Epic Space

by Ian Martin

  The RSPW had ‘assumed’ the 544m-long tunnel would link existing ‘worm hotspots’ north and south of the river and would incorporate special worm hubs at intervals along the tunnel. Once these sanctimonious worm-lovers realised their preposterous fantasy would simply not be happening, they started putting it about that the Soil Tunnel was a ‘folly’, a shameful waste of resources.

  ‘Frankly, if we were handed £1.03bn to help the worms, we could certainly find better ways of spending it. A few million on a courtesy campaign to respect worms in the garden. Maybe some worm hospitals, give us a minute, nobody has ever suggested throwing a billion pounds at worms before, wow.’ Stupid worms.

  FRIDAY In such a hurry to kickstart the delivery of something that I forget what it is, so have to kickstop myself.

  SATURDAY Five-a-zeitgeist theoretical football. Triangulated Alternative 1, Cannulated Heritage 3, after a late collapse in linear time.

  SUNDAY Tough thinking in the recliner.

  January 16, 2015

  This Feudopolitan Life

  MONDAY Finish my sketches for a skyscraper that looks like an apple corer.

  Nobody’s done an apple corer before. Acknowledge my genius, yet feel a genuine sadness that the apple corer will be the last kitchen implement to be formalised in architecture.

  Acknowledge my sadness, then acknowledge my genius again.

  TUESDAY I’m giving Riyadh a ‘solemn makeover’. It’s all absolutely fine, ethics-wise. The competition brief, from the Office of the Half-Brother of the Guardian of the Two Holy Places, has been pre-approved by the Gulf chapter of the Royal Institute for the Pop-Uption of British Architects and believe me, those guys know their way around a moral conundrum, Allah be praised.

  The brief stresses the need for ‘stability and continuity, with a hint of cautious reform in the future’. Certainly, holding an open international design competition is very encouraging even if it does say in small print at the end ‘Sorry – no ladies, Jews, Shi’ites, breadheads or haram piss- takers’.

  Stability and continuity are easy enough to achieve architecturally. You just need to be heavy-handed on the conservation. Lots of restoration and maintenance, using ancient techniques and traditional slave labour. Lashings and lashings of respect for the old ways.

  Of course Saudi Arabia is keen to show the West that it’s a modern, forward-looking, civilised place. So I’ve put a parametric smart wall around that big public square, with a curvy glass-and-gold canopy over the bit where they behead people for witchcraft and sorcery.

  WEDNESDAY Finished that Sagrada Familia at last! A dozen bottles of the shittest rioja I’ve ever ordered. Never again.

  THURSDAY Honoured to be masterplanning one of the government’s garden cities, in Oxfordshire.

  It’s nice and leafy here – an ideal spot for five thousand new homes with associated Netflix and sewerage system. Just don’t call it an ‘eco-town’. Nobody with any sense has said that for years. You might as well put ‘green’ in front and wear a Blur T-shirt.

  Although my secret project is filed under Operation Garden Cities I concede that five thousand very similar looking homes isn’t technically a city. It’s not as if anyone’s asked me to knock up a market square with municipal statues or a corn exchange or whatever.

  On the other hand it’s too big to be one of those awful pseudo-villages favoured by wealthy commuters. You know the sort. Extruded Georgian dormopiles laid out in a series of microcrescents and called something ending in –imley, –amley or Wood.

  This is different. A social experiment drawing together the very best minds in environmental aesthetics (me) and historical reconstruction (my old friend Dusty Penhaligon the conservactionist).

  We have gone beyond pseudo. To feudo. Wodwo Manor will be the first neo-medieval feudopolis in Western Europe. If things go well, it could double in size by 2030 and might even become a neo-medieval statelet in due course.

  It addresses the problem of where to park all those cluttering London families on zero hours contracts and benefits who must be cleared out to make way for genuine earners. The solution, as with so many of this government’s solutions, is stupidly simple. Stuff them well out of everyone else’s way, in a feudopolis.

  A sizeable portion of the public seem keen on ‘tough love’. Wait until they hear about the harsh but fair realities of a strip-farming economic system.

  In Wodwo Manor, the poor may ascend to ‘electronically tagged but deserving’ status by working in rows of mile-long 24/7 polytunnels run by a PFI contractor under the DWP’s new rural community service system, Welfarm.

