Sir Richard MacCormac

I'm very sad to learn that one of Britain's most learned, civilised and civilising architects, Sir Richard MacCormac, has died, at the age of 75.

He and his MJP team won the competition to redevelop the Broadcasting House site in 2000 - by a mile, I'm told. He sold his ideas with a combination of wisdom and charm that enabled the BBC to get a really substantial building on the site, through a planning process of intense scrutiny. You never really knew if all the ideas were his - he assembled a team of quality and ambition - but wherever they started, they turned into something special as he explained them, and connected them, back to themes from the past, and forward, to spaces that would inspire.

I joined the project when Phase 1, the rebuilding of old Broadcasting House as a place to make radio programmes again, and the creation of its new sister wing, nee Egton, was about to start. We had great fun as MJP developed designs for Phase 2, watched like hawks by serried ranks of Dickensian cost consultants, quantity surveyors and builders-who-knew-best. He was erudite, but never earnest, fastidious but not fussy; we'd barter items, distract them from stopping good ideas by letting them worry about light fittings in escape stairs - and celebrate small victories over a bottle of crisp dry white.

BBC bosses with shorter-term ambitions steered clear - buildings are tricky things, and the best come from strong organisations.  Delays to Phase 1 scared them badly. The contract for Phase 2 eventually made Sir Richard the servant of builders - and they were looking to their margins, as, I'm afraid, was the BBC. A sad, sorry process of "simplification" was put in place; he fought a losing battle, and the wider "client" selected different architects to complete the detailed design.

There was some painful use of the word "iconic" in executive meetings of the BBC as they tracked the design work; I think they really meant memorable. Sir Richard's broad shape for the site, his stone and glass cladding, his gull-wing roof, his piazza and bridges, the twin atria and central circulation, the bold modern frontage along Portland Place, all survived simplification. Succeeding architects did good work inside, but with a much reduced budget - and I worry that the BBC doesn't have the discipline to keep the to-a-price interior in good nick.  But it's the framework that's memorable, and for that, we should remember and thank Sir Richard MacCormac.

Fostered

Expert chums have pointed out to me that the proposed new BBC Wales headquarters, on the site of Cardiff Bus Station, means that, finally, thirty years after her first try, Auntie will get a Norman Foster building.

Foster and Partners are the architects hired by Rightacres for the Cardiff development, though I'm not sure how much the good Lord is directly involved.

Back in 1982, BBC Chairman Lord George Howard brought Norman, (then just plain Mr, 47 and with a taste for helicopters) into the BBC to plan a new radio centre and HQ on the site of the Langham Hotel. The building had been used by the Army in World War II and suffered bomb damage; the BBC rented after the war, and secured the freehold for an undisclosed price in 1965. The Foster design was fairly well detailed before a new chairman came along, Stuart Young. He decided to cancel the project and sell the freehold, for an estimated £26m to Ladbroke Hotels, later owners of the Hilton brand. The BBC then bought the White City site - spookily for £26m. .

This is a Foster image of how his building might have looked, viewed down Portland Place.

You Kip

The new Premier Inn at Pacific Quay will open early, in June.

Architecturally, it responds to David Chipperfield's BBC block with another block - creating a sort of mega-container line along the river bank. It's the work of Lawrence McPherson Associates, Whitbread's current chosen designers in Scotland. It boasts 180 bedrooms, and a 180-seat Thyme Restaurant with views of the Clyde, plus 20 seats on a terrace, if you can face it.

Timber !

I'm expecting an outbreak of WOOD when tweaks to the proposed re-design of Television Centre are unveiled at a public exhibition later today.

The council planning committee have asked for more evidence of sustainability; and, lo and behold, a new practice has joined the design team. DRMM, led by Alex De Rijke, specialise in engineered timber, and Alex, who is also Dean of the Royal College of Architecture, has led development of cross-laminated timber panel construction.

Orange is not the only colour

The proportions applied to the ground floors of major buildings, from principles defined by Euclid, executed by the modern greats from Palladio on, and treasured in British banking halls from the turn of the 20th Century, are reflected in New Broadcasting House. Not just to even up with the original Val Meyer building, but to give an appropriate sense of scale on entering the building.

