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Concrete Witness
Brutalist architecture journal. Heavy type, civic ambition.
survey
Survey: The Orrin Baths, Brantholm
A full building survey of a municipal swimming hall in an invented city: the plan, the structure, the specification line by line, and the verdict of a year of visits.
car-park
A Car Park, Reconsidered
The Tidmarsh Deck was built to store cars and was written off as an eyesore. Its floors, ramps and column grid are exactly what a market, a clinic and a bike hall need.
maintenance
Maintenance Is Politics
A building does not decay; it is neglected, one deferred repair at a time. Who gets the repair budget is a political decision, and concrete shows the bill.
stairs
Stairs as Public Space
The Kellet Steps join the lower town to the high one, and nobody designed them for sitting. They are the best seat in the city. Why a staircase can be a street.
housing
Corvane House and the Slab Question
A fourteen-storey housing slab in an invented city is condemned by the people who never lived there and defended by the people who did. A case study in who gets heard.
concrete
The Honesty of Board-Marked Concrete
Board-marked concrete keeps the grain of the timber that shaped it. Every pour tells on the carpenter, the weather and the day. That is exactly why it is worth building.