What hope for CABE redux?

In a few weeks, old CABE disappears and its successor begins work as part of the Design Council. What are the prospects for the new arrangement, and how will the politics work?

When CABE was started in 1999, its support came from the Government's Culture department, DCMS, which had sponsored CABE's predecessor the Royal Fine Art Commission. DCMS has remained CABE's primary sponsor, but as the years have gone by, it has received progressively more funding from what is now the Communities department, DCLG, responsible for planning, housing etc. - the two funding sources reflecting architecture's uneasy siting, as far as tidy minded administrators are concerned, somewhere between fine art and the provision of useful shelter.

The Design Council's links are with yet another department, the Business department, headed by Vince Cable. This could make a significant difference in the way new CABE will relate to its political (pay)masters.

The DCMS is way down the Whitehall pecking order, which has always made it difficult for CABE to get its voice heard in government. DCLG is a bit more important in the scheme of things, but while there are some rising stars amongst its ministers with at least some interest in architecture (Grant Shapps and Greg Clark), it is unlikely to be much of an architectural champion while Eric Pickles remains in charge - though the bookies think he won't be there much longer.

The Business department, in spite of having the most naff of recent departmental acronyms, BIS, is closer to where the power lies in government than either of the other departments, so on the face of it, this will be helpful to the new organisation in establishing itself.

BIS is responsible for the construction industry, and the Design Council in its present guise concerns itself with industrial design and so on. All of this suggests the possibility of new CABE involving itself in the building and production side of architecture, an aspect it has had little to do with in the past. At a time when there is a need to reinvent much of building construction to deal with climate change, this is an interesting opportunity.

For architecture to flourish in the public sector, it is necessary for there to be patrons, preferably ministers at a senior level. That is the only way that it will be taken seriously. The New Labour administration was in general terms about as philistine as they come for most of its time in office, but CABE was lucky to have the support of a few ministers who cared - Alan Howarth and Lord Falconer, for example. The person in the new government who appeared most likely to care about architecture was Ed Vaizey, assiduously courted by all before the election because it appeared he was likely to end up as architecture minister - which he did, for a day or two, before being replaced, as a result of a conflict of interest problem, by the source of that problem, a man called John Penrose, who has not been heard of since.

With Cameron and Osborne worthy heirs to Blair and Brown in their apparent lack of interest in the arts in general - and Education Secretary Michael Gove suggesting that school design can manage without architects - things don't look that promising. In that context, CABE's survival comes across as a grudging concession, rather than evidence of any enthusiasm or commitment on the part of the Government.

CABE is going to have to work hard to fight its corner. If architecture in the planning system has problems of its own, and architecture as fine art is of no interest, perhaps the promotion of architecture - including retrofit - as a source of climate change solutions will be the way to get noticed.

Welcome to Royston Vasey

People would be more interested in getting involved in a 'Big Community' than in the 'Big Society', according to research published this week.

There's not much sign of enthusiasm for 'Localism' either, so perhaps that term also needs another look.

The default unit of localism in the Localism Bill is the parish - we still have parish councils in some places, generally in the countryside, but not in others. The adjective associated with a parish is parochial. So perhaps Parochialism would be a better word for what is intended? Certainly as far as 'neighbourhood planning' is concerned, it would convey the likely flavour more accurately.

But there is also something called 'community planning' - which starts to sound a bit more like something useful.

The planning system suffers from too many words and not enough pictures, but the choice of words is still important.

Separated at birth?

The Rogers Stirk Harbour-designed One Hyde Park, with its super luxury flats, had a high profile launch party yesterday which got plenty of attention in the press. The jaw-dropping prices and billionaire interiors received more attention than RSH's architecture, and no one seems to have noticed the building's inspiration across town at the 1970's St Giles Hotel in the former YMCA building off the south end of Tottenham Court Road - revealed in the pictures above. The buildings share a remarkably similar 'parti' - architect speak for basic arrangement of plan and form - even to the extent of both relying on views out on the diagonal to avoid overlooking from one wing to the next, as in both cases they are quite tightly planned. But while you will be asked for quite a few tens of millions if you want one of the remaining flats in the new building, at the former YMCA there is, as the Village People observed, a 'place you can go...when you're short on your dough' and enjoy a poor man's version of the same experience for less than £100 a night.

Piloti has a funny turn

Private Eye's Nooks and Corners column, which deals with planning and architecture, can usually be relied upon for tweedy, miserabilist huffing and puffing, sweeping up (with that same lack of discrimination for which its targets are so often criticised) the worthwhile along with the worthless in its scattergun loathing of anything that has happened in architecture after, roughly, Le Corbusier abandoned twiddly mouldings.

