Memorandum by the Chelsea Society (CAB
08)
SUMMARY
(i) The Chelsea Society
The Chelsea Society is the leading amenity society
in Chelsea a place which, because of its distinctive, attractive
squares and the quality of many of its buildings, is largely covered
by Conservation Areas. It is, in all but name, a World Conservation
Site.
The Society has on four occasions recently
had direct experience of how CABE works and this experience, plus
CABE publications, have been drawn upon in writing this memorandum.
(ii) Design Review
Respondents to the inquiry are asked for their
views CABE's priorities for investment and development. This is
not something on which the Chelsea Society feels qualified to
comment. Suffice it to say that, with Britain still being blighted
by inappropriate and often downright ugly developments, the Chelsea
Society supports to continuation of CABE as a body charged by
the government to promote excellence in architecture, civic design
and master planning. The main focus of this memorandum is,
therefore, on design review, a function of which the Society has
experience and which it believes can and should be refined.
(iii) Reviewing design not promoting development
The work of CABE's design review panel has hitherto
had two aspects: first, assessing the quality of architecture
and civic design in a selection of schemes; and, second, the championing,
following review, of what are regarded as good developments. In
the Society's view the Commission's design review committee should
confine its work to assessing schemes with a view to raising their
quality.
For CABE to champion commercial developments,
however well designed, is not in the public interest. It is not
for CABE to use design review to influence the decisions of local
planning authorities but to raise the quality of what goes before
planning committees.
(iv) Tall buildings
The ODPM (and its predecessors), CABE and English
Heritage have, for several years, been seeking to resolve the
problems raised by tall buildings. "Guidance on Tall Buildings"
2001, for instance, says: "Government policy is to get the
right developments in the right places. It states that tall buildings
should be of the highest architectural quality and designed in
full cognisance of their likely impact on their immediate surroundings
and the wider environment." The Chelsea Society applauds
this guidance but suspects that the Design Review Panel has failed
to digest its meaning.
It is a fallacy to think that, if a tall
building is well designed, it must be a good neighbour. To live
in the shadow of tall buildings, to be overlooked by people living
or working in tall buildings, to suffer the unavoidable wind blasts
at the foot of tall buildings are all nuisances created by tall
buildings good or bad. In its assessment of proposed towers in
Chelsea and at South Kensington Station, it can only be concluded
that CABE was not abiding by its own guidance.
The Chelsea Society believes that CABE needs,
in particular, to address the special problems created by building
high close to streets of terrace houses or in the midst of conservation
areas. The Society is not aware of a single instance of a tall
office or residential tower that adds delight to streets of 19
century three or four storey houses. When CABE reviews a proposed
tall building in a historic district or near a conservation area,
its first questions should be: What would be the effect of this
building on its context? And is this tower necessary or is it
either pure commerce or a reflection of the egotism of its designer?"
There is no evidence that this is what CABE
does. At Lots Road Power Station, where every residents' association
is against towers altogether, CABE suggested that two tall towers
be replaced by one. At South Kensington Station CABE gave its
support to "a civic marker" (a "gasometer"
office tower) in the midst of one of the most famous residential
districts in the world, one distinguished for its squares and
crescents and its decorated brick and stucco terraces.
CABE even sought to justify the "gasometer"
on the grounds that it would contribute to regeneration. Such
an argument could well be valid in Hackney or Hartlepool, but
is there a place in Britain where regeneration is less relevant
than in South Kensington?
(v) Sustainability
Current policy on "sustainability"
provides, amongst other things, that buildings not needed for
their original purpose should, if possible, be reused. This argument
has been used in Chelsea at the Power House in Alpha Place to
support the retention and expansion of a former electricity sub-station.
How far should this policy be taken? Should buildings, however
ugly and ill-formed, be retained in order to conserve resources?
Notwithstanding repeated references in its literature to the
need to take account of context (see "Building in Context,
2002"), CABE seems to place higher value on lively new architecture,
whatever its scale or bulk, than on the relationship of buildings
to their settings. CABE should review its approach to the reuse
of buildings located in historic towns and conservation areas.
In such places context merits being given the highest value.
(vi) Bringing
accountability to design review
The Royal Hospital is the work of both Sir Christopher
Wren and Sir John Soane and, as an architectural set piece, ranks
in importance with Greenwich and Hampton Court. Following changes
in care home legislation the hospital has been obliged to modernise
its infirmary and plans are accordingly being drawn up to replace
the present one which was built in the 1960s.
