New Apartment Building, Buckingham Gardens

 

 

 

New apartment building, Buckingham Gardens

 

The sun shines on a new development: this multi-storey residential apartment block was recently completed and replaces a forgettable four-storey office building. The colour scheme is bronze, beige and grey (according to the planning application specs the horizontal stripes are of ‘zinc or anodised metal’) and comprises six storeys. Nearly everybody gets a balcony, constructed of slightly ill-fitting-looking panels and with the underside left exposed; also, the sides of the balconies don’t quite reach the walls, being about six inches removed. Perhaps this was another lazy attempt at the deconstructed structural expressionist style that’s oh-so-vogue at the moment, but it comes across as simply shoddy and cynical– the building looks jerry-built and unfinished. It was with a surprised expression that friendly-bombs first walked past and saw lights on and people inside, and thought “Really? That’s it? That’s finished?”.

 

Another annoying quirk that is cropping up on modern architects’ ticksheets is the irregular arrangement of windows, or in this case balconies. Perhaps the original thinking was that it would look cute or naughty to have a random positioning of what are usually regular, symmetrical features, but it certainly doesn’t look great here, with an undecided, half-hearted deployment of strict spacing and alignment on the sides but baffling irregularity in the centre; the fact that there appears to be two balconies missing just makes it worse, giving it a kind of amateurish, dodgy third world bodge-job appearance, the kind of thing you see in dire buildings in Russia or China built by the constructively challenged, complete with lampposts in front of windows, stairs that don’t align with entrances, doors that open out on the third floor etc, like these hilarious examples I found online:

 

 

We must locate these geniuses. A job in modern British architecture awaits!

 

 

 

 

Another shot of the new apartment building on the corner of Church Street and Herschel Street. Overall it has a half-finished, temporary feel to it, like a kind of modern pre-fab that hasn’t been built to last.

 

Here the humble fire escape has been turned into a major structural feature of the building– another modern cliché that fails to fool anyone as original anymore. Bafflingly, it is enclosed in a kind of metal mesh, that surely fails as shelter and has presumably been used to make the feature knowingly bland and utilitarian– the same design conceit that deliberately seeks out ugly clothing and thick-framed ‘nerd’ glasses as a kind of sophomoric statement against the mainstream. Fun fact: half the people who wear ‘nerd’ glasses don’t even need them.

 

 Additional: It is at least good to see some of Slough’s interminable office buildings being redeveloped for residential use, even if it is for the predictable ‘luxury flats’ (the luxury’s on the inside, presumably)– there’s a 2-bed currently listed for a paltry £289k, if you’re interested. For a long time it was considered sacrilege for Slough to lose an office even when they were cropping up on every corner; even the planning application for this building wailed that “whilst the loss of relatively modern office accommodation in a central location is regrettable the prospect of it being reused for that use is unlikely in the near future. As the location and immediate surroundings are reasonable for flatted residential accommodation the principle of the loss of the office to residential use is acceptable.” Gee, there might be a housing crisis at the moment, but won’t somebody please think about the offices?!

 

Planning Permission Tricks #2: Whack-a-Mole Technique

 

 

Following from the last post we now look at another, similar way that developers alter their unpopular plans to give the illusion that concessions have been made. In this case we have the mind-bogglingly insensitive and worryingly foolish plan to build five staggeringly tall tower blocks in close proximity to each other over the Queensmere shopping centre (see this post for a depressing reminder of how this part of town has changed over the years). The initial plans were so ridiculous they seemed like a joke, and even Slough Borough Council, which is usually ready to green-light any hideous plan, complained about it, with councillors describing it variously as looking like “three UFOs” and a “mooning bottom”.

 

Like the aforementioned door-in-the-face technique, the planners had originally asked for a lot more– over 900 flats in total– but this had been reduced to over 670 in the early negotiations; again, the question should have been over whether the entire project was wise at all rather than the eventual number of flats. Then, at the stage of negotiation pictured above, they used the Whack-a-Mole technique: if complaints are raised about the height of your proposed towers, simply lower the tallest one while simultaneously raising the others, meaning that like the arcade game no sooner have you pushed one mole down in one place then another rises elsewhere. The first picture shows ‘before’, the second picture shows ‘after’: the plan has altered, but no great concession has been made, the project still takes up just as much space as it did before, and precious profit is conserved.

 

What you also see in the second picture is the new, utterly superfluous and face-palmingly ugly entrance to the Queensmere shopping centre; it seems the designers have augmented it either out of spite at having had to change their precious plans, or in an attempt to make the first tower seem less intimidating from the High Street by literally blocking all view of it. Like so much of Slough’s recent development it is grey, squared, featureless and cynical, playing perfectly into the expected image of Slough as a hopelessly mundane, soulless, functional business-home not worthy of warmth, wit, character or friendliness; these new developments fall on the Slough pedestrian like a boot on top of an ant, and are equally merciless. Its total lack of texture mirrors the grey paving slab desert before it (the refurbed Mackenzie “Square”) in a duet that adds to the cold, boring, unwelcoming feel of the New Slough. Councillors described this bit as looking like ‘silver duct tape stuck over the top of the towers’, but approved the plan anyway.

 

Planning Permission Tricks #1: Door-in-the-Face Technique

 

 

 

We’ve all familiar with door-in-the-face technique, in fact most of us will have employed it on our parents during childhood. You make a ridiculous demand, so extravagant that it would never be granted– maybe you ask for a wedge of cake an hour before dinner– and wait for it to be denied (“No, you’ll spoil your dinner.”). You then make a reduced, moderate demand (“Can I have a cookie instead?”) that now seems reasonable in comparison and is granted (“Okay, you can have a cookie.”) But of course, getting the cookie was your plan all along. Had you just asked for it outright the original refusal (“You’ll spoil your dinner”) would have been applied and you would have faced the unthinkable prospect of going a whole hour before dinner without extra sustenance. With this little bit of psychology you can sneak an outrageous proposal past the powers that be.

 

Developers seem to be using the same strategy. Over and over again we see examples of ridiculous plans being submitted, which scare the local authorities and are baulked at by the public, only for the developers to resubmit the plans in a slightly muted form that inevitably gets approved, even when the complaints of the original design still apply.

 

So we have the now-approved plans for three massive ‘urban villas’ (sound quaint? Well they ain’t) to be built down Windsor Road, replacing the row of low-rise early 20^th century housing that currently stands there. Initial plans caused outcry and opposition from local residents who objected to the sheer hulking size (some seven storeys) of the buildings, which are in close proximity to each other and threaten to further overcrowd the Central Ward, an already densely populated part of town. The resubmitted plans reduced the height of the project from seven to a maximum of six storeys (locals had wanted a four or five storey maximum); this was promptly approved by Slough Borough Council, who have been working with the builders Shanly Homes Ltd to buy up property along the road (then board it up and leave it derelict, of course) over the last few years.

 

Local residents still aren’t happy, with one being reported as saying this is the kind of infrastructure you see in “third-world countries where there are no planning regulations”. The architects meanwhile claim to have “listened”, while the Council nonchalantly walks away whistling. So an unwanted, unpopular proposal is rejected for a minimally softened version that appears to have given concessions but in reality hasn’t; the essential question, of whether this type of development is warranted here in the first place, goes unanswered. As in my example above, the question should not have been about the size of the snack but whether the kid should get one at all.

 

 

PS: This development headache was designed, once again, by bblur architecture, who with the ridiculous bus station and out-of-place Curve project seem to be hell-bent in using Slough as a kind of test-ground for insensitive structures that would be better off being banished to insensitive climates.