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Loose-Fit Architecture: Designing Buildings for Change

September/October 2017
Profile 249 Volume 87 No 5
ISBN 978 1119 152644

Guest-Edited by Alex Lifschutz

The idea that a building is 'finished' or 'complete' on the day it opens its doors is hardwired into existing thinking about design, planning and construction. But this ignores the unprecedented rate of social and technological change. A building only begins its life when the contractors leave. With resources at a premium and a greater need for a sustainable use of building materials, can we still afford to construct new housing or indeed any buildings that ignore the need for flexibility or the ability to evolve over time? Our design culture needs to move beyond the idealisation of a creative individual designer generating highly specific forms with fixed uses. The possibilities of adaptation and flexibility have often been overlooked, but they create hugely exciting 'loose-fit' architectures that emancipate users to create their own versatile and vibrant environments.

Contributors include: Stewart Brand, Renee Chow, Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, John Habraken, Edwin Heathcote, Despina Katsakakis, Stephen Kendall, Ian Lambot, Giorgio Macchi, Alexi Marmot, Andrea Martin, Kazunobu Minami, Peter Murray, Brett Steele, and Simon Sturgis.

Alex Lifschutz is the Director of London-based practice Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands. Lifschutz co-founded the firm (with the late Ian Davidson) in 1986, after working for Foster Associates. It is now a 100-strong practice. Central to the practice's work is the 'long-life, loose-fit' ethos, which considers the life of buildings beyond their immediate future. The office also has a particular expertise in the creative reuse of historic buildings, from the Oxo Tower refurbishment of the 1990s to a number of sensitive interventions in buildings in Westminster, to a string of innovative retail spaces in historic luxury department stores across Europe. The practice has made an essential contribution to the regeneration of London's South Bank.?Lifschutz is Past President of the Architectural Association and is Chair of Body & Soul, a charity devoted to children and teenagers affected by HIV.