Plans have yet to be submitted to the local
planning authority but, so sensitive is the project in design
terms, that three firms of architects have already been involved.
Yet there is a serious risk that, even now, the new infirmary
will be no better than lacklustre. CABE has been involved behind
the scenes in pressing for design of the highest quality but the
Society only knows about this involvement via Councillors and
residents close to the hospital. Is this for the best?
Where controversial proposals of this kind are
involved, would it not be better for CABE to bring them out into
the open and make them the subject of public debate? Civic societies
and residents, instead of being kept in the dark, could be enabled
to play a greater part in shaping their environments. It is also
the case that, as a general rule, CABE needs to listen to people
who will be affected by the schemes which it reviews. Had this
been done in the case of the Royal Hospital, current uncertainties
might have been avoided.
The Society believes that ways must be found
to make the design review process more open. Public debate about
the quality of architecture and public places promises to create
a better informed public. CABE should, for instance, consider
holding open debates at places where controversial buildings are
proposed.
(vii) Membership
of the Panel
CABE's design review panel embraces modernist
and neo-classical architects but it is still too narrowly based.
Even though English Heritage is represented at review meetings,
the panel is lacking in conservation expertise and in understanding
of the role of development control. Additional expertise is needed
in architectural history and town planning and in the design and
management of the public realm. There should, above all, be a
balance between members directly involved in the commerce of development
and construction and those who are not.
The Society urges the inclusion in the design
review panel of more expertise in architectural history, town
planning and the public realm. Members from civic societies with
experience of working in historic places are needed too. Above
all a balance needs to be struck between those with commercial
interests and those with nothing to gain from development. Unless
a balance is struck the judgements of the design review panel
will lack objectivity.
1. INTRODUCTION
The Chelsea Society has about 1,600 members
and is the leading civic society in its district. The Society
plays a vigorous role in public life, holds regular exhibitions,
lectures and meetings and, with the Kensington Society, has periodic,
formal meetings with the Leader of the Royal Borough. Many informal
contacts are made with residents, businesses, Councillors and
Council staff. The Society has a standing sub-committee which
exists to vet all planning applications and, where appropriate,
makes representations on them to the Council and other relevant
bodies.
Chelsea is, of course, a world famous address
that is notable for the richness of its historical and architectural
endowment. It is predominantly covered by Conservation Areas and
is, in all but name, a World Heritage Site.
Within the last three years four applications
on which CABE has made observations have come to the notice of
the Society:
— Lots Road Power Station
— The Power House, Alpha Place
— South Kensington Underground Station*
— The proposed infirmary, Chelsea Royal
Hospital
* The Underground Station is, of course, in South
Kensington and not in Chelsea but, as the tower proposed for the
top of it would have been widely visible from Chelsea, the Society
took a keen interest in the case and worked closely with the Brompton
Association and the Kensington Society.
The Society's experience of CABE as gained through
these applications will inform much of this memorandum. Reference
will also be made to such CABE publications as "Design Review:
Guidance . . . ", "Design Reviewed: Issue 1, February
2004", letters from CABE's Head of Design Review to scheme
architects, and the Commission's website www.cabe.org.uk.
2. CABE'S OVERALL
PRIORITIES FOR
INVESTMENT AND
DEVELOPMENT
The ODPM Committee asks respondents first to
consider CABE's "overall priorities for investment and development".
This issue is beyond the Chelsea Society's experience but it does
prompt the question whether or not there is a role for a national
body charged with being, as CABE is, a "champion for better
places". (Design Review, Page 2.)
A case can no doubt be made for abolishing CABE,
but since thoughtless and ugly new development is all too common
all over Britain, and since the Society has worked tirelessly
since 1927 to avert such ugliness in its own patch, it would be
contradictory to argue against a national body with similar aims.
We therefore warmly support CABE in its efforts
to raise standards in architecture, civic design and master planning.
We recognise too, that this difficult task requires dedicated
and often unnoticed diplomatic skills. The main focus of this
memorandum is, therefore, on design review, a function of which
the Society has experience and which it believes can and should
be refined.
3. DESIGN REVIEW
Design review should be an objective analysis
of quality in buildings, spaces and places. Too often it appears
to be a matter of tastes and, as is well known, taste varies from
period to period and person to person. Taste is affected too by
fashion and by competing ideologies. This means that, at any given
time, there will be competing views about what is and what is
not "good design". It is important for CABE to be frank
about this and to avoid partiality in judgements that flow from
design review.
