Sainsbury's is victim of its own success

The decision to demolish the 'green' Sainsbury's store in Greenwich, east London is both disturbing and fascinating. This award-winning building by Chetwood Associates has reached the end of its usable life just 14 years after completion, not through any fault of the architect or architecture but because it is now too small for Sainsbury's and not suitable for use by the new tenant IKEA. IKEA has pledged to use as much of the demolition material as possible, but one can be sceptical about how significant that can be, given how formulaic IKEA stores are. A little hardcore perhaps? Twenty years ago, we would probably have seen the demolition of this store as part of the cycle of replacement and renewal. Although it won prizes, deservedly, it is not amongst the most stunningly beautiful buildings and will probably not be greatly missed apart from by those who enjoyed shopping there. If it had hung on another 16 years of course, it would have been eligible for listing, in recognition of its unusual typology - but that will not happen now. What has changed in the past 20 years, and most particularly in the last five, is a concern with embodied energy. As buildings become more energy efficient in use, so the significance of that grows. Throwing away a building, even with a little bit of token recycling, is just so wasteful. The irony is that it may be the very elements that made this building so striking that hastened its demise. An anonymous, modular box is easily extended or adapted, but the Greenwich Sainsbury's had character which is both laudable and difficult to adapt. Let's hope that the lesson learnt is not that we should revert to an unending diet of the bad-neighbour boxes that blight so many of our high streets and out of town areas.

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.