Ten Principles We Can Build Upon

While I was carrying out the research for my film on architecture, I became increasingly aware of the failure of the current planning rules and regulations to create a better environment. It is not that there is any shortage of red tape; after all, every building that has been put up since 1947 has had planning permission, except for those associated with agriculture and Government activities. It's hard to believe sometimes, but the whole contemporary, built world has been through the mill of bureaucracy, committee, negotiations, often long and expensive public enquiries. To what end, I often ask myself? I can only say that from the thousands of letters I receive it is clear that vast numbers of people are equally puzzled.

It seemed to me that it might be worth looking into this question, so I canvassed the views and advice of all sorts of people with a profound interest in the subject, and the result has been distilled into a new set of suggested ground rules. By standing back and looking at what has been happening as objectively as possible, I could see that we seem to have forgotten some of the basic principles that have governed architecture since the Greeks. Many of them are simple common sense rules like the laws of grammer that create a language.

I would suggest that if you destroy the past, or consistently deny its relevance to the present, humanity eventually loses its soul and its roots. In order to avoid repeating the obvious mistakes of the last forty or fifty years, it is essential to appreciate that certain values and principles are external ones, in terms of human experience. Because our technology changes so rapidly it does not mean our spirits, or our fundatmental psychological responses, alter as well. Being modern and up-to-date does not mean we have to invent a new style or some new, revolutionary building material every other year.

Although I'll be criticised for my ideas, I'm sure there is a general agreement that an emphasis on quality creates greater value, as well as leaving our descendants something worth inheriting. What follows, therefore, is not new. It is a simple extension of the rules and patterns that have guided architects and builders for centuries. I hope it may be a timely reminder.

It isn't up to me to rewrite the planning laws, but I do think it might help if we sat back for a moment and looked at the whole process. It seems to me that we are lost in a maze of regulations; perhaps the way out is simpler than we think. I'm sure that the person in the street knows exactly what they want, but is frustrated by form-filling and the mystique that surrounds the professionals. I want to see laypersons and professionals working together; developers, architects and craftpersons understanding each other. I want to demolish the barriers of bureacracy, and discover that common ground we seem to have lost. There is nothing wrong with simplicity.

Ten Planning Principles:

I hope these ground rules may provide a return to our roots and an enlightend view of the way ahead.

Only when we've cleared away the undergrowth of worthless rules and dogma can beautiful architecture flourish again in the Kingdom.

1. Place - We must respect the land. It is our birthright and almost every inch of it is densely layered with our island history.

2. Hierarchy - There are two kinds of hierarchy which need concern us here. One is the size of buildings in relation to their public importance. The other is the relative significance of the different elements which make up a building -so that we know, for instance, where the front door is!

3. Scale - Humanity is the measure of all things. Buildings must relate first of all to human proportions and then respect the scale of the buildings around them. Each place has a characteristic scale and proportion: farmhouses in Nottingham may be tall and thin and in Northumberland they may be low and squat. It is high and out-of-scale buildings that are most damaging.

4. Harmony - is the playing together of the parts. Each building that goes beside another has to be in tune with its neighbour. A straggling village street or a wide city avenue which may consist of buildings belonging to many different periods can look harmonious.

5. Enclosure - One of the great pleasures of architecture is the feeling of well-designed enclosure. It is an element and can be appreciated at every level of building from the individual room to the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral, or from the grand paved public square to the walled garden.

6. Materials - Britain is one of the most geographically complicated countries in the world, as a result it is one of the most beautiful. Our rich variety of building materials is a source of constant pleasure and surprise, for our villages and towns were built from what came closest to hand: stone in Northhamptonshire, timber in Herefordshire, cob in Devon, flint in the Sussex downs, brick in Nottinghamshire. Each town and each village has a different hue, a different feel, and fosters a fierce loyalty in those who belong there. We must retan this feeling; we must ensure that local character is not permanently eroded.

7. Decoration - There seems to be growing feeling that modern functional buildings with no hint of decoration give neither pleasure nor delight. The training of the modern architect raely encompasses the rules of ornament or the study of past examples of applied decoration. There is no longer a universal language of symbolism, and the gropings of some critics towards the imposition of 'meaning' on what they call post-modern architecture has been fairly unfruitful.

8. Art - While decoration is concerned with repetition and pattern, a work of art is unique. Why is it that contemporary artists play such a small part in the creation of our surroundings? Architects and artists used to work together naturally; today they are worlds apart. Look at so many of the great buildings of the past, where the architect needed the contribution of the artists to complete the splendour of the total vision.

9. Signs & Lights - Far too many of the marks of 20th-century progress take the form of ugly advertising and innappropriate street lighting, apparently designed only for the motor car. The car and commerce are both vital to the well-being of the country, but it is the junk they trail with them that we have to tackle.

10. Community - People should be involved willingly from the begining in the improvement of their own surroundings. You cannot force anyone to take part in the planning process. Legislation tries to make it possible for people to share some of the complex processes of planning, but participation cannot be imposed: it has to start from the bottom up.

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