So Director of News James Harding's insistence on a ground floor  "office" has presented an architectural conundrum. The shell is complete - it's being called "a glass enclosure", but to reach the ceiling means it's taller than it is wide, reminiscent of something that needs filling with water.

To make it look a little less like a fish-tank, swirling orange decals - brighter than most bright things on a breakfast news set - have been applied to the glass. Furniture yet to arrive...

Double your money

Students of property development may be interested in the future for the old Radio Times/BBC London/BBC Training/BBC Trust building at 35 Marylebone High Street. The BBC finally got out in 2011, and claimed to be "saving" (i.e. not paying) £300m over the remaining years of its lease. The head lease was then owned by Conegate, the property vehicle of West Ham co-owner David Sullivan, who started out in real estate attempting to own a "Private" sex shop in every UK town.

As the BBC left, Conegate sold their 999-year lease to Scottish Widows Investment Partnership for £32.3m.

In June last year SWIP won planning consent allowing a change of use for the office space to residential (Cheers, Mr Cameron) with a scheme by posh architects Dixon Jones. The ground floor will stay retail, but the rest of the site becomes 19 flats and five townhouses - none of them "affordable", but there's a cash commitment of £8.7m to Westminster. The development is to be called "Marylebone Gardens".  Yesterday the site was sold to Ken Parker's Royalton property developers for £75m.

Conservatively, 19 flats, at, say £5m each, and five town-houses at, say £9m, could bring £140m - however complex the construction, plenty of room for a nice Royalton profit.

Going down

Further to Media Monkey's revelation that BBC News boss James Harding is moving his office to the ground floor of Broadcasting House, there is consternation amongst the troops, architects and middle management.

First the troops - no news yet on where the displaced will be resettled; indeed Media Monkey's item came out of the blue for some involved in the dogged, relentless process known as Home Newsgathering Planning.

Newsroom before people
made it untidy

The architects are confronted with the problems of building office space in a double-height open plan area. Will it be an open glass box ? A box with a lid on ?  A pretend lift shaft (see red box, left) ? I'll let you know - or you can take a look yourself with a stroll along Hallam Street.

This wish to be in the middle of things was last expressed by Mark Byford, until wiser heads prevailed. Tony Hall, when he was Director of News at Television Centre, was quite happy with a suite of offices constructed out of pre-fabricated metal panels stuck on a third floor roof. It looked like a punishment block from Bridge on the River Kwai from the outside, but inside, the space for Tone and his management team was generous, with sylvan views of Hammersmith Park. Its formal internal postal address was The Periphery.

So why, on a day when Tony tells the world there are more difficult cuts to come, should middle management be uncomfortable about Harding the Hack's move ?  Well, it puts him closer to the journalists than a whole layer of people whose principal daily function is to communicate the Great Man's thinking to the workers and then return to upper floors.  And, inside the BBC, it can often go wrong when the workers talk straight to the bosses. I offer you Caroline Hawley tipping Mark Thompson off about events at Newsnight.

• It is possible for a big boss to live on a newsroom floor without people bothering too much. In the Telegraph's vast Victoria hangar of multiplatform, Jason "Chauncey Gardiner" Seiken operates from a glass box at the edge, and has apparently yet to pick up the courage to take the direct route through the serried ranks of toilers on his way in and out.  

As good as a rubber factory - if not better

Could heritage, beloved of the Welsh, yet stand in the way of the BBC Wales building society ? The Taffia have long dreamed of a new headquarters in Cardiff, to match that of the Scots at Pacific Quay. But money is tight, and they need to max the value of the site they want to leave, at Llandaff.

Now, the great and the good of Cadw ("protect", "guard", "save", "preserve") have been asked to list it - something that scares off developers. It was designed by Dale Owen (1924-1997) of the Percy Thomas Partnership, and opened in 1966. Dale studied in the States under Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school, and is said to have taken pleasure in getting BBC penny-pinchers to buy real Mies van der Rohe chairs for the reception area.

Henrietta Billings of the Twentieth Century Society tells Building Design: “Broadcasting House is one of Wales’s most outstanding and important modernist buildings, and one of the best remaining examples of this highly significant Welsh architectural practice.”

Professor Judi Loach of Cardiff University chimes in: “This is the outstanding modernist building of the post-war era in Cardiff and indeed one of the very few in Wales that can stand comparison with first rate architecture abroad.

