Little Boxes...

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There's design and then there's design: some design is timeless in its purity, some is just of its time and will go through the cycle of good v.s bad, fashionable v.s unfashionable, liked v.s vilified as bad taste. Some things last, others simply are in the moment until their revival at a later date. I'm motivated in this thought by a repeat of a Grand Designs episode tonight of a Thames-side build that caused a lot of ruffled feathers amongst the neighbours of the designers/builders of their new home there. I've no particular beef against the final outcome of the build, but will it endure as design? Probably not, but then again, the 'traditional buildings' surrounding their home are to be fair a motley lot themselves, some even exhibiting between-the-wars mock-Tudor half-timbering, not exactly authentic in itself, and which I can imagine Pevsner or Betjeman in their day coruscating the very existence of in both prose and poetry. What I would criticise about the build, and so many others that feature on this particular programme, is that the exterior is usually quite bland in its design and execution [the interiors are very often - understandably - much more human and finished], and hence really don't qualify as good and lasting design. The flaw is in the relationship between home and neighbourhood. In sealing their home from its environment in an indifferent exterior, the designers are sealing themselves away from and alienating their neighbours; totally unnecessarily. Good design should be total. It should encompass every aspect of its intentions, and all its details should be attended to and be in harmony with its context as well as its internal purpose...

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