Buildings
Service charges are a design outcome nobody prices at the start
The lifts, plant, landscaping and cladding access chosen in year one become a bill residents pay every year afterwards.
Buildings
Housing, towers, facades and what a building does to the block around it.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 2
Buildings
Single-stair buildings are a fire argument with a floorplan attached
How many staircases a block needs is a safety rule that quietly decides flat layouts, daylight and what small sites can hold.
Buildings
A car park podium is the hardest floor to convert later
Structured parking looks like spare capacity for a future without cars. Its slopes, headroom and drainage disagree.
Buildings
Facade maintenance decides how a building ages in public
Buildings do not weather evenly. Where the water runs and who can reach the surface decide what a street sees in ten years.
Buildings
Prefabrication moves risk from the site to the factory
Building components off site promises speed and consistency. It also concentrates the risk in a place the developer does not…
Buildings
Roofs are the largest unused surface a city already owns
Every building has one and almost none of them do anything. The obstacles are structural, legal and about access rather than about…
Buildings
Mixed-use buildings fail at the boundary between the uses
Putting homes above shops is sound urbanism and a difficult building. Almost every problem occurs where one use meets another.
Buildings
Refurbishment is priced by its surprises, not by its drawings
The cost of working on an existing building is dominated by what nobody could see until the work started.
Buildings
Purpose-built shared housing is a bet on one kind of tenant
Student blocks and co-living schemes solve a real housing problem with a floorplan that suits almost nobody else.