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Stratford: The Design Review Panel experience A personal view Frank Duffy
In December 2006, I was interviewed for the post of chair of the still-to-be-established Stratford City Design Review Panel (DRP) – the result of a Section 106 agreement between the London Borough of Newham and Westfield. I was appointed before Christmas that year and began to work with my panel in July 2007. Five years and 69 DRP meetings later – at the rate of almost one panel meeting per month, all related to the same set of projects in the same quarter of London – I realise what a rare privilege it has been for my panel to have had an open-ended and continuing relationship with three megaprojects: the development of an ex-industrial wasteland into the Olympic Park, the construction of the Olympic Village and the accommodation of the many activities contained within the Westfield complex. Besides the random brutality of ‘studio crits’
at the AA School of Architecture in the early 1960s, my first acquaintance with the design review was in the 1990s, observing Lord Fawsley and his colleagues at work at the Royal Fine Art Commission. The subsequent era of design reviews from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has been gentler, more sophisticated and civilised, but still intermittently selective in its impact on projects. The design review at Stratford, covering a series of interconnected projects over half a decade, has been intense, stimulating and has had three great advantages: it's been focused on one place, constrained in time scale and cumulative in impact. I was allowed to choose my own panel members
– Edward Jones of Dixon Jones, Alex Lifschutz of Lifschutz Davidson and Sandilands (who later withdrew from panel meetings on the Olympic Village), Peter Stewart, with his extensive CABE experience, and Roger Zogolovitch. Paul Finch of EMAP, who chaired the parallel CABE panel for the Olympic Park, became a member of my panel and I joined his in order to cover the whole spectrum of architectural activity at Stratford. It is impossible to defend what must appear to be a gender bias but I am prepared to defend our London focus and narrow age range – cumulative and complementary experiences of a range of building types, procurement procedures, and client behaviour have proved to be immensely valuable.
I have always taken my own notes at each of
the panel meetings. The benefit of writing is that the first draft provides concrete evidence of blather and bias, blindness and amnesia. My draft notes have always been circulated to all panel members for review; they invariably have had useful corrections and observations to add. Serious disagreements have been rare even though – or perhaps because – the panel represents a wide, but focused, range of experiences and opinions. In relation to the Olympic Village, the panel,
through me, was directly involved in the selection of architects organised by Nigel Hugill, then of Lend Lease and chair of the Architecture Foundation. We also worked closely with Greg Deas, also of Lend Lease, and Paul Hartman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), who were strong advocates of the 'chassis' concept of standardised dimensions and constructional components – which has proved to be a success in terms of both saving time and enhancing quality in construction. The panel’s relations with Westfield on the Westfield complex were sometimes more fractious – there were notable victories by the panel, such as the extent of the brass shingle cladding of the car parks, but also occasional failures. In such matters the panel’s relationship with the planning authorities (Newham and the ODA) was valuable but victory was never assured. Other areas where collaboration was more successful were the school and, above all, the landscaping, which will undoubtedly prove one of the most successful legacies of the process. Vivienne Ramsey, the chief planner of the ODA
(formerly chief planner of the London Borough of Newham) instigated the panel review system at Stratford – not just my panel but the invaluable work of two others, one on consultative access and one on environmental issues. I hope that in 100 years’ time London will continue to be grateful to her for initiating and leading a series of processes that are reshaping the city and shifting the centre of gravity several kilometres to the east. Have I learned anything from this experience,
the most exciting of my professional life? Never mind reshaping a city, what I have learned is even more important – always write up the minutes of your own meetings.
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