So that ArchitecturePLB’s external spaces are not just for circulation, they provide opportunities for users to take ownership. In any case, the architects take circulation seriously. ‘It is,’ they say, ‘more than simply getting from A to B. Circulation spaces are critical in allowing an individual to interact with their environment and with other people. They involve the management of views, changes of level and the creation of casual incidental spaces.’ This is part of ArchitecturePLB’s belief that they have to get under the skin of each project rather than applying standard solutions. Which is not to preclude their experience in designing and building hundreds of schemes. It’s experience shared around the office in a systematic way, with Monday design reviews of current projects and regular design panels – a cross between the crit system of architecture school and the design reviews of CABE – both of them searching examinations not only of the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’ of a design, from the colour of the facade to the shape of the whole building. They understand that in a fast-changing technological world, they have to keep their knowledge
and skills well-honed, that they have to sharpen their ability to cogently explain good solutions and to argue bad ones into touch – and that they have to keep a clear eye on the big picture. These collaborative exercises in self-examination do, they believe, produce better architecture than any single star designer: ‘They can be supportive for a team struggling with a problem. They match the emerging construction industry organisational paradigm in which a high value is placed on system, co-ordination and, hopefully, collaboration.’ Collaboration is the ideal mode
for the construction industry, but is also central to the way the practice operates internally. ArchitecturePLB likes to think it has an identifiable approach to architecture, which is intellectually rigorous and based on spending time getting to know clients’ real needs. As one industry watcher observed, ‘Theirs is a modesty born not of aspiration but of a scepticism of grand statements that are merely meretricious. Theirs is a combination of English pragmatism, attention to context and the fact that their name, ArchitecturePLB, is more important to them than individual stardom.’
© DUCCIO MALAGAMBA
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