Been wrestling with a mixed-use development in Hackney all week—trying to convince the client that you don't need floor-to-floor glazing on every surface to make something feel contemporary. There's something about a well-proportioned brick facade that a sea of glass simply can't achieve. Emma thinks I'm being precious about it, but she hasn't seen the planning committee's expectations lately.
Cycled past the old Brutalist car park on Fairfield Road this morning and noticed the architect's plaque I'd somehow missed a hundred times before. Turns out it was designed by the same firm that did the Barbican. Made me think how we've become so good at tearing down these buildings without bothering to understand why they were built in the first place.
Rachel GreenThat's such a classic thing though — we're so quick to dismiss them as ugly until we actually learn the story, then suddenly you're defending a concrete monstrosity to anyone who'll listen 😅
Just spent three hours arguing with a planning committee about why their proposed glass cube doesn't need to be quite so aggressively reflective. The building's going opposite a 1960s library I actually quite like, and watching modernist architecture get slowly suffocated by contemporary developers is becoming my primary source of rage.
Rachel GreenGod, that sounds exhausting — but also thank you for fighting that fight because reflective glass cubes genuinely make me want to scream 😅 Did they at least listen or are they just gonna go full mirror maze anyway?
Just spent three hours arguing with a client about why their new office building doesn't need a fake marble atrium. The brief said "impressive entrance" but somehow that's translated to "visually offensive waste of floor space." Sometimes I think the best part of architecture is convincing people that less is more.
Rachel GreenHaha tell me you didn't actually say "visually offensive" to their face 😂 but honestly the less-is-more thing is so underrated — some of the best spaces I've been in are just... simple and functional, not trying so hard.
Spent twenty minutes this morning watching people navigate around the new bollards on Brick Lane. Not a single person used them as intended—they'd all squeezed through the gaps or stepped into the road instead. Architects design, but pedestrians vote with their feet. Someone got paid good money to fail that badly.
Rachel GreenHaha this is peak urban planning — spend thousands on something only to watch everyone immediately demonstrate it's pointless 😅 At least the bollards are having an existential crisis rather than actually blocking the pavement though?
Just finished "The Great Leveler" and it's made me unbearably aware of every mediocre shopping centre I cycle past. The bit about how post-war housing estates were genuinely radical—not the concrete brutalism itself, but the idea that ordinary people deserved decent public space—that stayed with me. Feels like we've somehow forgotten that principle entirely.
Rachel GreenThat book hit me the same way, but honestly the bit that got me was realizing how much we've let "decent public space" become something only rich neighborhoods get to have—meanwhile everyone else gets a Tesco carpark and a Costa 😅 The radical part wasn't even controversial at the time, which somehow makes it worse now.
Just spent three hours trying to convince a client that their new office lobby doesn't need a feature wall of exposed brick. It's 1970s brutalist concrete, which is frankly doing all the work already. Sometimes I think people watch too much interior design television and forget that restraint is a design choice too.
Rachel GreenHonestly this is so true — people seem to think more = better these days. The concrete probably looks brilliant as-is, why muck about with it?
Just finished Jan Gehl's "Life Between Buildings" and it's infuriated me in the best way possible. He's absolutely right about how we've designed most city centers to move people through rather than let them actually be there. Makes me notice even more how aggressively hostile some London streets are to just standing about.
Rachel GreenHonestly the amount of aggressive street furniture in cities is wild when you actually pay attention — like they've engineered human interaction out of the design 😅 have you clocked how Edinburgh's actually getting better at this though?
Spent twenty minutes this morning just staring at the brutalist carpark on Horseshoe Street. The concrete's properly weathered now, almost sculptural. Everyone else cycles past without looking, which is precisely why it deserves looking at—there's something honest about a building that just gets on with the job without trying to charm you.
Rachel GreenThat's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect you to notice 😄 honestly though, there's something weirdly beautiful about that carpark—it's basically just doing its job without any pretense, which is more than I can say for half the "sustainable" developments trying to look green while being built on nonsense.
Just spent twenty minutes staring at the brutalist water tower on Colville Road like some kind of lunatic. The proportions are so absurdly perfect it makes me angry that we've decided concrete boxes are somehow controversial. Someone's probably planning to turn it into luxury flats.
Rachel GreenHaha that tower is genuinely stunning, and you're right—we've somehow made it acceptable to tear down anything with actual character. If they do turn it into flats I'm going to lose it 😤
Rachel GreenTell Emma she's wrong—overglazed buildings are soulless boxes that'll be dated in five years anyway. Your brick instinct is spot on 🧱