Very surprising, therefore, to find that the column in the latest issue begins with two paragraphs of (grudging, caveated) praise for the new masterplan for Chelsea Barracks. What's going on? No good can come of this.

Happily, the natural order of things is restored within a sentence or two, and the point of the item revealed - a characteristic moan about the project developer Qatari Diar's application for a certificate of immunity from listing for the Victorian chapel on the site.

Piloti's judgement in matters of listing can be gauged from a subsequent item which appears to suggest that a former workhouse in Cleveland Street W1, the subject of a current campaign, should be listed because Dickens lived nearby. Hmmm.

Gehl at NLA

To a packed event at the New London Architecture galleries, where Professor Jan Gehl gives a talk to promote his most recent book Cities for People.

He's a terrifically engaging speaker, his command of English striking just the right balance between communicating well while remaining very Nordic and therefore inherently more plausible than a Brit on the subject of humane, people-centred urban environments. We've heard most of it it all before, but it can't be said often enough, and Gehl is the man who was saying it earlier than most and more clearly and consistently than most.

It became apparent that in spite of successes such as Trafalgar Square and Kensington High Street, London is pretty off the pace when it comes to tarmac-culling, pedestrian and cyclist friendly streetscape improvements such as are now happening even all over Manhattan, as well as in Scandinavia, Australia and elsewhere.

Gehl has reached the level of authority and seniority where he can take the mickey, in a charming manner, out of named as well as generic purveyors of form-obsessed urban soullessness. Those architects' drawings showing new urban environments implausibly overpopulated by people enjoying themselves - activity he describes as 'unspecified public life' - were ruthlessly contrasted with photos of the deserted reality.

He is clear that architects should spend less time obsessing about forms on the skyline and more time worrying about life lived with feet on the ground, but perhaps most striking was the thought that perhaps these two worlds have far less to do with each other than one might assume. The neglect of the public realm in design is not a necessary consequence of attention to other things (except insofar as there are only so many hours in the designer's day) - we ought to be able to have both.

The evening ended with reflections on whether economies such as China and India can learn the lessons sooner than we did, relative to their state of development. The signs are not hopeful. I was reminded of a story of an occasion when London's then Mayor Ken Livingstone visited Beijing with Richard Rogers. On a tour of the streets of the city, they exclaimed 'all these bicycles!' - but the admiring tones were lost in translation, and they were told 'Don't worry, we're meeting our targets for getting them all cars.'

Strictly local

The winner of Strictly Come Dancing is chosen by popular vote, with expert commentary and advice available to the voters, who can accept the advice or reject it as they wish.

That's quite like the relationship between a design review process (which generally speaking involves peer or expert review, and does not claim to be representative) and decision making by local councillors (who are generally not experts, but represent voters).

The rhetoric of the current Government tends to deprecate 'unelected quangoes' and the like, and favour opportunities for 'local people' to decide things. In fact, of course, that's pretty much what we have now - the advisers advise, and decisions are made by the representatives of the people (through a system called 'representative democracy via secret ballot'. which has been cleverly designed to ensure that everyone has a say, not just the pushy).

Architects often have mixed feelings about others commenting on their designs. Many would prefer it if no one commented, and they could just get on with things - after all , they spend a long time learning how to design buildings. Peer review is not always popular - but may be preferred to the popular vote.

Openness and debate are good. Strictly has all the elements of a good decision making process - informed by experts, but not left entirely in the hands of experts.

But we do seem to end up with quite a lot of 'Widdecombe' buildings, so perhaps we need to look at it a bit more closely.

Keeping it simple

The Localism Bill is just out, and it includes significant planning measures, including the introduction of 'neighbourhood planning'.

A month ago, the RIBA had a meeting with Greg Clark, the decentralisation minister. It was put to him that (1) one of the few things that everyone could agree on about the planning system was that it was too complicated and ought to be made simpler; and that (2) every reform that set out with this ambition had the result of making the system more complicated rather than simplifying it.

He made a note of this.

Neighbourhood planning could be a good thing in theory, if one takes the optimistic view. But in practice, it seems very likely indeed that an already over-complicated system will yet again become more so, and the absurd micro-management of every last aspect of a planning application will intensify.

Mr Clark's boss Mr Pickles says he wants to cut through pointless bureaucracy, but has just put his name to a Bill that will have the opposite effect.