  They will also be paying tithes (determined on a case-by-case basis) to lord of the manor Mr Zhu Peng, whose innovative sale and leaseback deal has enabled this part of Oxfordshire to become officially under new medieval management.

  FRIDAY Design a new Greek order, creating a fluted, post-austere column with the weighty capital removed from the top and repurposed as a plinth from which an intoxicated non-loadbearing caryatid of progressive Greek democracy may rise and flourish, part of – yet separate from – the Classical European edifice, effortlessly eluding architectural analogy as usual, don’t worry I’m sure another Greek joke will be along in a minute.

  SATURDAY Five-a-zeitgeist client blow football. Impoverished Progressive Statists 0, Wealthy Fascistic Patrons 100, after a mysterious late buyout via cash bungs.

  SUNDAY Feudally ‘lie fallow’ all day in the recliner.

  January 30, 2015

  Hello Kinky Pinky

  MONDAY Reboot my franchise, by starting the week more or less as usual but wearing a little hat for a change.

  TUESDAY Looks like the hat’s working its serendipitous magic already. As my friend the great hip-hop architect Spandrell Mish puts it, ‘rebooty be begetting rebooty’.

  Amazing. Once he’d heard about my hat – actually more of a modest Tudor cap worn at a jaunty angle, in the style of Thomas Cromwell – Mish simply had to hire me on the spot as ‘vibe acoustician’ for his latest, very important, cultured do-over.

  And what a gig. A major rebosh of London landmark Chequer Point, the stylish 1966 tower designed by king of the swinging architects, ‘Colonel’ Danny Shapiro. So honoured to be a part of this, its seventh incarnation. Fingers crossed this one works.

  I was involved in two of the earlier revamps. There was that one in the 70s when we gave it all a stark counter-culture sort of ‘squatty’ feel, lots of improvised art and anarchist ballet and whatnot. Then there was that much less successful Tory hub phase that followed. Pinstriped captains of industry in a press conference for eight years, barking about the unions and reeking of lunch.

  I’m optimistic about this reboot though. Back to basics. A return to the ethos of having a tall, beautiful Modernist slab in central London occupied by arseholes.

  WEDNESDAY Of course I know Spandrell Mish by his pre-hip-hop name, Richard Audley-Bryce. Oh man, Dickie was the life and soul of every Georgian squat in Spitalfields in the 80s. Even spent a few months in the full get-up, wig and everything, talking like an antiquated pillock.

  Eventually he took a weekend off, rejoined the actual world for a bit and never went back. Bowled over by hip-hop, he started wearing his Georgian wig backwards and working up a theory of architecture based on the principles of rap. Linear narrative. Street-focused. ‘Authentic’ and ‘challenging’ to the point where if you didn’t like what he was designing you were basically racist or whatever.

  First he lost his double-barrelled name – ‘The hyphen be a siphon yo’ – then changed it altogether. He moved to Brooklyn while it was still a bit rough and was one of the guiding lights during its resurgence as a gentrified auto-nostalgic version of itself. Then, BOOM. His brand of auto-nostalgic rebranding rebooted a score of major hipster shtetls throughout the world. Mish went platinum. Global. The absolute bastard.

  But now we turn our attention to Chequer Point. Or rather Kinky Sexpads, as it’s being rebadged. ‘Yo, first phase of the
action be getting that Asian traction,’ says Mish and it occurs to me that this hugely successful architect has spoken in nothing but rhyme since before the internet.

  I’m not happy with the frankly vulgar rebadging. If it gets out that we’re calling it ‘that’ to attract creepy Asian investors we’ll look ACTUALLY racist. I suggest the more conservative Hello Kinky Pinky. Mish looks thoughtful. It’s certainly vacuous enough. ‘Know what I think? Paint the motherfucker pink,’ he says. We’re off.

  THURSDAY Hit our first major problem. At ground level, the walls are covered in exquisite mosaics. A thousand square metres of dancing, abstract, life-affirming mosaics by Kenneth Lamb, post-war Britain’s most important sculptor and mosaicist.

  Unfortunately they’re right in the way of an entirely rethought ground level, with semi-public areas and 5,700 sqm of exciting shops and restaurants with sponsored linkage to Soho, London’s exciting new premium residential investment district.

