That is to say an aesthetic contribution in addition to formal design requirements, which are likely to be largely a matter of engineering. In this, the precedent is the architecture of railways, sewerage systems, pumping stations and subsequently coal-fired and nuclear power stations, where the magnificent precedent of the 19th century followed through until relatively recently.

The assumption that infrastructure design is a matter for process engineers and few others is, happily, being increasingly challenged, partly as a result of planning policy requirements to show how design quality is being incorporated in giant public investments, and partly because many public and private clients see a value in ‘good design’ because of general cultural views – allied with the notion that the well-designed may win those necessary planning permissions more quickly.

Data centres are tricky on many fronts. For one thing, the extraordinary amounts of energy they require make them an intellectual test case for the Zero Carbon lobby: is it appropriate to support their development on the basis that the building itself is virtuous, but its activities are energy-guzzlers? And if they are ok, what about airports?

So far, the only creative idea about reconciliation of energy use and data centres was the WAFX-winning idea from Arup, presented in 2023, which proposed the re-use of redundant oil rigs as under-water data centres. This was a brilliant proposition which sounded fanciful, but was accompanied by analysis (as one would expect from Arup) of the global supply of oil-rigs which might be expected to become redundant over the next few decades.

This was not an architectural idea as such, but it had the characteristics of holistic architectural thinking which frequently derives from collaborations with engineers of all descriptions.

Happily, we now have an example of a planned data centre, in Scotland, where the inspiration for the design comes from Ancient Greece. The Stoa-inspired design by Graeme Nicholls, which could be mistaken for several buildings by David Chipperfield, shows that 19th century attitude is alive and well, and historicist in a good way. It is not an essay in why high-tech buildings can have thatched roofs. All power to the architect’s elbow, and to the serendipity that gave us this design just as government recognized that this is an important design area. Working with the RIBA is, with any luck, a welcome sign that politicians might be starting to realise that architects can make things better.

(Image credit: Cato data centre in Fife by Graeme Nicholls Architects. Source: Secchi Smith / Graeme Nicholls Architects)

Housing doesn’t get any better

With two major UK housebuilders in severe difficulties (Ardmore and Vistry), prospects for the governments 1.5 million net additional homes by the end of this parliament look increasingly remote, not that they looked realistic in the first place.

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. In his latest book, the seasoned architectural writer and commentator Jonathan Glancey, recalls in a series of excellent essays, how we have managed things better in the past, and what it is that went wrong.

Where We Live (Icon Books) is a beautifully written hymn to the ambitions and achievements of yesteryear, accompanied by a ruthless and witty condemnation of the splattering of low-grade accommodation across the country, courtesy of the sort of housebuilders now in trouble.

Alas, the subtitle of the book includes the phrase ‘How to build the homes we need’. I hope Jonathan won’t mind me saying that the book offers nothing in terms of policy or delivery strategies, other than to avoid the sort of stuff we have been churning out to make one area indistinguishable from another. This requires an attitude of mind on the part of government which, who knows, may be developing. If they can think about data centres and the quality of design, what about housing, where Homes England has £39 billion to spend on affordable homes if the figures are to be believed.

The sad things is that, as the book shows, we have managed to build at scale to decent design standards, in the past. The Architects’ Journal has published to supplements recently on example of exemplar housing projects of different scales and architecture. We know how to design it, and we have an army of architects ready, willing and able to take on the challenge.

Unfortunately, the debate in architectural circles currently seems to be about quality not quantum. This is a flip of housebuilder propaganda, which focusses on numbers not quality, and wastes time by pretending that shortages are all the result of the planning system. They know this is nonsense, but it is a good line, which the government (and politicians generally) are all too ready to adopt, because it gets them off the hook.

As this column has noted before, the reason we have a housing shortage is because we have failed to directly procure social housing in anything like sufficient quantities for 40 years. We continue to rely on a policy of trying to deliver said housing by forcing the private sector to provide it as a form of taxation, a policy which has failed utterly. The politicians are in denial about this.

Other countries and cities face the same problem. Paris has taken great delight in converting at vast expense a building in Place des Vosges into a tiny number of apartments for ‘ordinary people’ instead of letting the price market operate. So, no new net additional units. The mayor there has an ambition to own 40 per cent of all homes in the city. Ownership is not the same things as construction. Paris, like London, is littered with land and buildings that could be easily used for new housing, and the message has to be net additional. If politicians have heard this before, they need to hear it again. Necessary repetition for the wilfully inattentive.

Congratulations Joyce Owens!

Joyce Owens, who practises in Florida but for many years operated from London, has been hugely supportive of WAF, especially as we moved to the USA for the first time in 2025 (and will of course be back later this year).

Joyce Owens at the WAF Launch Reception in Miami

So many congratulations to Joyce on becoming president-elect of the American Institute of Architects for 2027, with the presidency to follow in 2028. She will doubtless do a marvellous job, and we look forward to congratulating her in person in Fort Lauderdale in November.