grey sentry box, and speaking even better English than Thor and being most helpful. The German Security Guard is decidedly military in appearance, dressed in dark green flat cap with red band, khaki shirt, dark green trousers with red belt, and black boots. It is the automatic rifle that gives it away. The sentry box has a khaki coloured telephone that Thor II was using at the time to speak in German to his comrade to find out how it is possible to not benefit from Germany's fabled hyper efficient organisation. An inspection of the tickets confirms that this is indeed the wrong place, actually the wrong terminal, and should go to 'Baggage Retrieval D.' So it's back up or is it down? the stationary escalator. Past tonnes of grey steel, this Fosteresque approach is all very well but could do with a bit of colour here and there. Through passport control, more sentry boxes and a very stringent, efficient look at my passport, and through to a dormant conveyor belt. Where there was an architectural model. This model at Birmingham's Eurohub, airport, was the right way up when the passport-control-baggage-checking-in-type-of-female-person placed 'FRAGILE' stickers on the top. But was sitting on the conveyor in a definitely inverted position which after following Thor's directions this was not exactly a surprise. On passing countless dormant baggage carousels, walking onto the final dead carousel to retrieve baggage, it just had to be the last one.  This grey monster of a building, is extremely large and significantly under-populated. Maybe Frankfurt is anticipating a huge influx of trade in the future. So eventually passing through some automatic sliding doors to be greeted with the anticipated questions about not being able to find our way out of the grey steel maze?

 Why we didn't use the 'Skytrain'?

'What Skytrain?'

From the Air

This is a post that was written a year ago whilst working on a major urban development project in Pakistan and getting to grips with the complexity of the project which is essentially the planning of a city the size of Dubai, as the intensity of the project eases off for a while, there is a small window to reflect on the experience and what is being asked of the team, here is one from one of those rare occasions that on a flight out of Pakistan when it is daylight and I actually have a clear view out of the window, and what a view! 

Most of the fellow travellers on the flight want to sleep the whole way, which results in many annoying requests from the airline staff asking me to close the shutter on the window, which are all politely refused, and this is what they are all missing. 

As the ageing airliner ascends from Lahore, over the Ravi River and the agricultural lands punctuated with sometimes quite large organic developments, the landscape gradually becomes less fertile as the fields give way to rock outcroppings, that become the foothills of the Himalaya as the territory changes to Afghanistan followed by the deserts of Uzbekistan and the rocky landscape of Kazakstan before passing over the vastness that is Russia. The landscape from 30,000 feet is very green, huge agricultural fields punctuated by lakes and forests and the occasional compact city. 

As the landscape passes by very slowly the territories, change from Russia, to Belarus, then Poland and Germany without much change in the continuum of green, until forested slopes of the green valleys, compact towns and cities, nestled in the landscape give way to the flat patchwork that is the agricultural fields of the Netherlands.

Passing along the River Rhine south of Rotterdam and over the white steel wings of the Maeslantkering, a huge storm surge barrier, one of the world's largest moving structures, forming a vital component of the sea defences that make Holland so unique, and so over the busy shipping lanes of the Channel, to another major construction in white steel, the elegant wings and slender towers of the vast London Array, dramatic against the blue of the calm waters, dwarfing the ships passing along the channel, the project is partly funded by Masdar along with European energy providers, DONG and EON, the turbines are developed by Siemens, the installation is capable of generating 630MW, enough to power 500,000 homes, without burning a single drop of fuel or emitting a single kilogram of carbon dioxide. 

Passing over the Red Sands forts that once provided a vital defence of a different kind to the Thames Estuary and the city of London, following the river inland to the south of Corringham, the giant cranes of the new Thames Deep Water Port at Thurrock dominates the skyline, the first component of a masterplan to develop a major distribution hub. Heading towards the QE2 Bridge, the Brent Oil refinery and the Dartford Power Station emphasise the significance that the River still holds to the region. The QE2 Bridge also known as the Dartford Crossing where the M25, the London Orbital Motorway splits into two, the clockwise lanes crossing the bridge, whilst the anti-clockwise lanes pass beneath the river through the Dartford Tunnel.

It is curious how countries with greater areas of land have developed their towns in a the compact manner and when passing above England a country with a far lesser landmass the approach followed in Essex seems to be of suburban sprawl punctuated with golf courses, that spread out from established towns. 

Heading along the Thames, past the Royal Docks and the glistening stainless steel shells of the Thames Barrier, the tide of transition from industrial wasteland to vibrant urban centre on and around the Greenwich peninsula is clearly visible, with the Dome as its centerpiece, fed by river ferries and cable cars. Heading North on the approach to Heathrow, along the River Lea and over the impressive Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and on to Wembley, before looping back to look at Greenwich once more before descending to the vast concrete surface that makes up Heathrow, I cannot help but be amazed and more than a little staggered by humanity’s impact on the surface of the planet. 

3 year old navigation - Canary Wharf 2011

From Canning Town on the Jubilee line for two stops and into the world of Foster, a cavernous space with oval columns reaching up to concrete ribs that support the world above the ticket hall, with its automatic entry gates activated by touching in and out with an ‘Oyster’ card and an orderly flow of passengers to and from the trains. A guitarist plays at the foot of the main escalator bank, making a very good instrumental metal interpretation of John Lennon’s Imagine. Both sides of the ticket hall lead directly into below ground shopping centres that run between the towers, something akin to Mike Davis’ City of quartz where he talks of rich people having their own streets, patrolled by private police forces.

The domain below ground is best navigated by my three-year-old daughter, from getting off the underground train at Canary Wharf, she knows where the lift is to get to ticket hall level, which buttons to press, which side to be on when we get to the barriers so she can get through with her buggy where she says hello to the orange man (man in hi-vis orange jacket). Once through the barriers she gets her copy the morning newspaper ‘City AM’ from the lady and heads over to the next lift, most of the big people go up the escalators sometimes some of them are not working, and other times they are all working depending on how many people there are. Sometimes we share the lift with other people in buggies, sometimes with a lady in a wheelchair. 


Once out of the lift we have to keep left to avoid all the people rushing back towards us from the top of the escalators to get to work through the shopping centre, they are all in a rush sometimes reading a book whilst walking along. My daughter knows the way to her creche, she knows the way to her Mummy’s office and where to pickup the ‘Evening Standard’ from a different lady in the afternoon and the way to her favourite food place after work. 


There is another lift that leads down to the car park, but we have to put our tokens in the machine first we don’t use the car very often, but it’s good when we do because she gets to use her scooter. For her, the shopping centre is a large friendly place where it is good to run around, then sit on benches or hide under them, and watch all the other people going by. She knows which train takes her to Canning Town. At rush hour the platform is occupied by orderly queues of people waiting by the sliding doors that line up with the train when it arrives. She knows where to go to get on the DLR, and which line is the best to get her home. I find it quite amazing that the area my daughter knows so well is a whole world that did not exist when I first visited the Docklands in 1989.

A ride up the escalator to a plaza in front of the glass canopy, which is located in a lush green park known as Jubilee Gardens, with rolling lawns where on sunny days she can run around on the grass or play with the water, on a raised water feature that threads its way between the tree canopies, just about seeing over the wall, and likes to watch it flowing down like a stream.