  We’ll have to smash the mosaic walls to pieces. It doesn’t feel quite in the spirit of the original Chequer Point – correction, Hello Kinky Pinky – but luckily I’ve still got my jaunty Tudor cap on and I am thinking in it.

  FRIDAY I propose we address any anxieties about the destruction of these irreplaceable mosaics by inviting leading historians, architects and artists to a special meeting about their future after we’ve destroyed them.

  And while building works proceed we could swathe the site in expensive-looking prints featuring blown-up snatches of Kenneth Lamb mosaics. It seems only fair.

  SATURDAY Mish and I review the Hello Kinky Pinky reboot. Looking good. Fetishised inside, with a pink wash exterior. Renderings are great. It could be Vegas London, or Chinese London, or a totally new London at the luxury end of the Middle East.

  SUNDAY Deboot in the recliner.

  February 6, 2015

  Post-Ecological Re-Regeneration

  MONDAY Redesign the historic quarter of a French seaport, giving it a much less historic feel, which will make it easier to redevelop.

  I’m reassuring conservationists by putting Plus ca change! in a jaunty font at the top of the drawings.

  TUESDAY Ethical quandary. My fixer, Rock Steady Eddie, has opened what he calls a ‘moody channel’ with certain Wahabbist clients. They’re keen to use high-profile urbanism as a repositioning opportunity. What with all the oil they’re selling on the Turkish black market, they can now afford some swish military headquarters.

  Before I proceed, I ring the Royal Institute for the Pop-Uption of British Architects’ ethical support line for guidance. ‘Lauren’ introduces herself and asks how I am today. I outline my ethical dilemma: my clients are demented, murdering, rapist scum.

  Lauren asks if the outline brief puts quality design at the heart of the procurement process. I check: no, it puts the will of God there instead.

  Lauren asks me to hold while she consults her supervisor. Three premium phoneline minutes of lounge jazz later, Lauren comes back and says OK that should be fine but remember to keep all receipts, was there anything else I could help you with today, no problem, have a good one.

  WEDNESDAY My old friend Amy Blackwater the ecomentalist is staying for a few days. She’s as bossy as ever. ‘Just chill, squarebob. I need to retro-construct an alibi. So say I was here at your place asleep in front of Wolf Hall when the incident occurred, right?’

  It’s a bold move. The ‘incident’ was an eco-terrorist bombing that destroyed some partially-built luxury apartments. Apparently they were ‘totemic’, top of the scale investment pads designed by hot epic spacemistress Camilla Beak. A ‘cascading waterfall of urgent, foaming style’ apparently, overlooking a private section of the Thames. Now pulverised.

  There’s blurry phone footage all over the internet of a suspected eco-terrorist wearing a balaclava making her escape in a wheelchair. Amy’s not saying it IS her (it is) but nor is she saying it isn’t (it so definitely is). I tell her she’ll have to tweak the alibi.

  Nobody on Twitter will believe for a second that she’d fall asleep during Wolf Hall’s lingering examination of truly exquisite built heritage locations such as Stabbyguts House, Somerset, Shittabedde Hall in Kent and Popefucke Abbey in Wiltshire.

  After some thought, we decide she was alibi-watching The Real Housewives of Cheshire on itvBe.

  THURSDAY My latest niche service is ‘post-ecological re-regeneration’.

  The problem: a post-industrial landscape scarred with dozens of unsightly, decaying sustainable energy visitor centres. These once-mighty engines of social and cultural change now lie desolate and broken. The glory days of strawbale compounds full of educational guff about heat loss and compost are long gone.

  Now if people want a lecture about how fat white carnivorous motorists are total bastards they can simply read the Guardian.

  The solution: rejuvenate these defunct energy visitor centres as 1990s heritage parks, incorporating energy visitor centre museums, shops and retro restaurants serving Britpop vegetarian food.

  FRIDAY Oh-oh. Visit from the cops, who clearly have their suspicions about Amy. Their balaclava-recognition software would obviously nail it, but a poker-faced Amy insists she’s lost hers. True enough, it’s been incinerated, there’s no way it’s coming back.