“This is the most significant 20th-century building to be threatened in Wales since the loss of the grade II* listed rubber factory in Brynmawr, south Wales built 1946-51, demolished in 2001.”

Talc

Here's a fly-around of the redevelopment of Television Centre. No interiors, no music and largely designed to show impact of the ziggurats of new housing on neighbours. It stops and starts a bit, and fades to grey as if everything is coated in volcanic ash, but is strangely soothing, and may be interesting if you live nearby.....

Please cover up

QPR's plans for a new stadium and ma-hoosive development at Old Oak, north of the Westway and close to what's left of Wormwood Scrubs, looks like a smart move. They've already got strategic control of 100 acres, the support of Hammersmith and Fulham, the GLA - and the fixing skills of Antony Spencer, who advised Arsenal in the development of the Emirates, and is also helping Brentford with their plans for a new ground.

Public transport ought to be a doddle - accessible from North Acton, Willesden Green, and, probably, the proposed CrossRail/HS2 interchange at Old Oak Common. Some may even arrive by canal boat, with the development running alongside the Grand Union Canal. Altogether a much better idea than a once-mooted move to a tiny parcel of land south of Television Centre on Wood Lane.

But please, can we please consider a stadium with a retractable roof ?  Modern Desso-style pitches are getting better and stronger, and clubs need to look at getting more use out of their investments. A roof should enable more varied events - and less disruption when they are pop concerts.

By design

Lord Hall of Birkenhead has clearly developed an interest in interior design, as he progresses round the orange Belisha beacons that mark out the upper floors of Broadcasting House. He's to be a guest judge in this year's awards organised by the Society of British and International Design, championing the work of interior architects and designers, from the UK and around the world.

He'll sit alongside a panel including property developer Nicholas Candy, Theo Williams (head of design at John Lewis) and David Lewis, of luxury yacht brokers, Sunseeker. The awards will be dished out in two ceremonies - one at the House of Lords, and another at the Dorchester.

Last year's overall "contract" winner was Bentley's new head office reception area, by FutureBrand - the sexiest thing to hit Crewe for some time. Will Lord Hall have to declare an interest if HOK enter their BBC work ? Will his own new office feature ?

Below stairs

Lend Lease have been appointed to refurbish Stage 6 of Television Centre, as a new home for BBC Worldwide. Stage 6 used to be the bi-media home of news, with the curved reception fronting on to Wood Lane.

It's an eighteen-month contract, and there's clearly a little bashing around of the structure required: "The main feature of the project will be a new lightwell, with a bespoke ribbon-like staircase running through the middle of the building". Ah, how those worldwide creatives love that bespoke, ritzy look. Does Lord Patten know ?

Praise indeed

"Pretty damn near seamless" says John Humphrys.

Towering

New visuals for Television Centre have been released by developer Stanhope, ahead of a detailed planning application in May. The mixed-use development by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, working alongside Duggan Morris, HOK and Maccreanor Lavington includes offices, shops, studio space for the BBC, leisure facilities, a hotel and 1,000 new homes.

The big change is "re-positioning" the ugly old East Tower. They actually mean knocking the old one down, but building something nicer, the same size, almost on Wood Lane. Will that wash with the Council ? If nothing else, it'll cast a giant shadow on the TC forecourt from midday on...

Unlamented

In 1985 the BBC pulled out of plans to build a new Radio Centre, designed by Norman Foster, on the site of the Langham Hotel, opposite Broadcasting House. Instead, the new chairman, Stuart Young, sold the freehold of the hotel for an estimated £26m - and for the same money, bought the old White City site.

The BBC's Architecture and Civil Engineering department then concluded a deal with Balfour Beatty, to "design and build" an administrative headquarters as the first phase of the White City Development. Design and build meant that you just specified your requirements, and lo, the building of your dreams appeared - for a pre-agreed price. The BBC imagined something nice, with fashionable brise-soleil shading elegant cladding, in the style of early Arup buildings at Broadgate. Design and build contracts incentivise finding the cheapest way of meeting the brief. BB's engineers met the shading spec with black glass and sheer metal panels - and thus the eyeless, heartless White City 1 emerged, ready for occupation in 1990. Critic Rowan Moore once described it as "a building with all the charisma of a plastic cup out of a drinks dispenser". ACED declared the building was on cost and on time; others told a different story.

