Why is it that public spaces, like petrol stations, shopping malls and airports, are depressing and boring? These spaces are extremely useful and functional, but why do they seem to lack any real architectural flair or soul?

This podcast discusses the trade-off between the utility of a building and aesthetics. We examine what factors should influence the design of a building (e.g cost of maintenance, experience of the occupants, etc.) and whether it is possible to strike a balance between architectural style, functionality and cost. Peter also explains the eponymous 'Coghill Hierarchy of Architecture' and we provide examples of buildings that we believe are well-designed and others that should have been left on the technical drawing board.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• A History of the Elephant & Castle
• The Real Concrete Island?
• Reddit: Liminal Space

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing motorway service stations. Peter, I believe you were recently at a motorway service station, is that correct?

Yes, I was on the way to Scotland for holidays a couple of weeks ago.

Well, that was your first mistake but anyway, keep going.

And we stopped at a service station, I think it was on the M1 or the M6, one of those, and I was just struck by the horror of the place. It wasn't one of the nice, there are some nice ones but it was just one of the faceless ones and I posted a picture on our internal chat to Nick and Chris of this boring looking functional building. It got me wondering, why do service

stations all have to look like that? Well, first of all, describe the service station to us and

why it brought you down so much. I would say it's probably 80s, 90s concrete and brick construction sort of very tired looking boring sloping roof crowning the outside with glass paneled windows that obviously provide light into the sort of lobby area where all the shop fronts of the fast food restaurant fronts are. Big car park obviously because it's a service station. Some attempts at landscaping around the outside to try to provide a bit of visual interest but it just sort of seems so depressing. It's sort of functional and cheaply built. But this is, it's a phenomenon you see in lots of public spaces, so shopping centers and airports where there's obviously been some vision of some architects originally but it's not through disrepair but it's just never been realized in the construction of it. It's just a sad place,

depressing place. And also if you were seeing it in the middle of the summer that's one thing, what about a rainy Monday morning in January? Yeah. Okay, so I mean I thought I cut you off there but you were sort of saying so it made you think or so what so why do we want to talk about

it? Well I just, it got me thinking why do public spaces have seem to have to always be like that? Right. Why can't we have beautiful like cathedral-like spaces for functional functional spaces? I just sort of started thinking about the different factors involved in construction and maintenance of such public spaces and things. I think there's an interesting topic we could

Sure, okay. So I guess we're talking, yes you said public spaces, we're talking about motorway service stations, shopping centers, airport lounges, you know bus stations can be pretty horrible. Tell us Nick, why? Why do these places have to be like this? I think we'll get on to

why at some point. Okay, but do you agree with Peter? Oh yeah, yeah in fact yeah I massively agree and I think he's put his finger on something which, on a sort of psychogeographic phenomenon which I always use the term Ballardian and I think we can't really discuss without mentioning J.G.

Ballard. Is Ballardian an actual word is it or is it one that you've made up? No it's an actual

word and it's because J.G. Ballard was so incredibly good at pinning this down in his fiction so just to say a bit about Ballard. Empire of the Sun right? Yeah that's what he's most famous for.

And also that one about school, his school getting blown up or whatever. Yeah I think there's a,

a couple things spread to mind here let's bring to mind here but certainly I mean I agree I mean I hate shopping and one of the reasons I hate shopping is because it means I have to go to and I love this word it's a very English word I think precinct no one uses it anymore even the word itself is quite depressing you go to some gloomy concrete precinct and yeah it's like it's

just a it's just a gnat away from ghetto. Yeah yeah exactly. All those precinct ought to be made of

shiny marble it ought to make you think of the Roman Forum somehow. Right yeah and it's just

full of like miserable looking teenagers and everyone's looks sad and angry and depressed and and then you I just my family refused to be going with me anymore I just get into a rant about capitalism or something yeah it's the decline of the west of western world sort of thing values and all that kind of stuff so yes I mean so let's talk about why I mean I think a couple of things doesn't most stuff come down to money right isn't this about stuff being cheap I think I just want to throw that out there first of all and secondly what's interesting is we associate this with modern stuff right so because I sometimes wander around places and you know what would this what was anything ever ugly a thousand years ago was anything ever ugly 500 years ago certainly was everything anything ever ugly 50 years ago definitely but was it ugly and if stuff was ugly before how was it ugly right was it ugly in a different way and and just another sort of thing to fly in there I think some countries are better at designing horrible public

places than others like well you've lived in Brazil right it's famous Brasilia is famous for its slightly dystopian yeah I mean that's a whole other thing isn't it and I know we've said on previous podcasts that we quite like that kind of yeah well that's when you get into this whole

