Architecture needs a "Jamie Oliver figure", according to the Farrell Review, a report into the state of the industry that will be presented to ministers in the new year. Architects need "celebrity champions", the review will suggest, to force good design and planning on to the public radar, as well as a London fashion week-style architecture festival in the capital, to bring a touch of glitz and glamour.
The report, led by the designer of the postmodern MI6 headquarters, Terry Farrell, comes after a year that saw the standing of architects plumb new lows. After such crimes against our built environment as an office tower that burns its neighbours with a solar "death ray", and prison-like student flats that look out directly on to a brick wall, architects risk earning the same contempt as bankers and politicians. Rafael Viñoly, maestro of the Walkie-Scorchie "fryscraper", knew his facade would focus the sun's rays into a concentrated beam, but insists he just "didn't realise it was going to be so hot". He blamed the outcome on a combination of too many consultants and global warming. The planning inspector of UCL's Carbuncle Cup-winning student housing block, meanwhile, waved the scheme through, ruling that student lifestyles meant they didn't require much daylight, effectively enshrining students as a subspecies in law.
But a celebrity champion, in keeping with the coalition's habit of using TV personalities to advise on policy, is not the answer to bad buildings. Nor is the architect necessarily the problem. Around 70% of buildings in the UK are designed without the input of an architect at all, and in those that are, the role is diminishing. Yet every new building must go through planning, and it is here, in council planning departments, that expertise is so lacking. In the 1970s, 50% of architects were employed in the public sector; today it is less than 9%. The difference can be felt across our towns.
From grossly oversized towers that loom over their context, swelling to block light and views from their neighbours, to developments that get away with a fraction of the affordable housing quota, all are won on the developers' dark art of commercial "viability". The snake oil spreadsheets that determine when a scheme is "viable" are why, for example, 1,200 predominantly social-rented homes in south London are being replaced with 2,300 flats for mostly private sale on the site of the Heygate estate.
Architects can fret all they like about their public perception, but until our best designers are embedded in the planning system, and the myth of viability demolished, then a celebrity salesman will be as useful as slapping Jamie's honey glaze all over a rotten ham.