All articles by Gus Alexander

  • /k/y/q/gus_alexander_grey_91.jpg
    Comment

    How I learned to love part L

    2010-10-22T00:00:00Z

    The ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV Regulations - it hardly needs saying - must be greeted with fear and loathing. But oddly, says Gus Alexander, they can instil a feeling approximating joy - if only for 10 seconds

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Country matters

    2010-08-27T00:00:00Z

    For the architect, the country offers variety, novelty and the prospect of tanned craftsmen toiling in the wolds. But if you want control over a project, stick to the city

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Planning applications: The age of consent

    2010-07-16T00:00:00Z

    Architects are spending more of their time doing designs purely to gain planning permission. But unless they’re going to help build them too, don’t expect them to be any good

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Architects – meet the real world

    2010-06-11T00:00:00Z

    Many architects have evolved into service providers for giant PFI contractor consortiums. Which means that, if they lose their jobs, they can’t fend for themselves

  • Comment

    Gus Alexander: Prince Charles the wrecker

    2010-05-14T00:00:00Z

    As if dealing with planners for months on end wasn’t painful enough, we now have to calculate a last-minute intervention from a prince addicted to retro architecture

  • Comment

    The man from the ministry

    2010-03-12T00:00:00Z

    Who was also the client from hell, asked Gus Alexander to refurbish his flat. He then proceeded to give a masterclass in arrogance and incompetence. Here’s what happened

  • Comment

    Why can’t we have boulangeries?

    2010-01-29T00:00:00Z

    The French have mastered the art of nurturing individual shops and businesses, whereas here, civilised life is leaking out of our town centres. Gus Alexander has an idea…

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Party politics: Gus Alexander on overpriced party wall surveyors

    2009-12-04T00:00:00Z

    Gus Alexander doesn’t like to get involved in spats over party walls. Scumbag neighbours he can deal with, but overpriced surveyors who think they’re auditioning for Boston Legal? Never

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    The hard way: Gus Alexander on novating an architect

    2009-10-16T00:00:00Z

    Transferring control of the architect from client to contractor can work fine. It can also make everyone’s life a lot more difficult – particularly the architect’s

  • Comment

    The wrecking crew

    2009-07-17T00:00:00Z

    Oscar Wilde said a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Gus Alexander suspects that much the same is true of value engineers …

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Self-harming architects

    2009-06-26T00:00:00Z

    If architects have any time left over after baffling their novice clients, they ought to spend it explaining that it makes sense to pay them what their work is actually worth

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Design and builders

    2009-05-22T00:00:00Z

    So Cabe is going to vet public projects to make sure they don’t look completely awful. Well, that’s a good thing of course, but we should ask ourselves why it’s become necessary

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Outrageous fortune

    2009-04-17T00:00:00Z

    To make it as an architect you have to be prepared to endure long periods of evil luck as you wait for the phone call that will turn everything around …

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    The new realism

    2009-02-13T00:00:00Z

    The economic downturn isn’t without its consolations. It seems to be ushering in a new age of collaboration in construction and a more sober reckoning of what we’re about

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    That was then, this is now

    2009-01-16T00:00:00Z

    The recession gives us the opportunity to explore new ideas, says Gus Alexander. And, who knows, we might even get to think beyond the certainties of our home-owning democracy

  • Comment

    The uses of adversity

    2008-11-14T00:00:00Z

    No two ways about it: the downturn is depressing for everybody, except perhaps the bankers who kept their bonuses. But, says Gus Alexander, there are crumbs of comfort if you search hard

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    It all used to be so simple…

    2008-10-03T00:00:00Z

    … but these days building seems more about feeding the surreal imaginations of planning officers and keeping a whole army of specialist consultants employed.

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Prime cut

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Bad luck and relaxed invoicing meant Gus Alexander’s practice had it tough during the last recession but the lessons he’s learned means its looking pretty healthy this time around …

  • Gardens have private and community areas
    ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV

    Wayne Hemingway in Gateshead: Wimpey à la mode

    2008-05-30T00:00:00Z

    The Gus report — In the latest of his reviews of much-hyped housing developments, Gus Alexander finds a Gateshead estate built by Wimpey but dreamed up by fashion designer Wayne Hemingway to be really rather dapper

  • Gus Alexander
    Comment

    Tender is the blight

    2008-05-02T00:00:00Z

    There’s no excuse for bid rigging, but there may be certain facts that explain it. Like, for example, the whole way competition is supposed to work in our industry