down to cost and it's not necessarily just the the cost of construction it's also the cost of maintenance of the building so service stations I think a particularly good example because they're they're built with longevity in mind because they're quite difficult to build because you've got a big road in the way so you build them such that they have a long life and they're easy and cheap to maintain because that makes the the business model of running a service station they're more viable the less the less the less you have to spend on building maintenance the more you can spend on services and doing things for your for your customer the so that I think there is and I think there's a natural sort of engineering like trade-off between cost between sort of the the utility of a building and its aesthetics so sort of stark examples to the it's a stark in opposition to service station might be a cathedral so an old or even a new cathedral like Coventry Cathedral whether or not you like the style they are they are high in the sort of they are shining examples in their in their field of of that type of architecture but they they cost an absolute fortune to maintain because they use specialist materials and they use specialist craftsmanship and they and they're big and they are they don't have necessarily they sacrifice ease of maintenance for the beauty of it so I think it does

just come down to a cost trade-off I don't I don't really agree to be honest I know where I know it feels like it does but I think that's probably a phenomenon caused by something else I'd say I mean because I think for every for every example of a ballardian version of something you can come up with something that probably costs the same but isn't the ballardian doesn't have the same atmosphere of misery in it so for example a motorway service station could be contrasted with a kind of imagine a imagine a garage or a petrol station somewhere in New York you know in a in a busy New York street one of those ones with you know people in overalls like the one Billy Joel's in yes in Uptown Girl yeah they're all like that I think yeah and like that's you wouldn't associate that with luxury or anything and yet it's a friendly impersonalized and feels nice you only think that because of the video with Billy Joel and the girls dancing around um but there's also I if you take sort of um airport departure lounges something depressing about that similar sort of space well hold on you haven't answered the question my

objection which I think you're wrong so you said I don't think those spaces are nice okay what

about a shopping center versus a traditional high street like take a nice little traditional high street yeah and it's doing the same job as a shopping center okay right and it's probably not going to be as well maintained but this isn't a bit dilapidated but it hasn't been it hasn't been designed in one go right so but that's not a cost issue this is okay okay then um you know uh yeah so I think I mean even well maintained really good examples of uh housing planned housing like like the Barbican Center is a really good example because it's clearly not um cheap or badly maintained but it's nevertheless you'd say there's something straight it's quite old about the atmosphere which isn't shared by say a terraced the terrace of Victorian houses um a travel lodge versus a bed and breakfast but a breakfast probably cheaper I think they're

doing different I think they are doing different jobs and I think so for shopping center versus high street I think that you get a much greater density of shops in a shopping center than you do in a high street so you could you could replace your high street with a shopping center and you get twice as many shops plus parking plus cinema and all sorts of other things in there so they're doing a different job or they're doing a similar job in a different way and always even if it

is more expensive I don't know if this is answering that the costs aren't being borne by one entity I don't know does that make any sense or not I don't know well I yeah what I'm saying

is that you imagine a dilapidated high street it's still going to be nicer than a well-maintained shopping center that that's all and I mean you know you can I know you've come up with counterexamples like Leadenhall Market or uh you know the Burlington Arcade but um yeah I mean that's the point really I I I don't think it comes down maybe it's an element but I don't I don't think it comes down to cost I think I think it comes down to some other features which are more to do with the design and the engineering behind it and um uh and so I've got a few

which makes it kind of ballardian but um so everything you said there I don't know if I'm cutting you off everything you said there because I'm going back to my sort of thing I was posed question I was posing to us as well could you have this kind of stuff 500 years ago a thousand years ago I suspect not I'm not saying there was nothing ugly I mean hovels were probably not that nice you know and just you're hoveling a pile of turnips and that's kind of it I don't know but well a lot of the stuff that you said seems to lend itself to the modern world or am I wrong

I don't know I I suspect if you if you were uh if you went the big sort of great castle building era the Normans I suspect the big defensive structures with enormous perimeter walls and things were probably considered pretty un-aesthetic impressive but not not beautiful yeah scary scary

yeah and and oppressive rather yeah you look at something like the walls of Nineveh and they're just these huge great you know overbearing terrifying so yeah I suspect probably age has lessened the impact they have on us yeah um but the the another question you didn't ask is can there be ballardian natural spaces and I feel like the closest you can get there is being in sort of a very narrow uh ravine or something like the Wells Valley something like that but but with with with sort of very little vegetation maybe just some scree and and very high rock walls

feels to me like the closest closest you can get a few places I've been that you don't feel

comfortable in no exactly yeah yeah sort of bleak yeah deserts can feel a bit like that because deserts aren't what there's no escape to just more desert yeah they just tend to be stony rocky places yeah um there's something I want to move on to I've got a because we need to wrap up but I've got a question I want to ask um but before I do anything you need to add

no I've got a question to I've got a question we can answer oh okay let's hear it I do I do have

examples so somewhere like Amazon is probably it's quite ballardian it feels like a shopping center and it's just feeding you with stuff whereas I quite I feel like YouTube is kind of the opposite although you're kind of confined there it's it's like it's more like being in a nice comfortable big library that just keeps offering you up more in you funny or interesting things to go and look

