At this point the Blogger needs to make an apology. On a trip today to a town in Hampshire ( don’t wish to offend someone) the Blogger some circa 50 years on stumbled over the above office building for which the Blogger helped create. The offices were part of the then state of the art shopping centre ( far too ugly to photograph) and were a critical focus in fiscal Project success. The offices became home of Diners Club ( a charge card of the first kind ). Setback came when the carpets would not go through the front door and the Blogger came up with the idea to take the windows out to do so. For such an initiative he received his first Company Car ( a Ford Capri ) for which he remained eternally grateful to his now dead boss.
Mixed Commercial Complexes were part of the 1970’s vogue following World War, Motorway Connect and ever increasing population to the suburbs of Britain. The likes of Sam Chippendale and John Hall pioneered these creations having witnessed their existence across the USA in the 1960s. Town Centre development became a fad rage and with hindsight ( if only we had eyes in the back of our head ) many of these Centres were badly designed and conceived mistakes. Few of these 50 years on stand the test of time and the Romans , Elizabethans and Victorians put us to great shame. The mix of Commercial with residential was seen as a taboo at the time and we ended up as a result with soulless cities lying with their dead out of town.
With the advent of Online Shopping and death of the High Street a new formula needs to be found to revive the Cities across Britain and it will be interesting to see what the next 50 years will bring. Some see a great dystopian scene where crime and drugs managed to clear the dark districts and people afraid to go out. Hopefully this will not happen indeed it can be avoided if the clever Architects and Developers can build integrated Cities where rich and poor live side by side. For that we need attractive environments and space can be built with a sense of life in its veins.
If we are to work more from home then we need houses built to accommodate the right space with state of art connectivity and places where people can go to for walks to clear their heads to clear their desks. Cluttered brains bring cluttered lives and we need clear and fresh thinking. Communities are an essential part of the solution and there must be created Sports facilities for our young, Halls for us to congregate and places to swim and seek help. This in turn will bring good health, better care for if you build pig stys the pigs will come, the majority will not soil there own doorstep.
All of this takes funding of course but if we don’t do it then the cost of not doing it will be too much for us all. Whilst it is likely that mobility will be limited as private transport diminishes in inner cities unless there is a genuine Public transport system that works we will lose. The Blogger left Hampshire today muttering his apology for the monstrous edifice and concerned as to the future. These buildings weren’t built to last and payback was always the only not primary consideration. My mother in law in her latter years of dementia would say to me that there are too many people on earth these days. She may have been right but more are coming and rather than put them in boxes stacked high we need to find a new way. In Saudi Arabia the new City Neom is being created and enclosed edifice with everything you need inside. Are we heading that way or are we heading for another way. Or are we really going to destroy our planet via carbon greed or like me destroying this Hampshire town through ignorance for which I now apologise.
An apology.
.
qbitblogger 