Alistair Barr - 10 things I've learned about design
From a busy schedule at the head of the architecture and design practice Barr Gazetas, Alistair Barr takes time out to share the top 10 lessons he’s learned during his design career.
Words by Pamela Buxton
1 I love variety. I once had a job where all we did was speculative office work and I soon realised I had to chase variety instead. Diversity of projects breeds a great creativity, not just for me but for the whole office. We do everything from public realm and masterplanning to central London office fitouts, leisure venues and one-off homes. If you work on different scales it's more stimulating, and makes you consider projects from the inside and the outside. We often find this extends the scope of the project because we are able to suggest ideas for other aspects beyond the original brief. If we were only interior designers or only architects we wouldn't make the same connections. That's why I like the idea of having different disciplines - it gives you a different energy.
Equally I try to hire people with diverse skills, backgrounds, and experience - it's no good trying to clone yourself.
2 I love collaboration. Collaboration with the community is a brilliant thing. We listen to people and their ideas and this makes you think about a whole lot of different things that you can feed into the project. We've learned that a small intervention can make a tremendous difference. I also love collaborations with other creatives that open up your mind to different ways of approaching a brief, and push you in a way you wouldn't normally think of going. We've worked with a poet and all sorts of artists including sculptors, painters, glassmakers and light artists.
3 Teaching and judging is a brilliant way of learning. I've taught at Greenwich University for 21 years, and I'm a Civic Trust and FX Awards judge, as well as sitting on a local conservation group. In the office, we have a design review session every Monday morning. The act of critiquing someone else's work hones your own views and tunes your perceptions.
4 Buildings should be like hosts. In the Seventies Charles and Ray Eames talked about the concept of guest and host, and the idea that any building should be welcoming and calming like a host. When you experience a building as a visitor or a member of staff, you should feel like you're being looked after and are comfortable, and know where everything is. A lot of our work is fitting out lobbies and receptions, and we always think about what the experience is like for anyone using the space - can they see where the entrance is from the outside? Does the building welcome you? Does the reception desk work well? Getting the host-guest relationship right is really crucial.
Staff cafeteria for Geneity, Hammersmith
5 You have to know the rules to break them. We've designed more than 100 reception desks so we know all the technical requirements. As years go by, we use that knowledge as a way to stretch ourselves. We're currently carving a reception desk from a 45-tonne rock from a Welsh quarry. Because we know the rules, we know where to push the boundaries while ensuring it still has all the functionality it needs.
Reception at the BREEAM Outstanding-award winning Quadrant 2 building in London
6 We play design Jenga. Many architects and designers load too many things into their buildings, so that sometimes you get spaces that end up in confusion. Instead, we try to take pieces away, paring the concept down so that we don't have so many different finishes, for example. But like Jenga, if you go too far, the concept collapses. Our job as designers is to know what the essence is of the scheme, and when you have to stop paring back. Often, it's that last squeeze of lemon that brings everything to life.
Artist's impression of the refurb of Greenwich market
7 You need open and closed ways of working. At certain stages of a project, you have to be open to all ideas. But then you have to put your blinkers on and really focus on one thing before taking them off again and opening up. It's very easy to get tunnel vision. But when you feel yourself going that way you have to pause, look up and consider all the options.
8 Models are catalysts. We build models all the time to help us look at things in a different way. They are consciously a bit crude - if you built a perfect one it would feel too precious so that that you couldn't change it around so freely. If ever we've backed ourselves into a corner with a design, we always build a model in order to start another conversation about the problem.
Reception at South Oak Way, Green Park Business Park, Reading
9 Designing is a messy process. Sometimes architects jump in too soon to try to tidy it up. Instead, you have to embrace the messiness to make sure you get the best out of a project, before making order out of chaos.
10 Everything flows from sustainability. The design process is not linear but circular, with sustainability right in the middle. Even five years ago clients hadn't fully bought into it and we had to achieve sustainability by stealth. But now people have taken it on as something they have to address. We're proud to have the only Outstanding BREEAM design rating for a listed building at Quadrant 2 in Air Street, London for the Crown Estate.