  ‘So you are telling us that you were here on the Wednesday night with your …’ the plod gives me a sceptical glance. ‘Companion. And you are both watching The Real Housewives of Cheshire on itvBe …’ Amy and I raise our eyebrows and nod in unison.

  ‘Not Wolf Hall, then?’ says Plod 2, eyes fixed on his notebook. Amy and I look at one another with exaggerated innocence. ‘Only they are having some tasty buildings on, I hear …’ Now they’re both staring at us with focused disbelief. ‘All that linen fold panelling. Beautiful stonework. Lovely tapestries …’ ‘Ooh yeah, and them lush Tudor landscapes, eh?’

  Amy says she missed the first one and so wants to wait for the DVD. They shake their heads and read the caution.

  SATURDAY That was a close one. Down the station they challenged us, separately, to name a single Real Housewife of Cheshire. I went safe with ‘Sali’. Amy went hard with ‘Wonga’ and scored a bullseye. The alibi stands.

  SUNDAY Sketch out my pitch for The Six Real Housewives of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor England in the recliner.

  February 27, 2015

  If It Ain’t Broke, Amend It

  MONDAY ‘Just a bit of fun’ says Beansy the nanofuturologist, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Obviously it’s not a serious design tool …’

  He’s talking about the beta version of Perlaastica, a ‘real-life Photoshop’ toy he invented at the weekend. Basically, you capture a lump of the built environment using a special 3-D laptop camera, then ‘open it’ in miniaturised real space, adding or changing whatever you fancy using ‘a vast library of downloadable elements’ – in other words, the internet.

  Then you simply press DONE and Perlaastica spits the amended lump back into the real world, where it exists until the free trial expires.

  I ask Beansy casually if I can borrow it for a week. No problem, he says, just don’t do anything stupid. I return his dismissive hand wave.

  TUESDAY In the morning, capture a smallish corner of a Canary Wharf office building, open it in Perlaastica then quickly remodel the miniaturised real space into a primitive ‘oasis at night’ with giant moths and robot camels, while security’s attention is focused on his pie.

  The robot camels are quite crude – I nicked them from a 1970s Israeli comedy – but let’s face it they look a lot more entertaining than corporate polished concrete. It’s thrilling to watch the reaction of passers-by, who seem cheered by the randomised temporary reality.

  Also a relief to discover Perlaastica can’t capture and amend bits of people. A weirded-out finance director staggers from the building, wondering why half her office space is now a surreal oasis. Everyone shrugs and assumes the building has been acquired by interests in the Middle East.

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nbsp; In the afternoon, I test Perlaastica’s historical reach by causing an archived copy of the scissor arches from Wells Cathedral to appear in M&M’s World, London. Not a flicker. People think it’s just routine maintenance.

  In the evening, try my hand at architectural busking on the South Bank, coughing up bits of the Festival of Britain from 1951 for delighted tourists, quickly reverse-modding back to the contemporary Festival of Aviva when the police swing by.

  WEDNESDAY Drunk with power now. I’m in the London Standard at last! After months of trying to raise my profile with mad plans for elevated cycleways and stacked ‘metrodorms’ I finally make it into print as ‘London’s 3-D graffiti artist’.

  My fixer Rock Steady Eddie is quoted as a source close to me. I’m called ‘Urban2000’, apparently I’m doing this to challenge perceptions of built reality and all commercial enquiries should go through him.

  The article features pictures of my latest Perlaastica amends: a large section of Portsmouth’s vanished Tricorn Centre repurposed as a new tower for Westminster Abbey; an ironic ring of Leylandii around Euston station; an Art Deco façade on Lewisham KFC; the Trajan Arch in the middle of Seven Dials; medieval stained glass enclosing a pod on the London Eye.

  I wonder how long celebrity lasts these days.

  THURSDAY Oh God, people are so gullible. Yes of COURSE there are 326 anonymous entries in the design competition for a new Thames crossing at Nine Elms, dummies. Just under 300 of them are mine.

  I captured the air over the river and spent the day in a miniaturised real-space Perlaastica workshop, taking snapshots. I’ve got one that looks like a horizontal Niagara Falls, one that looks like a hairbrush, one that just looks like a redacted word in a confidential report … Wow, imagine if anonymous design compettions were actually like this.

  FRIDAY Beansy calls. ‘This you in the Standard, and all over the bloody world of epic space?’