Robert Adam (11 September, page 28) has been tempted by the apple of resentment to deride those who don鈥檛 agree with his way of thinking

Architects should go back to first principles each time we begin a commission, but after that it is tempered by the designer鈥檚 own experience and likes and by the shortcuts that we all have to work out to make sense of this world of design.

In his case he takes the shortcut of using a set of rules and ideas to design for a narrow 鈥渢rad鈥� palette of materials. But we have many marvellous new, or vastly better, materials to work with, and some of us try to expand our repertoire to make the best use of those.

Stop agonising about opposing schools of architecture. Architects don鈥檛 all have both feet in a 鈥漢ostile camp鈥�; most of us stand astride the abyss, surveying the whole world.

Stephen Furnell

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