HLM50+ Towards a Social Architecture

Tony Monk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317121473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture générale

Since its sudden and dramatic formation upon winning the competition to design Paisley Civic Centre in 1963, Hutchison, Locke and Monk (HLM Architects) has consistently served and adapted to the changing requirements of Britain's welfare state, and has instinctively dedicated its professional services to community architecture.

Conceived from the perspective of founding partner Tony Monk, this book reveals the inside story of how the partnership has grown over 50 years to become a leading UK national practice. It sets out the early influences and progressive design philosophy of HLM Architects and analyses how they developed their design ethos from late-modern through contextual post-modern architectural styles by the early 1980s, and then matured into producing its own contemporary designs, explaining why these changes took place over that period.

As well as reflecting the transformations in the social and political landscapes and in aesthetic approaches, it also inevitably records the changing social history of the architectural profession from labour-intensive manual presentations using drafting pens and drawing boards, through to the slick mass-produced computer modelling that accompanied the digital revolution, and the fundamental adjustments needed to meet the realities of managing an efficient modern commercial business.

Working with the HLM Board, the authoritative contributors are Directors who have used their knowledge and experience in responding to government legislation with innovative architectural solutions in their specialist fields. HLM Chairman Christopher Liddle is a leading exponent of defence and custodial procurement, alongside Caroline Buckingham in education and Leslie Welch in healthcare. Their award winning projects now help formulate current policy.

The critical Introduction by Dr Edward Denison re-examines the practice's philosophy and contribution to the evolving welfare state during the second half of the twentieth century. The conclusion is a perceptive assessment of the future direction of the architectural profession and a statement of HLM's continuing commitment to improving our society. The complex relationships described shed new light on previous architectural theories and, in doing so, this book adds to the knowledge of post-war British architecture.

1 Civic

Tony Monk

1.1 Model of central concourse and Paisley Abbey.

Architectural competitions are as fascinating as they are controversial. They can grab headlines and make or break reputations. Some recommend them as the only route to securing design quality. Others claim that the whole architectural competition system is a time consuming, money wasting anachronism which is best avoided at all costs.

Judith Strong, Winning by Design: Architectural Competitions, Butterworth 1996.

HLM owes its existence to the RIBA two stage design competition system in the 1960s. The rules were carefully structured. The anonymity of the entrants enabled unknown talented architects to compete against established practices. The format and assessment were based on the principle that the best design won. It may sound obvious, but in order to achieve that objective the financial element had to be eliminated from the selection process. This allowed both the participants and the Assessors to concentrate exclusively on the merits of the design and solely on the architectural solution, so that winners were judged on the quality of the design alone. Competitions were held regularly during that period and were a valuable source of procuring quality buildings and for identifying imaginative designs.

The removal of financial issues from the Assessors’ decision was an important omission. It was not that the financial cost was ignored. On the contrary, cost was the primary prerequisite – all the proposals had to meet the client’s finite budget. The competition brief stated the precise accommodation that was required, the overall cost plan and the fixed fees. These were not variable. The submission of the final competition schemes had to be accompanied by an accurate cost appraisal produced by a qualified quantity surveyor certifying that the project could be built within the stated budget. All proposals were therefore conceived on a financially equal basis. The efficiency of the planning, the design concept, the environment and the aesthetic appearance became the paramount criteria on which the winning scheme was selected. The Assessors were purposely not project managers, neither were they quantity surveyors nor consultants without design experience, but usually they were distinguished architects or town planners who were qualified designers in their own right and with sound aesthetic judgement, and therefore able to concentrate exclusively on the merits of the design.

Powell and Moya were among the best examples of the quality of architects discovered by the open competition system. Their talent and success contributed significantly to changes in British architectural design after the Second World War. Their achievement in winning and completing both the Churchill Gardens residential estate and the Festival of Britain’s Skylon competitions instilled confidence in this method of procurement and caused it to be used extensively in the post-war era. By the 1960s the open competition was a recognised RIBA approved procedure that was accepted by the government and institutions for procuring and appointing architects on important civic commissions. A series of new, previously inexperienced architects were competition winners and they produced high quality results.

Chamberlin, Powell and Bon were forged out of Powell’s success in the Golden Lane Estate competition for the City of London Corporation in 1951. In 1960, Darbourne and Darke won the Lillington Street housing competition. The following year Evans and Shalev were successful in Lincoln Civic Centre and Tom Handcock was commissioned to build Reading Civic Centre, all as a result of architectural competitions. Richard Rogers and Norman Foster both launched their partnerships on the strength of international competitions. HLM’s achievement in winning Paisley Civic Centre in 1964 was part of a long and healthy lineage of competition successes that have helped establish new partnerships, which have gone on to flourish and make a significant impact on the architectural profession not only in Britain but across the world.