Design review is therefore about quality and
in CABE's hands its purpose, like assessment in other professional
fields, is to reduce the risk of mistakes and to raise standards.
More precisely it is about informing architects and planners about
ways to improve the quality of their schemes and fit them better
to their surroundings. In the Society's view the Commission's
design review committee should confine its work to assessing schemes
with a view to raising their quality.
For CABE to champion commercial developments,
however well designed, is not in the public interest. It is not
for CABE to use design review to influence the decisions of local
planning authorities but to raise the quality of what goes before
planning committees.
The Chelsea Society will now use its direct
experience of CABE's work to respond to the issues raised by the
ODPM Committee under the heading of "the work of the design
review panel".
4. THE CHELSEA
SOCIETY'S
EXPERIENCE OF
CABE
(a) Lots Road Power Station
This is a very large, Thames-side development
designed by Terry Farrell & Partners for Circadian and Hutchinson
Whampoa. The mixed use scheme, which lies partly in Fulham and
partly in Chelsea, is to a very high residential density. At 667
habitable rooms per hectare it is two to three times the highest
density recommended in their plans by both Hammersmith and Fulham
and Kensington and Chelsea Councils.
For the Chelsea Society, and other local societies,
it is objectionable for this very high density and for two very
tall blocks of flats—now somewhat reduced to 37 and 25 floors.
The site, it should be noted, is far from the Underground (both
Kensington and Hammsermith and Fulham Councils locate it in their
lowest level for "public transport accessibility").
Furthermore, as the two towers were absent from Sir Terry Farrell's
earliest scheme, it appears that the development would be commercially
viable without them. The towers appeared only after Councillor
Barry Phelps of RBK&C and Mayor Livingstone spoke in favour
of tall buildings.
Sir Terry in due course took his scheme to CABE
before submitting it formally to the two planning authorities.
It then went through various permutations and as there is no summary
report about it on the Website, the Society is relying on letters
by CABE to the architects which were copied to the Royal Borough
of Kensington and Chelsea and are on file in the Town Hall.
CABE's first letter (31 January 2001) contains
the following points:
"we would like to see the scheme go ahead"
"we are not convinced about the form
of the two `gateway' residential towers"
"it would be better for there to be a
single tall building . . . a tall building on this prominent site
needs to be of the highest quality in terms of design and materials".
A second letter, when the scheme was still pre-planning,
(10 April 2001) says:
"We consider that the analysis which
has led to the proposal for two towers appears sound, and the
juxtaposition of the towers in their current form has the potential
to create an interesting and refreshing composition."
A third letter (19 November 2001) says:
"The committee continues to offer general
support and enthusiasm . . . "
Apropos the towers it says: "Although
we think a mainly a stainless steel and glass cladding could have
been developed successfully, we think that terracotta has the
potential to provide a more attractive alternative . . . "
" in some views of the scheme from the
other side of the river. the composition . . . creates considerable
pressure on the secondary building . . . "
"We are pleased that extensive wind studies
are being carried out . . . (to) . . . address problems we feel
might arise in the area between the towers and along the riverside."
A final letter (13 December 2002) says:
"we welcome the changes that have been
made to the scheme . . . "
"We think that the relative heights and
locations of the towers work well."
Examination of the letters reveals CABE to be
strongly pro-development. Furthermore it is notable that the towers,
whether one or more, are generally seen as distant objects by
the river rather than as slabs that would dominate the nearby
streets and houses of West Chelsea and intrude on the southern
skyline of the Grade II listed Brompton Cemetery.
The review shows no awareness of:
(a) the absence of towers in the earliest
and presumably equally viable scheme,
(b) shortcomings in the design of the riverside
walkway which, as a broad, bland, mini-motorway is, except where
it crosses Chelsea Creek, without variety, drama or incident,
(c) that wind studies, though they can enable
wind speeds to be estimated and gusts to be deflected, by detailed
design, from the doors of tall buildings, cannot eliminate the
acceleration of air currents that always occurs near towers, and
(d) the strong objections to the towers of
local amenity societies and residents.
"Guidance on Tall Buildings" 2001,
a joint CABE and English Heritage report, says: "Government
policy is to get the right developments in the right places. It
states that tall buildings should be of the highest architectural
quality and designed in full cognisance of their likely impact
on their immediate surroundings and the wider environment."
