PERSPECTIVE HOUSING, LAMBETH, LONDON BY ASSAEL

Debt-loaded housing developer Crest Nicholson is not known for its patronage of great contemporary architecture. This is well documented online. But this brute is as bad as it gets. The architect, Assael, is frequently included in the Sunday Times' list of best employers in the country, but I'd need more than a softball team and a decent pension to tolerate working on a project like this. Maybe they give out free crack to their employees at lunchtime.
The project is a conversion of an office building formerly occupied by MI6. So far, so sustainable. But what Assael was thinking when it dressed it up for the 21st century, god only knows. Firstly, they created a ham-fistedly 'iconic' entrance, presumably to give the modernist building some presence on the street. The white-painted tree-like columns are horribly twiggy and supports a roof (presumably modelled on the Nike tick) that is horribly, clunkily thick.
But it's the tower that's really bad. You can see what they were thinking. Clad the bottom five storeys in terracotta so it 'relates to the cityscape', and then do whatever the fuck you like above that. The top of the tower is just hilarious. It reminds me of Taipei 101, but without the elegance.
This conversion is award winning, believe it or not. It is a truism that if you can be arsed to enter, you can win an award for anything in this self-congratulatory architectural culture.

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