Inbox: Mad for metaphors

T. Rex of pylons …

I never expected to win an architects competition, because I’m not one. I just found the challenge [of RIBA’s competition to design a new pylon (16 September, page 12)] so intriguing that my goal was to be the most fun finalist with a unique solution going beyond the brief, to bring front-page appeal to the competition. As it turned out I was just one away from the final six out of 250 entries. I was delighted until I saw the final six. With the exception of the T Pylon all are beautiful, expensive, impractical trophy galleons. Even the T pylon, which gets my vote, still requires a crane or helicopter to get at the conductors.

Apart from being fun, my creation the Pylosaurs (pictured) have offset gantries to aid maintenance and are climbed by a ladder, which doesn’t reach the ground and needs no razor wire to keep off idiots. Apparently the National Grid gave Pylosaurs the nod as possible temporary pylons because they are portable, you don’t need a big crane to put them up and they just collapse in one piece to be erected somewhere else when you are replacing buried cables.

I’ve have an all-new Pylosaur up my sleeve. It’s cheap and will hopefully one day be as common as muck. If one winds up in your backyard I’m sorry but take heart, your electricity bill won’t go up because of it, a traditional pylon would be bigger and your kids might be amused. The RIBA’s brief was intriguing and I’m still hooked.

Colin O’Donoghue

… vs daggers in the night

Regarding your story about the RIBA pylon competition, the first dagger-like design is excellent (‘Silhouette’, by Ian Ritchie Architects & Jane Wernick Associates). It almost disappears into the atmosphere and will make the earth look like a curled up hedgehog from orbit. ‘Plexus’ by Amanda Levete Architects & Arup will be costly to produce even though it’s a sweet concept. The rest have not pushed the boundaries.

Ash Mistry, via www.building.co.uk

Shoebox size home, coming up …

In reference to your story about the RIBA’s “anti-housing report” (16 September, page 10), it is my experience that shoebox homes are and for the last three or four decades have been a reasonable definition for homes build by firms whose core strategy is not home building but revenue streaming to maintain the repayment and profitability of high cost investments by venture capitalists.

K Hampson, via www.building.co.uk

… and I’ll throw in a toy town too

In reference to the RIBA’s housing report, if bedrooms, lounges, garages etc are all too small for the use for which they are labelled and sold as, they are not fit for purpose.

Prospective house buyers see the ‘toy town” developments as full of “not fit for purpose” so called dwellings. I applaud the RIBA for stating the obvious. These developments are a wasted opportunity and use of land.

If buyers could request specifications prior to construction, like car buying, maybe more houses would be constructed that will accommodate the living.

Fiona McCallum, via www.building.co.uk

Focus or Mondeo?

The RIBA’s support for the campaign for clearer space labelling is welcome because counting bedrooms is a poor guide to total floor area. Despite the RIBA’s inference, other G7 countries do not have mandatory space standards for market-sale homes. They rely on the consumer awareness of whether a 90m2 three-bed apartment would be larger or smaller than average.

Social tenancies are designed for maximum occupancy. But research documents that market-sale homes are mostly underoccupied with singles in double bedrooms and houses with spare bedrooms. It’s naive to conclude new market sale homes fail by x% against social housing standards, nor can you conclude buyers are being “shortchanged”. This would be the same as warning a single person against buying a compact car like the Focus because they ought to buy the full-size Mondeo in case the next owner needs a car with more space.

Housebuilders design to people’s spending power and not all purchasers have equal spending power or make the same choice. Why push up the size of a first home if people then can’t afford it?

In a market economy you cannot break the link between budget and size. So we hope the RIBA will turn to the link between the space buyers can afford and our housing shortage.

Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, chairman of Design for Homes; Barry Munday, chairman of Housing Forum; Terry Brown, president of the Association of Consultant Architects