It is not clear that the review panel has
read its own guidance. It seems to believe that if a tall building
is well designed that makes it acceptable on all counts. The panel
shows no awareness that to live in the shadow of tall buildings,
to be overlooked by people living or working in tall buildings,
to suffer wind blasts at the foot of tall buildings are all nuisances
created by tall buildings be they well-designed or not. In its
assessment of proposed towers in Chelsea and at South Kensington
Station (see below), it can only be concluded that CABE was not
abiding by its own guidance.
(b) South Kensington
Underground Station
This proposal, by Farrell and Partners for Stanhope
plc, involved decking over of the District and Circle Line platforms,
reconstructing the booking hall and topping the site with a 10
storey "gasometer" office tower. Shops and flats were
included too. As the Committee will no doubt know CABE's favourable
review of the Farrell design led to accusations of conflicts of
interest within CABE, an audit by the DCMS, the resignation of
CABE's chairman and the withdrawal by Stanhope of their scheme.
The Society believes that this was the right outcome to a serious
issue and will now focus on design issues.
In this case, unlike the others which have come
before us, CABE has put a summary of its analysis of the development
on its website. (www.cabe.org.uk/review/reports.asp?id=183) This
helpful note, surprising for being so partial to the development,
contains the following statements:
"The committee offers its warm support
for this long awaited scheme. The present station offers limited
facilities and amenity for residents and visitors and does very
little to enhance the image of this significant destination. Given
the large numbers of people using the station it is an embarrassment
to the capital. We accept the architect's argument for creating
an important civic marker at this location. Development of the
type proposed is, in our view, consistent with government thinking
on the value of development at locations highly accessible by
public transport." (Page 1. Para 2.)
"We think that, taken in the round,
this is a convincing proposal that successfully balances the needs
of London Underground and the management of large numbers of people,
with the creation of a viable mix of uses and a new civic space."
(Page 2. Para 3.)
Is it the role of CABE's Design Review panel
to offer "warm support for this long awaited scheme"?
Is this design analysis or a signal to the local planning authority
to give permission to the development?
CABE then condemns the station's lack of amenities
and poor "image". The subsequent listing of the station
by the Secretary of State at DCMS makes it clear that, although
the station may suffer from neglect, beneath the surface lie Victorian
engineering and an Edwardian arcade of "special architectural
and historical interest" that are co-eval with, and of the
highest relevance to, Prince Albert's great cultural quarter.
Why was CABE blind to these aspects of the station? And why, in
the final paragraph of its review (not quoted above), did CABE
seek to belittle the views of residents by stressing the need
to ascertain the views of visitors?
CABE then gives its support to Sir Terry Farrell's
proposed "civic marker". The justification is government
advice about the appropriateness of higher density development
at points of high accessibility by public transport. CABE's judgement
may be questioned on two grounds.
First, is a civic marker in the form of a routine
office block appropriate in the heart of one of the most architecturally
distinguished residential quarters in London? Does an outstanding
townscape of terraces topped by the cupolas and spires of great
national institutions have to be topped too by a commercial tower?
Do people in their houses and flats have to be looked down at
by office workers?
Second, are there no limits to density? The
residential density of Kensington is already the highest in Britain.
Is it in tight-packed places such as this that densities should
be raised still higher? Such action may well be appropriate at
Paddington or London Bridge but surely not in high density inner
city residential districts?
The "civic space" to which this paragraph
refers is one wider pavement and a new booking hall intended to
replace the historic, and now listed shopping arcade. But what
about the traffic dominated streets that form an ugly and dangerous
"moat" around the station? Here, in the heart of residential
South Kensington, one would surely expect to see more than a down-sized
spaghetti junction. Yet of this gross lack of amenity, this abnegation
of civic space, CABE makes no mention. For a body devoted to championing
"better places and spaces", this seems, to say the least,
remiss.
The Chelsea Society concludes that CABE, instead
of subjecting Sir Terry's design to careful scrutiny, was seeking
to give a boost to a piece of "modern" architecture
while giving scant attention to its context. In so doing the Commission
was riding roughshod over the strictures in its own handbook "
. . . analysis should go beyond the view from the site boundary.
The site's context includes the neighbourhood and the town of
city as well as the street." (Design Review, Page 5.)
Furthermore, all this assessment of the Farrell
design went on before the scheme was in the public domain and
without any input from those who would have to live with it. And,
as if to add injury to insult, CABE sought to justify the scheme
on regeneration grounds. Is there anywhere in Britain where regeneration
is needed less than amongst the houses of millionaires in South
Kensington?
