Launch of the Developer, architecture and placemaking site

“The biggest risks are the ones we never talk about… If development, design and government doesn’t join forces, unite as a powerful lobby and face the challenges ahead, we may stumble into a future in which the real value of everything we’ve built is nothing, writes Christine Murray…

 

The architectural press is a tidy place to be an editor. For the past 10 years, I visited buildings in the hazy afterglow of construction, between practical completion and handover. The projects were rich in artistic intention and unsullied by human inhabitation. Walking around with the architect, there was an air of celebration, because the difficult birth of the building was over.

 

Writing about these projects, I was often troubled by the fact that I didn’t know yet whether the building actually worked. That nagging feeling was formative in what would become The Developer – the need to look at places as they develop, from concept to decades after completion, and take the long view. With regards to successful city-making, everything about the journey counts, especially what’s there before you begin.

 

Plunging into the waters of place over the past few months, I’ve enjoyed meeting developers on muddy sites and hearing how on these plots of land will grow orchards of offices and homes. The scale of urban redevelopment in the UK is staggering.

 

Just as interesting as the stories developers have told me, however, is what they’ve failed to say.

 

Unmentionables in conversation often reveal our fears and their silence speaks of risks to UK investment. Brexit has been the most avoided topic. This week, at Mipim, there is magical thinking in action that if Brexit isn’t mentioned, it won’t scare investment away. The only person to bring it up was the French taxi driver.

 

This week, at Mipim, there is magical thinking in action that if Brexit isn’t mentioned, it won’t scare investment away. The only person to bring it up was the French taxi driver

 

There are other spectres scary enough to make crashing out of the EU (almost) a distraction. They also remain off the agenda…..

…Even those with major projects fronted on UK waterways don’t explain how their buildings will cope with the expected 60-fold increase in flooding. The number of floods in the UK has already doubled since 2004. The Thames Barrier will fail within 40 years – what then?

 

No longer a distant threat, the risk of frequent heat waves, water shortages and floods now falls within the investment timelines of major UK redevelopments completing in 10 to 30 years.

 

By 2030, we are expected to pass the 1.5ºC marker, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. If that seems a small or even a welcome degree of warming on an unseasonably warm, winter morning, let David Wallace-Wells’ new book, The Uninhabitable Earth, scare you. In it, he describes how seven million people are already dying of air pollution globally in “an annual Holocaust”.

 

No longer a distant threat, the risk of frequent heat waves, water shortages and floods now falls within the investment timelines of major UK redevelopments completing in 10 to 30 years

 

As the Earth warms, the risks grow: in a 2º warmer world, 150 million more people would die. Wallace-Wells writes: “Numbers that large can be hard to grasp, but 150 million is the equivalent of 25 Holocausts… It is more than twice the greatest death toll of any kind – World War II.” Within 20 years, there will be 200 million climate refugees fleeing and in search of a new home, according to the UN.

 

The difficulty with carbon emissions, as explained by Wallace-Wells, is that we can no longer afford to do one or two token eco-things per development as an offset – we need to do everything at once and at speed: less waste, no concrete, fewer diesel vehicles, smarter estate management, more wildlife and biodiversity, and more innovation. But in return, we get the chance to future-proof investments.

 

“The risk of not engaging with these debates is obsolescence or worse – the loss of the real social, cultural and financial value of our places”

 

In the face of immense challenge might creep an inkling of futility, but we have the power to change how and what we build.

 

True visionaries see opportunity in every risk, while the peril of not engaging with these debates is obsolescence or worse – the loss of the real social, cultural and financial value of our places.

 

In our first edition of The Developer, we come at the topic of risk from many angles – from risky procurement to the anodyne public spaces created by the risk-averse.

 

On the whole, placemaking has always been a risky business, volatile in the short term but resilient in the long term, with high-stakes winners and losers.

 

“It’s the developer who takes the bulk of the risk, if they’ve acquired the land and have conditional funding arrangements, long stop-dates and need residential units to be sold before profit can be recovered,” says Theresa Mohammed, construction litigation partner at law firm Trowers & Hamlins.

