Even in the depths of winter, views of the sky can raise our spirits. Do architects always make the most of it, wonders Eleanor Young
What shape is the sky for you? In the Fens big skies stretch out, a dome over the landscape, touching the edges of fields and dykes with occasional interruptions of telephone wires, and the isle and cathedral of Ely visible for miles around. In Manchester the brick of the Northern Quarter severely truncates the sky, making it barely a presence until you climb onto the tram and head out past a gathering storm of high-rise around Castlefield. In the Victorian suburbs, away from the drama of elevated trams and towers, dense streets channel a flat-footed strip of light, broken only by chimneys, roof extensions and TV aerials raking the clouds.
Architects control this oft-forgotten experience in the streets and squares of cities and towns. What do the skyline silhouettes being designed now tell us about the culture and ideas of architecture?
First there is the ‘super’ pitched roof used to outline large buildings or the tops of blocks of flats, many modelled on Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein in Germany. But now you are as likely to see them on flats in east London. They give a homely, recognisable, child’s-drawing-simplicity to outsize blocks.
And then there is the apology. An apology for existence… You see this on big box warehouses along the motorway, masquerading as landscape and sky as the hues change over the height of the building from greens through to blues. But do they even have the colour quite right? Grey surely is the dominant colour of a British sky.
What do the skyline silhouettes being designed now tell us about the culture and ideas of architecture?
More recently we are seeing scallops taken up to the sky, the trend for scooped surfaces reaching a new level – sometimes with scalloped facades extended into a scalloped roofline (yes, there can occasionally be too many scallops if you follow current architecture). You can see it on the rooftop extension of the reworked department store Arding & Hobbs at Clapham Junction in south London, designed by Stiff + Trevillion. It is whimsical and perhaps a little cartoonish, but who wouldn’t want the sky to be trimmed into rounded, cloud-like edges? It feels a confident and optimistic move.
The flat roofs of Modernism are getting a run for their money – and not just from architects trying to hide plant on top of their designs. It is a symptom of the way ideas are quickly disseminated and shared – a phenomenon that has accelerated rapidly in the age of social media – and visual concepts are among those most often picked up and run with. And for those that open up the sky just a little more to those down on the street, it is welcome.
With thanks to Pascal Wensink of EPR Architects for his thoughts on rooflines