The Prince of Wales desired to see the designs and John Boynton suggested showing him ‘some of the six most meritorious designs and six of the most bizarre’, the latter absorbing most of the meetings.
Chief Executive of Cheshire County Council and a prominent member of the Town Planning Institution. As Facilitator, he liaised with the RIBA on the appointment of the assessors trying to manage the very different aesthetic taste of a very disparate team, which included Sir Alex Gordon, Sir William Whitfield, John Miller, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, John Boynton and myself. I learnt that John Boynton’s meticulous facilitation would become invaluable in progressing matters to achieve a unanimous outcome, namely the presentation of 3 contrasting designs from which the promoter could make his final choice. Unsurprisingly public interest in the architectural press was significant and the company was being offered a lot of “advice”; in order to discourage too much journalistic intrusion, Land Securities chose to use a floor of a building in Victoria Street, which was about to be refurbished using large ‘danger asbestos, no entry’ signs as the process was supposed to be confidential! In order to discourage uninvited intrusion by a very curious architectural press as the process was supposed to be confidential! Walking around
Cambridge University Land Society
all the anonymous numbered entries entailed a ¾ mile walk, each entry being accompanied by a rapturous written explanation of the design submitted. Eventually 10 were selected for further design development, but only 9 proceeded, as 1 good entry came from an unqualified party who was disqualified under the RIBA rules and the poor student never learnt of the potential fame his selection might have deserved: the old “Trade Guilds” still ruled then! (When subsequently appointed to the RIBA Competition Steering Committee, I later took issue with this policy, to the intense annoyance of Sir Richard MacCormac). Meantime the Prince of Wales desired to see the designs and John Boynton suggested showing him ‘some of the 6 most meritorious designs and 6 of the most bizarre’, the latter absorbing most of the meetings at Kensington Palace. So the 9 selected from the 287 progressed their drawings with access to the promoter’s team of technical assessors, namely quantity surveyors, structural, mechanical and electrical engineers and commercial surveyors. The smaller practices took full advantages of this process which helped to mitigate
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the disparity in the different firms’ resources. In the end, the Facilitator managed to obtain a unanimous verdict from the assessors with their very different tastes having manually minuted every meeting by its conclusion. His minutes were typed up as we enjoyed a good lunch or dinner accompanied by fine wine and he asked all concerned to sign off the minutes as we enjoyed our coffee: quite a masterful use of time and brevity of prose. The 3 designs ultimately chosen for presentation to the promoter might be considered as: ultra modern; traditional (some might call pastiche); and a very efficient, good looking commercial building. In the end the promotor selected the most traditional design, one submitted by Ron Sidell and Paul Gibson, that gave efficient use of space and respected the other buildings in Trafalgar Square and I believe has proved to be a very good neighbour. Moving on to another example, Land Securities elected to promote a competition for the replacement of Eland House in Bressenden Place, a street which sadly can compete with London Wall for its somewhat brutal feel. We had constant trouble with commuter
2017