Top posts in May '11

Withdean Stadium moves on. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 views

The Amex Stadium from the Beacon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 views

Hove Station - then & now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72 views

Preston Barracks plans on show at Hove Town Hall . . . . . . . . .66 views

Redevelopment of the London Road Coop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 views

"Funny Birds" at the Level.

The aftermath of a performance "Drôles d’Oiseaux et Blaxon Art" at the Level by the French street theatre company, Générik Vapeur, joined by partners from the ZEPA network. Générik Vapeur is based in Marseille, ZEPA stands for the "European Zone of Artistic Projects". 

Marseille-Provence has been selected as European Capital of Culture in 2013. Throughout that year, hundreds of cultural and artistic events will take place in Marseille and the surrounding area involving

all artistic and cultural disciplines: contemporary dance, music, visual arts, theatre, exhibitions, street performances, symposia, literature, digital arts, gastronomy, cinema: a cultural programme combining "exceptional artistic excellence and popular participation". Nice :)

Redevelopment of the London Road Co-op

Prospective developers have exhibited early proposals to demolish the elegant, 1930's building and replace it with 400 student housing units with retail on the ground floor. Irrespective of the architectural merits of the replacement, or the desirability of student housing in this concentration in this particular area, prior concerns arise.

The developer claims that conversion of the existing building is unviable but fails to provide any supporting evidence for this statement. One might ask unviable for what? Is conversion simply "unviable" in relation to the amount of profit they hope to make or just for student housing? It was claimed that the Royal Alexandra Hospital could not be viably converted to housing yet after a long-running campaign by local amenity societies and residents, and a costly public enquiry, Wimpey was finally persuaded that a sensitive conversion of the historic main building to apartments was feasible and an important feature of the Dyke Road streetscape was saved for posterity. 

The developer also claims that the replacement building will be to high standards of sustainability but, of course, neglects  the inherent unsustainability and waste of demolishing a large, high-quality building, carting away scores of lorry loads of rubble to dump in land-fill 50 miles away, and then rebuilding with new masonry, newly-felled timber, newly-mined metals. Nor is it required of developers to concern themselves with the extra disruption to shoppers, residents and traffic that rebuilding would cause compared with conversion.

It seems unfortunate that the city planning department has not been able or willing to give the prospective developer any overarching guidance on these matters.

P Z Myers coming to Brighton

'PZ', as he is affectionately known, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota  has, through his blog Pharyngula, become  almost as famous as Richard Dawkins as the scourge of creationists, and apologists for 'intelligent design', pseudoscience and superstitious belief systems everywhere. His blog averages over 13,000 hits per day which peaks to 25,000 when he really gets going on some item of creationist propaganda, (which seems thankfully to be more prevalent in the USA than here).

He is a speaker much sought after on the sceptic, 'new' atheist, circuits and the Brighton branch of "Skeptics in the Pub" seems to have achieved something of a scoop in getting him to give a talk at the 'Caroline of Brunswick'. The inhabitants of the "most godless city in Britain" have certainly risen to the occasion: all tickets for his talk on Tuesday 7th June are sold out.

Church Street

There is  a pleasing conjunction of different sets of horizontals in this view which suggests that modern architecture does not inevitably mar a streetscape: but the scene would be significantly the poorer without the 150 year-old Waggon & Horses as counterpoint. . .  However, the Waggon & Horses will  soldier on into the indefinite future, whereas the still modern-looking American Express building is reaching the end of its economic life and may disappear within a relatively few years. The replacement Amex building can just be seen topping-out beneath the cranes on the left.