Letters: February 2012

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Ludicrous Credentials
My brother is a boffin for NASA and I am an architect working in the Middle East. Neither are good credentials for a low carbon footprint lifestyle.
We are also both enthusiastic supporter of Richard Branson’s move to make space accessible. However, I could not help finding the proud declaration in the article in the November issue of the RIBA Journal that Foster’s Spaceport America is LEED Gold accredited more than a little ludicrous. Surely the purpose of a building should be taken into consideration?
Is there any argument on the planet, or off for that matter, that can claim space tourism is environmentally friendly?
‘Pragmatic’ or otherwise, putting that label on a space port is like putting a band aid on an amputation.
Neil Harris, Bahrain

Box clever
In response to the don’t-bother-to-find-out-if-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a vituperative-rant on ribajournal.com (Icon Alert: Piers Gough’s new Canada Water library), it was the derided Canada Water masterplanners that wisely put the plaza over the tube station box.  
You can build over the box [at huge expense] or off the box but definitely not part on, part off. Hence the limited library footprint and the inverted section.    
One would expect better of any journalist but from the editor of the RIBA’s magazine it stinks.
Piers Gough, CZWG

Wasted talent
David Saxby’s diary in October raised a faint feeling of nostalgia when he referred to the pool of talent the educational system seems to be prejudiced against. Before the politically inspired lunacy of demanding a university education for everything and everyone opportunities did exist. They might not have been equal opportunities but they were opportunities nonetheless.
I confess to being prejudiced since both I and my partner and several colleagues were able to qualify in the 60s and 70s by the RIBA’s alternative route. I know we can’t turn the clock back but it does seem a great pity that the door has been so effectively closed to ambitious and talented youngsters in favour of a double degree course and, as Saxby says, a burden of debt approaching £100,000.
Michael Parry, Wellesbourne

Shark’s tale
Your photo of the Headington shark (RIBAJ November 2011) dropping from the skies and getting lodged in a residential roof, revived fond memories.  In 1989-90 as a student from Kenya at the then Oxford Polytechnic, (now Oxford Brookes) this building fascinated me – where did the owner get the idea? Why a shark – after all,  Headington is far from the sea. If the public has enjoyed it for 25 years, why is it suddenly a nuisance? Why did former mayors ‘tolerate’ the shark?
I believe its urban design value is as a unique visual marker; it helps people create a mental map of the local built environment. That was why it became a subject of  RIBA Journal.
LG Mwacharo, Nairobi