BLAR MHOR HOUSING IN CAOL, FORT WILLIAM BY ARCHIAL FOR LORNE DEVELOPMENTS

Regular readers will be aware of what I consider to be just about the most prolific bad architect in the UK. Step forward Archial, the conglomerate that will be shitting out something awful in your neighbourhood very soon. I've had reason to think that they read this blog before, but now I know they do. Imagine the scene.
"Lads, we have a 300-home masterplan to do in Scotland, but we're shite at masterplanning. What shall we do?"
"I can't remember where I saw it, but whoever it is who made those great drawings of the Leyland Bus site has got real talent - we should hire him/her."
And they obviously did. This masterplan is much, much worse, though, with an even bigger array of Brookside Close moments, and a truly flagrant disregard for any existing geographical or architectural features of the place. Councils! You can have better than this! Just commission a good architect (there are other websites with some of those on them) rather than an utterly shit one who will transplant an urban and architectural language from out of their arse into your town.
One helpful rule of thumb, from Nairn to you. When someone presents a masterplan with a perimeter of a line of trees, it means they're trying to hide something. Do not trust these people.


And the housing itself? Mush. Just mush.

SPIRE HOSPITAL, THE GLEN, BRISTOL BY STRADFORM

Spire Hospital is a national centre of excellence for 'cardiac, brain and spinal surgery', apparently. It's a private hospital, so it has loads of cash. But not only can they not afford an architect for their extension, but they don't pay their contractor enough to use a proper CAD package. Sketchup hell ensues.
As for the building itself, is it just me, or can I detect influences of Elizabethan theatre architecture in the above picture? In any case, it will win the award for 'greatest number of differently pitched roofs in the smallest possible building'.
Whereas this part of the extension adopts a more modern idiom, the image excelling in expressing just how bad the chequerboard cladding will look on completion. The roof appears to be made of corrugated iron.
There was one architect involved in this, as planning consultant: Turley Associates, you are hereby named and shamed for your part in this atrocity.

WOODLAND COMMUNITY PRIMARY SCHOOL, ROCHDALE BY NPS ARCHITECTS

FAT SHED WITH TINY WINDOWS. THAT'S WHAT WE SHOULD EDUCATE THE VERY YOUNG IN THESE DAYS. IF IT FAILS AS A SCHOOL, YOU CAN ALWAYS TURN IT INTO A FUCKING DISTRIBUTION SHED. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN, LIKE NPS, YOU HAVE A BOARD OF DIRECTORS WHO LOOK LIKE NEWS OF THE WORLD PAEDOPHILES.

CARPENTERS PLACE, KNOWLE, BRISTOL BY CIRCLE CONSTRUCTION FOR EMINENCE DEVELOPMENTS

This building is the reason we started this blog. Absolute drivel, posing as contextual housing. The inexplicable symmetry, accentuated by black plastic extracts and downpipes; timber cladding that is varnished so hideously that it no longer looks like wood; 'balconies' that are not balconies (the three bonsai shrubs behind the top balcony in the middle are a heartbreaking expression of what the residents really wanted); regulation beige brick; the mud borders showing how money ran out before the landscaping was finished.
The building replaces a pub called the Venture Inn, which faced this square in West Knowle. Housing developers and local authorities care not a toss for social spaces like pubs and corner shops. They'd rather have flats full of junior management consultants than communities.
The inn's replacement is the architectural equivalent of porridge. Bland, formless, cloying, does nothing more than fill a hole.

PIER HEAD FERRY TERMINAL, LIVERPOOL BY HAMILTON ARCHITECTS

Hmm, I wonder what they've been putting in the tea at Hamilton Architects? The practice has what you might euphemistically describe as a 'mixed' portfolio, ranging from fugly Georgiana to a plasticky hospital. But here they were clearly given a bit of a budget, and decided to give free reign to their frustrated avant-gardism.
It riffs on the new (and nearby) Museum of Liverpool by 3XN, with a stone-clad slightly angular form. they've then gone ahead and made some hideously ill-considered glazed cut outs that collide horribly with the already deeply questionable geometry.
This building is what happens when a bad architect reads a few too many architecture magazines, and think that doing shapes is a good idea. The result is this anti-context, anti-scale, uncivilised building, exuding a staggering lack of decorum on the benighted World Heritage Site that is Liverpool's waterfront.
When shit practices do shapes, it also reveals the absolute stupidity and rampant subjectivity of architecture today. This was the winner of an international competition - the jury probably thought they were getting a B-team Libeskind or something.
Liverpool people will be relieved to hear that the programme of this building is an absolutely essential addition to the city's cultural landscape - a second Beatles Museum. The museum promises a "magical journey through the music of the Beatles, complete with motion, sound and water". Sounds like a museological fucking revolution.
According to the architect, the building has become popular with 'photographers' because of its 'quirky' 'angles'. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos above, it has become popular with really shit photographers, who barely know how to hold their cameras up straight.