Everything’s getting terribly serious, isn’t it? This week we ponder life’s big questions: what can make us happy? How can we save our businesses? And what is making Gary Barlow so miserable?
Happiness is …
In case you are still in need of a lift on a cold autumn night, the RIBA’s think tank Building Futures has just the thing to keep you smiling – the somewhat cloyingly titled Building Happiness: Architecture to Make you Smile. The book has challenged contributors to come up with their “happy places”. Thus we get Deyan Sudjic of the Design Museum on the merits of the Boeing 747, Lord Rogers on “food, sex and architecture” and journalist Hugh Pearman on the cooling towers at Drax Power Station. The largest grin, though, is reserved for Will Alsop’s white rendered lifeboat shelter. “This simple shed is all I need to make me happy,” purrs our Will. Funny that this love of simplicity doesn’t extend to his own designs.
Nice work, if you can claim it
A computer-literate mole of mine pointed me in the direction of fit-out contractor Overbury’s website. He told me to browse the photographs of projects proudly displayed there. Among the many images of Overbury’s excellent fit-outs was a photo of the newly decorated offices of mobile phone software company Symbian. And a very nice job it looks too. Only one problem though – this isn’t an Overbury project. It was done by rival firm BW Interiors. Competition certainly must be frantic in these credit crunched times if companies are claiming each others’ work …
Playing the market
Chancellor Alistair Darling may have tried his best to save the industry, but personally I’m more convinced by a kind note that was popped through Building’s door this week from a gentleman called Marketing Man. According to his breathless letter (superheroes don’t use email, it seems) Marketing Man has offered his superhuman sales service to “any UK tradesperson” on his “mission to help you beat the credit crunch”. Brilliant! That this strategy seems to rely largely on the use of “two free e-books” matters not one jot – salvation is surely upon us. What a relief!How deep are your doldrums
It seems celebrity spotting can be added to Dubai’s must-do activities, along with camel riding, indoor skiing and building a “world’s tallest tower”. On a press trip last week, a colleague brushed elbows with the one and only Gary Barlow in the departure gate at Dubai airport. The Take That singer, who had his family in tow, looked a little depressed. Did the constant hum of construction work ruin his trip perhaps? Or was it just the pack of screaming journalists – our own excluded, obviously – getting him down? Who can be sure … so sure?
Taxi!
The inaugural World Architecture Festival was noted for the almost total absence of credit crunch chat, apart from the following exchange, overheard in a bar: How do you find an architect in London? Hail a cab. Ha, ha.
The austerity of the times didn’t stop sponsors Arup and Davis Langdon from hosting a lavish dinner, although at least one architect present wasn’t convinced. “It was the most precisely costed meal in history,” he said. “I think they were ticking off each glass of wine.” You’d have thought he’d be happy enough just to have a hot dinner, wouldn’t you?
Making a drama out of a crisis
Construction pensions body B&CE took a colleague off to see Kenneth Branagh’s critically acclaimed Ivanov last week in London’s West End. However, the evening didn’t quite have the desired effect of taking the assembled throng’s minds off the financial gloom of present day Britain.
Set in Russia at the turn of the 19th century, the drama included frequent references to economic hardship, worrying market conditions and suggestions that only hard cash is safe. The comments had the audience chuckling wholeheartedly, but seemed to elicit only teeth-clenching grimaces from our hosts. A kopek for your thoughts, chaps?
No comments yet