 

But developers are not afraid of risk, perhaps because this is a well-heeled industry – CEOs with affluent roots take more risks than those from poorer backgrounds, according to a 2014 study published in the Academy of Management Journal.

 

True collaboration is a refreshing concept, because the time for finger-pointing is over. As makers of place, we must take great strides and big risks together

 

Fear of risk might explain why nimbys dig their heels in so deep – communities have a lot at stake, too. From residents decanted from social housing to small businesses ousted from their market stalls, embracing change can be a leap of faith too far. And are we worthy of their trust?

 

Tackling the risks of our time will increasingly require sharing them. In an era of finger-pointing and what Paul Berg, partner at insurer Griffiths & Armour, calls “back covering”, sharing risk is a challenge in an industry where an “integrated, collaborative environment is the exception, not the rule”.

 

Berg says: “Where it exists, it invariably requires an insurance solution that recognises that among the team delivering the project, there is no blame, no litigation, no fault, so that between team members, there is no finger-pointing.”

 

This industry has a handle on charm, bluster and glib retorts, but in the age of social media activism and hyper-accountability, more thoughtful responses are now required

 

True collaboration is a refreshing concept, because the time for finger-pointing is over. As makers of place, we must take great strides and big risks together. This will require a search for common ground and shared goals among the whole design, development and management team, including planners, architects, contractors, politicians, investors, engineers, policy workers, developers, asset managers and end users – especially the marginalised ones.

 

My ambition for The Developer is to bring the whole industry together to break down barriers between our siloed professions, first at the Festival of Place on 9 July. At our events, there will be frank discussion about the future of cities and no ‘unmentionables’.

 

The Developer exists to unpick the key ingredients to successful placemaking and promote evidence-based findings to help us mitigate risks.

 

This industry has a handle on charm, bluster and glib retorts, but in the age of social media activism and hyper-accountability, more thoughtful responses are now required.

 

Launching The Developer is a risk, too. But I believe we need more thoughtful reporting on the user experience of our cities. The Developer is an experimental space where we can grapple with the most difficult questions as an industry and work out inspiring solutions together.”

Check out the site and the full article here.

Sorry To Bother You by danhett | a videogame about technology and journalists

Sorry To Bother You by danhett | a videogame about technology and journalists

When Dan Hett’s younger brother Martyn was killed in the Manchester Arena bombing, he embarked on a trilogy of autobiographical experimental video games about the experience and its aftermath”

Play the game:  https://danhett.itch.io/sorry

Read insightful Guardian review:

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/apr/26/dan-hett-indie-games-designer-manchester-arena-bombing

Me: I recall making a moving poem in flash to express the grief and loss I felt, when I used my father’s old shaver (he had died in the last year, now almost 20 years ago) and I believe games and game making art both technology enabled or analogue are an important part of human expression and art.

The review around the game and Dan Hett’s work is lovely.

The Egg that broke Instagram

Meet the Creator of the Egg That Broke Instagram | He works in advertising | NYT

“When Chris Godfrey learned in early January that the record for “likes” on an Instagram post was held by the celebrity and businesswoman Kylie Jenner, he took it as a challenge. He remembers thinking: “Could something as universal and simple as an egg be great enough to beat that record?”

It could! Just nine days after the thought, that record was cracked. Mr. Godfrey had beaten Ms. Jenner’s post about her infant daughter with a simple picture of an egg. The original egg post now has more than 52 million likes — her post is shy of 19 million — and the egg’s account now has more than 10 million followers.

 Why an egg? Mr. Godfrey explained: “An egg has no gender, race or religion. An egg is an egg, it’s universal.”….

Me: Pretty quirky, fairly funny and (who can tell with advert people??) Godfrey seems genuinely nice and positive… “Mr. Godfrey...says less interested in money than in promoting positivity.” Interesting that much of the interest seemed to grow from young teens or younger.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/style/world-record-egg-instagram.html


Digital Artwork Competition | £20,000

Sheffield Doc/Fest is delighted to announce a £20,000 opportunity for an artist to create an imaginative digital artwork.


