2021

I really didn’t know how to start this review of 2021 for Weston Williamson. Every beginning I wrote “What an interesting/ eventful/ exciting/ strange/ unexpected year” Nothing seemed apt. As a rule though you?can't?go wrong starting with?Shakespeare?and this from “As you like it” has been inert in my brain since school but seems to sum up our new found relationship with nature and has the right message of positivity and the times we live in.

“Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head; and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in?every thing.”?

I think we have turned adversity into something good and we may look back at the last 22 months seeing many positives. We have finally realised we live on a fragile inter-dependent planet where one small rogue event several thousand miles away has enormous consequences on all of us for many years.

?The pandemic has changed the way we work and here I’d like to thank Mohammed and Tom especially for their work in addressing all the issues of working from home investing in and trialling??the technology, and to Frankie for organising the logistics of distribution of new laptops to facilitate flexible working. When we closed the office in March of last year I like many was?filled with apprehension. But all of us have embraced new technologies which have enabled us to keep working and?still be??vibrant and profitable. This year until the recent rise in the Omicron variant we have been implementing a model of working in the studio at Valentine Place 3 days a week.?

In the summer I judged the City of London Building of the Year Award and was surprised to hear from all the leading Developers that they are still very bullish about the necessity for new office space.?Interestingly?the winner (100 Liverpool Street by Hopkins Architects for British Land) was largely a refurbishment with extensive remodelling and some?additions?together with?more?efficient cladding and environmental services.??This has to be the sustainable model. Certainly the group of students we mentor at the London School of Architecture -and their tutors -are more comfortable about this model for combatting Climate change than the demolish and build new approach. The Developers refer to history and previous fires, bombings, plagues and pandemics which has always resulted in the City growing back bigger, stronger and better. That is all true but this time the sudden change in working practices have developed our technology?giving us greater choices of how and where we work. I have no doubt the city will grow back better but it might not necessarily involve ever bigger office towers.

Our passion for?well designed?safe efficient public transport knits into this sustainability?agenda?and is widely appreciated in many world cities. Our Design Think Tank at LSA revolves around how cities will change in?relation?to the way we will travel around and between our cities. There will be dramatic?beneficial changes and we are already seeing some of them with more space being given to pedestrians and cyclists.

?The nature of our work at WW+P has changed. The last bid we submitted before the lockdown was for the Bakerloo Line Extension along the Old Kent Road. This and other schemes in London such as Crossrail 2 have been delayed in favour of the Government’s levelling up agenda which has meant looking further afield for other exciting opportunities. We have succeeded in winning work in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and have opened a studio in Manchester.??Further afield we are continuing to win exciting projects in??Toronto , Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.?

The?UK?Government are being true to their?word investing in infrastructure in the regions -though?levelling?up will not be solved by better transport alone. In London the projects are smaller but no less important. This has meant an increase in the work of Hannah and our bid team responding to smaller yet just as complex tenders. Phil Breese our Managing Partner has done an amazing job guiding us through these and many other changes. The emphasis of the Mayor which we are helping with is on step free access at a number of stations and pedestrian priority projects such as Old Street roundabout building on the success of schemes such as the Highbury??and?Archway roundabouts?and the Tottenham gyratory system. Barking Riverside is on site and promises to provide another example of London as a Polycentric city giving choice of where people live work and relax and lessening the commutes to the City and West End.

?Another thing that the pandemic has shone a light on is the inequality in our cities.?I along with other colleagues at WW+P have been doing a fair bit of volunteering in the evenings and weekends on the vaccine roll out programme. It is the first time?I've?had any first hand?experience?of the NHS and the amazing people?who work in it. There is a real and clear disparity between those with houses with access to gardens and some of the accommodation and external spaces provided?for?our key workers. I’m pleased that?some?of our work at WW+P particularly with Southwark and Camden is?helping?to redress this with designs for new social housing and affordable accommodation.

?The?urban?realm at Paddington is now open for use with the old Departures Road which was formerly used by queues of taxis now a vibrant new public space. The station?will?open next year along with our other Crossrail Station at Woolwich at the centre of the?Berkeley?Homes development at?Woolwich?Arsenal.?Crossrail?will prove itself as a city shaping project which is rightly being emulated in?Melbourne?and Sydney?and other cities around the world.

Having looked to Shakespeare for a start, I'll look to Dickens and Christmas Carol to end “It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”?

Thank you for your support throughout the year. I hope you all have an enjoyable break and look forward to an exciting 2022.

Chris

Chris