{"id":702226,"date":"2023-06-27T03:03:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T02:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/?p=702226"},"modified":"2023-06-27T09:10:42","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T08:10:42","slug":"the-secret-architect-what-if-we-boycotted-temporary-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/opinion\/the-secret-architect-what-if-we-boycotted-temporary-things","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Architect: What if we boycotted temporary things?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sun is out, which means it\u2019s Design Festival time! Any self-regarding urban centre is securing future relevance with an onslaught of timber-framed confections, biodegradable plastic supergraphics and bland tins of hard seltzer. Every year I remind myself these events are a fruitless barrage of noise, an inane dialogue between the same privileged players, communing on increasingly self-referential terms, display cabinets heaving with architectural croquembouche.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet. Like the rash of PR people who spread over these events, it benefits my survival to believe we can design our way out of the present hellscape. So, once again, I throw myself into believing that it\u2019s not too late to back-fill the urban cultural vacuum caused by waves of recession, plague and exhaustion. I draw the line at downloading the app though, so now I\u2019m wandering through the re-purposed halls of an old palace, fingering a printed guide which proudly announces it is made from \u2018vegetal waste, not trees!\u2019 Great. I guess we\u2019re all equally committed to the future of cities \u2013 libert\u00e9, \u00e9galit\u00e9, inter-sectionalit\u00e9!<\/p>\n

I make it as far as the second room before the word \u2018liminal\u2019 makes an appearance, unironically used in a 1,000-word diatribe about how \u2018design thinking\u2019 is no longer accessible to the average punter. Or rather, \u2018the creative community\u2019 is \u2018disconnected from the spatial occupant\u2019 and must \u2018delve into its own apartheid canon\u2019 so we can find \u2018collective resolve\u2019. Sure, or maybe like every other \u2018nice guy\u2019 out there, we\u2019re just tragically lacking in self-awareness; the more we try to explain ourselves, the more repellent we become.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m committed to finding positive things here though \u2013 it\u2019s the fourth one I\u2019ve been to in six weeks, so I\u2019m getting good at divining meaning from others\u2019 efforts. The good stuff is usually a project that was happening anyway, rather than something concocted to fit the theme. An unlikely coalition using the expo to platform years of toil. Something hefty and irrefutable like disaster relief work, or a dictator-ravaged community putting themselves together again. Maybe I\u2019m sentimental, but at least this has substance, purpose and traction with the real world. They actually did a thing!<\/p>\n

This temporary clutter in post-wealthy cities has me wondering what the point of being an architect even is. The \u2018real artists\u2019 think we\u2019re tedious, even as they declare their own work \u2018spatial\u2019. Yet we\u2019re also marginal to construction, too, a single-digit percentage of a net sum; a fractal of a fractal. As one tipsy developer confided to me over drinks in an overly elaborate tile showroom: you guys think you\u2019re revolutionary, when you\u2019re barely even useful. Stop fretting and just get us through planning. Yikes.<\/p>\n

Not that this stops the big architects sermonising from an acoustically violent temporary pavilion designed by one of their \u2018prot\u00e9g\u00e9es\u2019. We should throw open the doors to let more people in! People chosen by them, obviously, which is different to before, because now it\u2019s them doing it. Also, we shouldn\u2019t design monuments, because they just completed their latest one, and they\u2019ve realised it\u2019s, like, so unsustainable? One celebrated designer of airports, yachts, skyscrapers and Saudi Arabian theme parks even had the brass neck to headline an \u2018eco summit\u2019 recently. We can all learn from that.<\/p>\n

So now I\u2019m perched on the concrete foundation of a \u2018demountable\u2019 structure, checking into my budget airline using the public WiFi and trying not to gag on the smell of a sinking city\u2019s ailing drains. Then it occurs to me: what if we start boycotting temporary things altogether? No more Meanwhile Use gentrification. No more land-banking with \u2018pop-ups\u2019 that last for decades, or installations that claim to \u2018provoke\u2019 without any follow-through.<\/p>\n

What if we take the empty buildings we have, convert them to uses we need, pay the people doing the work fairly and check on it afterwards, to learn from our inevitable mistakes? It may not be headline-worthy, but it might make design visible, make city spaces valuable and enable us to build less. From what I\u2019m seeing, we need to do a lot less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sun is out, which means it\u2019s Design Festival time! Any self-regarding urban centre is securing future relevance with an onslaught of timber-framed confections, biodegradable plastic supergraphics and bland tins of hard seltzer. Every year I remind myself these events are a fruitless barrage of noise, an inane dialogue between the same privileged players, communing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9844,"featured_media":702228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[745],"tags":[99914,5186,1382,72352],"yoast_head":"\nThe Secret Architect: What if we boycotted temporary things?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What if we started boycotting temporary things altogether? No more Meanwhile Use gentrification. 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