The idea was that top brass would be there; I had the pleasure of showing round John Birt when he was deputy Director General, as the building was under construction, and he opined firmly, that it was the worst office he'd ever been offered - and never worked there.

Last week, discreetly, the BBC gave notice to the outside world that White City 1 was empty, ready for use by whoever is prepared to do a deal.

Here's a truncated piece of a speech by Greg Dyke, given in 2003, when he was Director General.

And here.. is the BBC's piece de resistance, a building which is known in the BBC as Ceacescu Towers – a description reflecting its similarity to many buildings constructed in post-war communist Eastern Europe. This is the BBC headquarters in White City. This was only built a decade ago and I find it little short of disgraceful that a public body like the BBC should have commissioned such a building. And by the way, I don't blame the architects and builders for this. It was all about a brief from the client - us - which was driven by considerations of costs above all else..... 

Let me tell you a story about this building which tells you so much about so many public bodies. Inside this horrible building is a courtyard, quite a nice courtyard actually.... It had been closed since the building opened.... When I asked why was this the case I was told the magic words "health and safety"... But as I was the new Director-General and hadn't yet been worn down by years of BBC bureaucracy I decided to take it further. I asked the fairly obvious question what were the health and safety risks? Silence. I asked again. After a few months the message came back that there was no wheelchair ramp and we needed an extra fire door. That was it - a ramp and a door... So I put in the door and built a wheelchair ramp – not personally of course – and declared the courtyard open with a party for the staff working there. The excitement at the party was amazing – one group asked me could we go on the balconies now? They too had been closed for ten years. Another asked does this mean we can paint our offices a colour other than grey? Radical stuff. And then I bumped into one of the building managers and told him all these exciting things. And what did he say? He said "look what you’ve started now".

Instant skyline

The Government has approved - or, rather, Eric Pickles has nodded through - the proposed Liverpool Waters development. Individual buildings within the scheme can now just go one by one to the city council for final planning approval. And that's my problem. A little like MediaCityUK, this Peel scheme attempts to look as if it might have grown organically, by conglomerating buildings of slightly different styles. This trick didn't work at Poundbury, and doesn't work along the Liverpool waterfront. Oh, for the unifying stamp of a single architect with a vision, not jobbing practices colouring in boxes in a masterplan that suits a developer rather than a city, without much concern as to how the neighbouring boxes are being finished...

Modelling

If anyone wants to see what TV Centre will look like with only BBC Studios and BBC Worldwide on site, there's a public exhibition, where you can make comments, running this week, in the reception there.

Pictures as soon as we get them...

Reception BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, W12
5 February 2013 14.00 – 20.00
6 February 2013 10.00 – 20.00

Light touch

They may not be as garish as those that surround them, but the lights on the spire of All Souls in front of Broadcasting House are a creative and heartwarming addition to the season.

Hearing voices ?

People with ears closer to the ground than me report murmuring outside new Broadcasting House. The paved piazza contains hidden speakers, as part of the art installation, "World" by Mark Pimlott. Dotted around between twinkling lights and metal place names, they carry some of the BBC's language services.

So if you see someone lying down, they may be trying to catch up with the latest news in Urdu, Arabic, etc. They may, of course, just be lying down. Men in dark suits are usually on hand to check...

Showrooms vacated

Radio 1 began to move out of Yalding House today, with its first live broadcast from new studios in the Broadcasting House penthouse on air at 0400am.

All of the 30,463 sq foot of Yalding will eventually be handed back to owners British Land, when 1Xtra and Newsbeat make the move. British Land want to re-develop it. Yalding came into the BBC's portfolio first as a home for The Music Department (which meant mainly The Third Programme, then Radio 3), with the ground floor used to store orchestral and band music.  The floor was ideal - as it had been previously strengthened for use as a car showroom.

In the 1930s, Great Portland Street was known as Motor Row - with a total of 33 car showrooms (including Brock House) at the peak. Here's a soundless Pathe clip from 1933, when they launched the area as "Britain's Permanent Motor Show". The dais might just be in front of Brock....

LONDON'S PERMANENT MOTOR SHOW! aka LONDON'S PAERMANENT