1.2 Phase 4: Renfrewshire Council suite.

CIVIC CENTRE PAISLEY

The competition entry for Paisley Civic Centre was typical of this type of design selection process. The difference was in the scale of the commission. Paisley was probably the largest civic centre competition in Britain since the war. Renfrewshire County Council and Paisley Town Council engaged three eminent architectural Assessors to oversee this open competition in two stages. They had excellent value for their money and an overwhelming response, receiving 189 designs in the first stage from the 809 applicants. These comprised concept designs drawn to a scale of 1:500 in the form of a single site plan. The applicants ranged from major architectural firms with large resources through to sole practitioners with no experience. In August 1963, six finalists were selected from this huge field and each awarded £500, including the inexperienced Hutchison, Locke and Monk. The finalists were invited to submit detailed designs and a block model within just four months. Entries had to be in by December 1963.

It was an extraordinary experience for Hutchison, Locke and Monk, as Tony Monk recalls: ‘I had just completed a Masters degree at Yale University under Paul Rudolph and Serge Chermayeff with other students of that time including Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Eldrid Evans. “The Beatles are coming!” proclaimed the posters and the appearance of the E-type Jaguar made me proud to be British. After graduating I purchased a Chevy station wagon for $300 and together with two other students, including my now wife, spent six weeks driving across America. Having arrived in San Francisco almost dollar-less, I quickly found an interesting job and by August 1963 was working for a multi-disciplinary partnership where I designed a research building for the NASA space programme. I had been engaged as a draftsman at $3.25 per hour; but when the important client selected my design and not that by the partner (who had incidentally worked for Frank Lloyd Wright in Taliesen West), I was given the title of designer and a raise to $3.75 per hour! No sooner had I settled into this interesting appointment, did I then receive an urgent postcard (no mobile phones then) from David Hutchison saying I would not believe this, but we were in the final stage of Paisley and I must return home promptly. My first monthly pay packet was, therefore, spent on a 5-day Greyhound bus fare from California to New York, and a cheap, slow flight by a propellered DC 10 via Reykjavik into Paisley Airport. After a 17 hour journey, I was met by Graham Locke who had spent a sleepless night on a park bench. That was the first time any of us had ever been to Paisley!’

Paisley Civic Centre was an inadequate description for the project. The brief on this 7 acre site in the middle of the historic town of Paisley, adjacent to the magnificent twelfth-century Paisley Abbey, was to accommodate all of Paisley Town Council’s offices, Renfrewshire County offices and both of their Committee Rooms and their two Council Chambers, as well as the Renfrew and Bute Police Headquarters, and the Paisley Magistrates’ Court, with 600 covered parking spaces. It was a massive assignment, comprising 60,000 square metres of accommodation adjacent to the most sensitive historic focal building in the town overlooking White Cart Water. Nevertheless, it was a superb commission and an opportunity that only a competition system could make possible to three young, inexperienced architects in their mid-twenties. Hutchison, Locke and Monk seized the opportunity with the enthusiasm, the energy and the blind commitment of youth, working day and night to complete it all in four months.

‘People will often ask if you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot on 24th November 1963?’ recalls Monk. ‘We were working on the presentation drawings in a small bedroom hurriedly converted into a makeshift studio with two manual drawing boards and model making equipment in David Hutchison’s semi-detached house in Horton Kirby in Kent! That was the modest cramped accommodation where the massive Paisley Civic Centre concept was created. It was in these Spartan surroundings where all the competition design drawings and model were completed’.

1.3 Paisley model, all phases.

The conditions of the competition’s second-stage required the six shortlisted teams to present final design drawings in black and white consisting of 1:200 scale plans, sections and elevations of all of the floors and typical details, 1:50 scale drawings showing the structural system and main services, and a 1:200 scale architectural block model. A certified cost plan was required to confirm that the whole development in five phases could be built for £1,970,000 at July 1963 prices. The winning entry would receive the commission and a £5,000 first prize, deducted from the fees. Second and third prizes were £2,000 and £1,000 respectively. This was a huge incentive for the finalists, and also a considerable attraction for the promoters, who received six fully completed final designs and models beautifully presented for a modest outlay of about £12,000. These were all Stage D final designs for a fee of only 0.6 per cent and all delivered in a short timescale.

The task was enormous, for all the finalists, as Monk explains in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Front-Matter
• Introduction
• Prelude
• 1 Civic
• 2 Healthcare
• 3 Residential and Mixed Use
• 4 Defence
• 5 Custodial
• 6 Education
• The Next Generations and the Future
• Current HLM Board 2017
• Project Lists
• Awards
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Index