Title & Author:

Making Things Happen / [presented b] David Rock (Rock Townsend).

Publication:

London, England : Pidgeon Digital, 1986.

Description:

1 online resource (1 video file (26 minutes)) : sound, color

Notes:
David Rock, 1986 -- Sketch By David Rock -- No. 5 Dryden Street, London -- Barley Mow, Chiswick, London -- The Grassroot Developers By David Rock -- Plan Of Ware, Hertfordshire -- Restored Town Hall, Ware, Hertfordshire -- Wickham Housing, Ware, Hertfordshire -- Converted Maltings, Ware, Hertfordshire -- Cleveland Business Centre, Middlesbrough -- Children's Museum, London -- Crowndale Centre, Camden, London -- Middlesex Polytechnic, London -- North Shields Project, Newcastle -- Liverpool University Physics Faculty. With Sir Basil Spence -- University Of Surrey Campus, Guildford. With BDP -- Winning Entry For UN Competition, Vienna. With BDP.

Summary:

David Rock studied architecture at Durham University. He then spent several years working for Sir Basil Spence, followed by 12 years with Building Design Partnership, the last eight as the partner who set up their London office and designed Surrey University. Since 1971 he has been in partnership with John Townsend (Rock Townsend) in London. Rock is unusual among architects in that when the building industry in the UK was suffering badly from government squeezes, and when most of his peers were groaning for lack of work, he was never short of ideas for survival. He tells us in his talk how he got work by responding to society's needs. He calls this the "bottom up-approach", with architects being professional entrepreneurs, initiators. It's all to do with making things happen, he says; it means new forms and patterns of economic activity, of professional service and professional codes. It brings in management and financial and other building-related skills. It's a whole new rich world for the architect -- in which his firm, Rock Townsend, has been thriving. He emphasises that the architectural profession must expand into other fields, and not allow other professions to infiltrate its workload. And architectural education will have to play its part by producing architects who are able to be enablers, project initiators, organisers, making-things-happen people.

Subject:

Architecture Aesthetics.
Architecture, Modern 20th century.
Architecture Esthétique.
Architecture 20e siècle.
Architecture, Modern.

Added entries:

Rock, David, 1929- narrator.