No issue in architectural assessment raises
more difficulties than the relationship between tall towers and
streets of terraced houses. CABE's design review makes no effort
to address it. Is there a single instance of a tall office or
residential tower that adds delight to streets of three or four
storey houses in a conservation area? The Society is not aware
of it. This problem needs to be addressed. When CABE reviews
a proposed tall building in a historic district or near a conservation
area, its first questions should be: What would be the effect
of this building on its context? And is this tower necessary or
is it either pure commerce or a reflection of the egotism of its
designer?"
(c) The Power
House, Alpha Place
This development, designed by Piers Gough or
CZWG Architects, involved the conversion of a 1930s electricity
transformer station into apartments. The building itself is a
bleak "functional" block of irregular form that bears
no relationship in form to any of its surroundings—mostly
decorated, red brick Edwardian terraced houses and mansion blocks.
Piers Gough, having decided to retain and expand the industrial
boiling so as to achieve a very high density, took it to CABE.
In this case only the chairman of design review, advised by staff,
considered drawings supplied by the architects. There was no local
input.
Again the Society is relying on a letter to
the architect (20 November 2003) which was copied to Kensington
Town Hall. It says:
"This development appears to us to both
appropriate and welcome on a number of grounds . . . "
These include:
"reuse of a redundant building . . .
relatively high (but acceptable) density . . . a welcome element
of affordable housing . . . (and because) it responds satisfactorily
to the variety of scales which form the character of the immediate
and wider Chelsea area . . . "
This is undoubtedly a complex case. Sustainability
policy coupled with the presence of a small number of taller 1930s
buildings, are used to justify retaining and expanding an ugly
industrial building surrounded by very extensive Cheyne and Royal
Hospital Conservation Areas.
CABE seems, furthermore, to have taken no cognisance
of the outlook of those who will have to live with an overweening
neighbour, or of building to a very high density in a Borough
that is already higher in density than any other in Britain.
Notwithstanding repeated references in its
literature to the need to take account of context (see "Building
in Context, 2002"), CABE seems to place higher value on lively
new architecture, whatever its scale or bulk, than on the relationship
of buildings to their settings. CABE should review its approach
to the reuse of buildings in historic towns and conservation areas.
In such places context merits being given the highest value.
(d) Chelsea Royal
Hospital—The Infirmary
This development has yet to be submitted to
the local planning authority and, as a result the Society only
knows about CABE's involvement via Councillors, Council officers
and Chelsea residents close to the hospital. Is this for the best?
The Royal Hospital is the work of both Sir Christopher
Wren and Sir John Soane and is an architectural set piece of national
importance. It ranks with Greenwich and Hampton Court yet there
is a serious risk that, even now after three different firms of
architects have been involved, the new infirmary will be no better
than lacklustre. Should all this be going on behind closed doors?
Should not CABE be bringing the issue out into the open?
In this and in other developments, CABE needs
to help civic societies and residents to play a greater part in
shaping their environments. It also needs to listen to them. Where
controversial proposals are involved, would it not be better for
CABE to bring them out into the open and make them the subject
of public debate? Had this been done over the Royal Hospital,
current uncertainties might have been avoided.
The Society believes that ways must be found
to make the design review process more open. Public debate about
the quality of architecture and public places promises to create
a better informed public. CABE should, for instance, consider
holding open debates at places where controversial buildings are
proposed.
5. MEMBERSHIP
OF THE
DESIGN REVIEW
PANEL
One issue that emerges again and again in the
Society's review of CABE's work in Chelsea is the very special
conditions that obtain in places that are richly endowed with
the architecture and streetscapes of previous centuries.
And in reviewing CABE's observations on developments
proposed for Chelsea and South Kensington, it is hard to avoid
coming to the conclusion that, consciously or subconsciously,
if a well-known architect and a large commercial development are
involved, CABE is reluctant to ask fundamental questions about
the rightness of what is proposed.
CABE's design review panel embraces modernist
and neo-classical architects but it is otherwise narrowly based.
Even though English Heritage is represented at review meetings,
the panel is lacking in conservation expertise and in understanding
of the role of development control. Additional expertise is needed
in architectural history and town planning and in the design and
management of the public realm. There should, above all, be a
balance between members directly involved in the commerce of development
and contraction and those who are not.
The Society urges the inclusion in the design
review panel of more expertise in architectural history, town
planning and the public realm. Members from civic societies with
experience of working in historic places are needed too. Above
all a balance needs to be struck between those with commercial
interests and those with nothing to gain from development. Unless
a balance is struck the judgements of the design review panel
will lack objectivity.
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