Gus Alexander
CommentHow I learned to love part L
The Building Regulations - it hardly needs saying - must be greeted with fear and loathing. But oddly, says Gus Alexander, they can instil a feeling approximating joy - if only for 10 seconds
CommentCountry matters
For the architect, the country offers variety, novelty and the prospect of tanned craftsmen toiling in the wolds. But if you want control over a project, stick to the city
CommentPlanning applications: The age of consent
Architects are spending more of their time doing designs purely to gain planning permission. But unless they’re going to help build them too, don’t expect them to be any good
CommentArchitects – meet the real world
Many architects have evolved into service providers for giant PFI contractor consortiums. Which means that, if they lose their jobs, they can’t fend for themselves
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Gus Alexander: Prince Charles the wrecker
As if dealing with planners for months on end wasn’t painful enough, we now have to calculate a last-minute intervention from a prince addicted to retro architecture
CommentThe man from the ministry
Who was also the client from hell, asked Gus Alexander to refurbish his flat. He then proceeded to give a masterclass in arrogance and incompetence. Here’s what happened
CommentWhy can’t we have boulangeries?
The French have mastered the art of nurturing individual shops and businesses, whereas here, civilised life is leaking out of our town centres. Gus Alexander has an idea…
CommentParty politics: Gus Alexander on overpriced party wall surveyors
Gus Alexander doesn’t like to get involved in spats over party walls. Scumbag neighbours he can deal with, but overpriced surveyors who think they’re auditioning for Boston Legal? Never
CommentThe hard way: Gus Alexander on novating an architect
Transferring control of the architect from client to contractor can work fine. It can also make everyone’s life a lot more difficult – particularly the architect’s
CommentThe wrecking crew
Oscar Wilde said a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Gus Alexander suspects that much the same is true of value engineers …
CommentSelf-harming architects
If architects have any time left over after baffling their novice clients, they ought to spend it explaining that it makes sense to pay them what their work is actually worth
CommentDesign and builders
So Cabe is going to vet public projects to make sure they don’t look completely awful. Well, that’s a good thing of course, but we should ask ourselves why it’s become necessary
CommentOutrageous fortune
To make it as an architect you have to be prepared to endure long periods of evil luck as you wait for the phone call that will turn everything around …
CommentThe new realism
The economic downturn isn’t without its consolations. It seems to be ushering in a new age of collaboration in construction and a more sober reckoning of what we’re about
CommentThat was then, this is now
The recession gives us the opportunity to explore new ideas, says Gus Alexander. And, who knows, we might even get to think beyond the certainties of our home-owning democracy
CommentThe uses of adversity
No two ways about it: the downturn is depressing for everybody, except perhaps the bankers who kept their bonuses. But, says Gus Alexander, there are crumbs of comfort if you search hard
CommentIt all used to be so simple…
… but these days building seems more about feeding the surreal imaginations of planning officers and keeping a whole army of specialist consultants employed.
NewsWayne Hemingway in Gateshead: Wimpey à la mode
The Gus report — In the latest of his reviews of much-hyped housing developments, Gus Alexander finds a Gateshead estate built by Wimpey but dreamed up by fashion designer Wayne Hemingway to be really rather dapper
CommentTender is the blight
There’s no excuse for bid rigging, but there may be certain facts that explain it. Like, for example, the whole way competition is supposed to work in our industry