Willow sparks imaginations in Waterbeach

In last Friday's glorious sunshine, I was standing in a wood in Waterbeach between Cambridge and Ely. It was hard to believe that this was a millennium wood, planted only 13 years ago, as the trees soared overhead and the cottonwool from the willow catkins filled the air.
It was the willow that was the reason for being there. Engineer Simon Smith of Smith and Wallwork had worked with architecture students at the University of Cambridge to design and build a footbridge across a land drain in the wood. They used a locally over-abundant source - willow, which nobody seems interested in coppicing any more.
The extraordinary thing about willow is its fertility. Cut it down, stick the end in the ground, and it starts to grow. This has been known for centuries and willow has been used for 'living' shelters and even for growing pieces of furniture - an approach that requires considerable patience. What Smith and his students were doing though was designing a footbridge that the public could use, and so was safe and could carry loads.
It was a tough job. We may have visited in the sunshine, but the hard work was done in winter, when the willow is least likely to be damaged by coppicing.
Having calculated the loads, and designed and constructed a simple arched structure, they then 'wove' a deck from slimmer willow. This was both to provide a walking surface and to prevent the arch elements sliding past each other. It was, admitted Smith, hard work, requiring strong forearms and a specially designed tool. One of the interesting things about projects like this is that volunteers will undertake work freely that most paid workers would refuse to do.
Health and safety required both the addition of a willow handrail, and the addition of a softwood deck to prevent people slipping. Sadly both in some way compromise the initial simplicity of the design.
The bridge is sprouting impressively.

The next challenge will be renewal of the woven deck. Since this is not rooted it will eventually rot. Smith is trying to weave in the new shoots, but this may prove too difficult.

So this is not a perfect solution, but it is a great research project - lots of learning, and vision of new potential for a neglected material. It is great to know as well that a love of learning will galvanize people to undertake arduous work in demanding conditions. And there are even poppies growing on tbe bridge to lift the heart a little further. 

Good housing should be robust enough to cope with alteration

How many people - how many architects? - live in Georgian or Victorian houses? Plenty. Many of those houses are in conservation ares, and some are even listed. But even the listed ones will have been altered prior to achieving that status. If nothing else, they will have had bathrooms added, and probably the ubiquitous back extension. And the AJ has published tens, probably dozens, of glazed back extensions to create spacious kitchens on old properties. So I found it hard to sympathise with the residents of the Stirling Prize winning Accordia scheme in Cambridge who have, says the AJ,  applied for Conservation Area status to prevent others living there from tinkering with the design. Somebody has put a cat flap in a window. Somebody else has stained a shed. Didn't the fools know it's not meant to be stained? Who could create such vandalism where uniformity previously reigned? The sort of people who did this presumably:

Oh, but of course that is colourful charming Notting Hill isn't it? The point about good housing is that it is robust - and that owners and residents will want to put their own stamp on it. Accordia has been universally acclaimed. It is evidently much loved. But it is a collection of individual houses - not a housing tower, not a set of student residences, not a hospital. People will want to put their imprints on it. If it can't cope with the odd rattan blind or new house number, then it isn't up to much. It's time to get over it and get on with life.

Congratulations - again - to Cambridge

What an interesting choice the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge, designed by Stanton Williams, was as winner of the Stirling Prize. It was a kind of stealth winner. While the Olympic Stadium was heralded as the popular choice (the choice of the Populous?), architectural pundits mostly argued that the winner would be Chipperfield (again) for the Hepworth in Wakefield, or O'Donnell and Tuomey for the Lyric Theatre in Belfast.
Rory Olcayto wrote in the AJ about Mark Jones' hints about front runners, 'Jones can’t mean Stanton Williams’ Sainsbury Lab, even if it sends a message that architecture can affirm the strength of British scientific research. This argument is wrong-headed. Scientific talent is not so much drawn to smooth render and York stone paving as it is to the best equipment and the best scientific minds. CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider and where staff accommodation is bog standard, is proof. And at five grand a square metre, the architectural achievement at Cambridge looks less convincing.'
The argument about scientists putting up with rubbish accommodation is exactly the one that Lord Sainsbury was trying to lay to rest - and there is an argument that the great surroundings will also attract the best brains. Journalists after all also love their jobs and are prepared to put up with bad environments - but does that mean they should?
Another reason that this seems like a 'stealth choice' is that this is not the Stanton Williams building that has received great popular attention - that distinction has gone to its new home for Central Saint Martins in King's Cross.
One factor that has received little notice is that this is the second building in a particular quarter of Cambridge to win the Stirling Prize. The first was the very different Accordia housing development which took the award in 2008. Both these are away from the magnet of the historic colleges, but both house the brainpower that defines the best work of the university - one as living accommodation and the other as a working environment. One can't imagine that Lord Sainsbury would have made this donation to an institution that was struggling in the research assessment stakes.
Brains obviously draw money and with it the ability for good design to flourish. This government doesn't seem to set much store by learning and positively wants to keep foreign brain power out. The  Stirling judges evidently did not choose a building that was on message for a political agenda, since other choices would have made a stronger point. But there may still be a lesson here.