ABSTRACT
The source of the following quotations is from a lecture ‘Designing for Intermediate Care’ at the RIBA, by R. James Chapman at the Design Quality Forum, London on 19 March 1998.
There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named. (Christopher Alexander – The Timeless Way of Building.)
Quality is never an accident, it is always the result of intelligent effort. There must be a will to produce a superior thing. (John Ruskin.)
All excellence is equally difficult. (Thornton Wilder.)
Quality above all, is about care, people, passion, consistency, eyeball contact and gut reaction. Quality is not a technique no matter how good. (Tom Peters – A Passion for Excellence.)
To fight against the shoddy design of those goods by which our fellow men are surrounded becomes a moral duty. (Nikolaus Pevsner.)
Mammoth hospitals, built like dreary office blocks on a devastatingly functional basis, depress the spirits, however good the healthcare. (Prince of Wales – A Vision of Britain.)
In an earlier chapter it has already been pointed out that architecture is more about the quality of the product rather than the quality of the process. However important it is to improve the construction process, achieve cost efficiency, and consistency of workmanship we all respond to the environ-
ment in which we find ourselves. This is particularly so when we are using buildings at times of emotional stress, or heightened awareness. Health and religious buildings are two obvious examples when our responses to our environmental surroundings are likely to be particularly important. It is all the more surprising, therefore, that the track record of the design of health buildings has, until very recently, given little importance to the quality of design.