yeah yeah I'm not sure 100% agree but anyway I don't want to dwell on that what what's your question let's see if you're quite I've got a question in my head let's see why don't we nominate our favorite service stations ah well we could but I don't I can never remember them I mean I don't know are you able to conjure them up well I've got two actually I'm going to answer the question in a different way but um but yeah you're going to answer it with a question I'm going to answer basically I'm going to ask answer the question that I wanted oh okay well what was it because then I can choose which well my question would be what's the best ugliest place

you've been to oh well actually one of my answers kind of overlaps right yeah so I'm going to answer

my question and you answer kind of both questions at least one of them and then Nick will figure

out so Peter go for it okay so the most my favorite ugly place yeah um is uh is is is the it's called the Lancaster service area um or it originally was called I presume it's in Lancashire yeah originally it was called the uh the the Forton services so it's just out it's on the M6 just outside Lancaster and it's it's a wonderful ballardian space because it's a service station as we've discussed but it's the one with the enormous tower which is like a sort of hexagonal dish plate on a stick that sounds cool that kind of looms over the motorway yeah um uh that that thing's called the Pennine tower okay um and it it's now out it's now closed to public because they can't maintain it and it's a mess and it looks as you drive past it now it's really scattered all the paint's peeling off and literally scattered but originally it was a really aspirational idea because it's like you're going on this long journey up to the north or down to the south and um it's a really beautiful area and this sort of it's it's a good sort of 30 meters off the ground this big restaurant on a stick would give you amazing views Morecambe Bay to the west and then the Pennines to the east um would have been a really fantastic place to stop off in your little morris minor when you're going off on your journey to to scotland worth googling um that's my favorite horrible place okay um did you have a second one as well well my favorite service station i'll answer my question is t-bay services so just a bit further north um that's worth that's that's the the only nice service station i've ever found the service station building itself is quite boring but it's it's run it's a sort of family-run business it's very very independent feeling from the motos and all the other big service station companies uh it's the restaurant's good the shop's good so there's like a farmer's market next to a motorway

it sounds like yeah i like the sound of that that sounds nice bucolic sort of yeah um do you want me to answer mine or do you want no i can i can go ahead um i'll go then you okay okay do it so my favorite kind of ugly space is i spent a little bit of time in tokyo um about 20 years ago and um capsule hotel um so and i mean not much of tokyo is pretty at all and it's just this very unforgettable quite ugly building you go inside even inside it's quite ugly as well and i just remember going there and first of all there's loads of drunk uh japanese businessmen stumbling around the place at two o'clock in the morning um and and a wonderful surprise is they've got the most amazing spa um facilities with you walk into this room there's like six different baths of different temperatures and i mean it's just wonderful but it wouldn't sell itself on that it's just par for the course right but then the capsules themselves um you know it just i just felt like a 12 year old boy again in a sort of in a cool tech bunk and you've got your tv and you've got everything and you should feel really claustrophobic and i do get claustrophobic but not at all you i just sat there just really excited and and and went to sleep and just woke up just feeling like i was buck rogers or something so so that's my that's my sort of vote really for yeah my favorite ugly place yeah yeah what about you nick so i i do have a big

affection for the elephant and castle shopping center as it was even though i mean it's a uh i think they've done things to it but it was where i got my first um single i think you know my abba's super trooper i also did some work experience there before i started my civil service career but no i think well the one i'd go for is actually dover docks um because uh it is you know you've just finished your lovely holiday haven't you it's south of france and you've come back with you know you probably bought some food you know some delicious tins of riets or something and you're fantasizing about getting back and having them in your garden being still on holiday and then you get off the ferry and and it's just huge lights and parking lots and lorries and containers and massive ships and horns blaring and uh and then a motorway and signs and it's just uh it is like really brings you down to earth with a massive crash um and there's something quite pleasing about that something quite sort of final about this your holiday ends here in all this horrific modernity they i haven't i've been

i've cycled i've cycled to to france a few times with going without car and those those spaces on a bicycle are incredibly scary and sort of unwelcoming you know in a car it's fine because you've got your little box that shields you from it but on a bicycle you just fully expose the blaring horns and the blaring lights um and you've got you don't and and they got better now but they used to didn't know what to do with bicycles they sort of they almost like treat you as if you're not supposed to be there um yeah so it's weird but you get put in a lane with a car so if it's windy or raining you've got no shelter i've got a vision of peter you know looking like

a little tulip growing through the cracks in a massive parking lot you know there's one little person on a bike surrounded by huge machinery i i think that's an image with which we should

we should leave ourselves as a gift to our listeners and ourselves um as always thanks for listening uh if you've got any thoughts or suggestions for topics you can email us at podcasts at alephinsights.com we'd love to hear from you if you've enjoyed the podcast um what

should people do nick um they should uh like and subscribe they should like and subscribe yes that it yeah i feel like that's a ballardian instruction in itself gotcha okay thank you

as always for listening to the cognitive engineering podcast i'm fraser mcgrew we've been here with peter cockill and nick hare of aleph insights until next time goodbye