£20,000 for an artist(s) based anywhere in the world to create an imaginative digital project in documentary to be installed and exhibited in the Alternate Realities exhibition programme as part of Sheffield Doc/Fest’s 26th edition later this year: 6th – 11th June 2019. Additionally MUTEK will be inviting the successful commission winner to their 20th edition in Montreal (20-25 August, 2019) to speak about the work and then tour their project to MUTEK Montreal in 2020.  Deadline 26 Feb.

Me: Focus is broadly on non-fiction storytelling but can include on-going projects. Track record is a factor.

https://sheffdocfest.com/articles/675-alternate-realities-commission-now-open


Radio Drama Fund | Audible $5m

Funding for radio drama

Audible has announced the establishment of fund up to $5 million ("Theater Fund") dedicated to the commission and development of innovative English-language works from playwrights around the globe. The fund will support the creation of one- and two-person audio plays driven by language and voice, in keeping with Audible’s core commitment to elevating listening experiences through powerful performances of brilliantly composed words.

Me: I think radio drama can be a very powerful form. (I have 2 radio plays which went on BBC Radio, BBC World Service). Radio drama output is down over the last few years (as BBC was the main funder) although podcasts are up, I think this project could yield some interesting work for audible. There’s some intereting work potentially coming out.

Plus, writers, it’s another possible gig!

https://www.audible.com/ep/audible-theater


Creativity: be a slow-motion multi-tasker

Tim Harford: “"Different researchers, using different methods to study different highly creative people have found that very often they have multiple projects in progress at the same time, and they're also far more likely than most of us to have serious hobbies. Slow-motion multitasking among creative people is ubiquitous."


“...Slow-motion multitasking feels like a counterintuitive idea. What I'm describing here is having multiple projects on the go at the same time, and you move backwards and forwards between topics as the mood takes you, or as the situation demands. But the reason it seems counterintuitive is because we're used to lapsing into multitasking out of desperation. We're in a hurry, we want to do everything at once. If we were willing to slow multitasking down, we might find that it works quite brilliantly.”


Harford has a new Ted Talk address creativity. Harford’s recent FT article has already persuaded me to delete a few social media apps and partially take back control.


His arguments on creativity I find persuasive - because I essentially practise what he advises. I have multiple projects slowly on the go (short summary on 2019 in below picture) and they range across arts, investing and connecting. I have serious hobbies as well.


It is not multi-tasking in the sense of trying to - in the moment - do more than one thing, but it is switching between many projects over time. It also ties into my thoughts on breaking or working across silos of expertise.


Transcripts here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford_a_powerful_way_to_unleash_your_natural_creativity/transcript?language=en


He also references Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I have blogged about him before when speaking about Flow (and why you should turn email off and not check email so much as it breaks flow.


My blog on email management and why it’s important not to break Flow.

https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2017/10/25/organising-email-my-system


Why breaking silos is a good idea

https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2018/8/1/breaking-silos


References:

Three examples of this research. First: Howard Gruber and Sara Davis emphasize how often highly creative artists and scientists maintain a "network of enterprises" -- different projects at different stages of maturity. Their examples include the novelist Dorothy Richardson and the scientist Charles Darwin.

Howard E. Gruber and Sara N. Davis. "Inching Our Way Up Mount Olympus: The Evolving-Systems Approach to Creative Thinking". The Nature of Creativity, 1995

R. Keith Sawyer. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation, pp. 75-76 and 376, 2012

Second: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his research assistants interviewed around a hundred highly creative people, including astronomer Vera Rubin, jazz legend Oscar Peterson and the activist and Nobel laureate for Literature, Nadine Gordimer. Among many tendencies discussed is the habit of keeping multiple projects going on simultaneously, letting some simmer on the back burner while others take priority. One of Csikszentmihalyi's research assistants, Keith Sawyer -- now a respected creativity researcher in his own right -- drew this to my attention.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, 2013

Third: Leading scientists are vastly more likely to have serious hobbies.

Root-Bernstein, R., Allen, L., et al. "Arts foster scientific success: Avocations of Nobel, National Academy, Royal Society, and Sigma Xi members". Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology, 2008