'I have grown weary of the appalling workmanship'

"I have personally built every structure I have designed."

I have been involved with the residential building industry for some 34 years and unlike most architects, I have personally built every structure I have designed.

"I have grown weary of the appalling workmanship."

I have grown weary of the appalling workmanship that manifests itself on virtually every building site, both in this country and abroad, posing as 'skill and care.' We cite the Georgian period, believing that the 'skill and care' apparently exercised in that era is responsible for much of the property surviving the two centuries to this day. Yet anyone who has been involved in the restoration or remodelling of Georgian property, will know that they were not lavished with a 'long lost artisan excellence'. Despite being supported on mere 'dry stone' or 'stepped brick foundations' bedded onto bare soil, they have survived because of the use of two basic building elements. Namely, lime mortar / lime plaster and well seasoned slow grown timber.

"the demise of lime mortars and air-seasoned timbers."

The desire to rebuild our housing stock quickly after the Second World War saw the demise of lime mortars and air-seasoned slow grown timbers. They were replaced by the faster setting Portland cement-based mortar and fast growing poorly-seasoned timber.

However, I digress.

"...how boring people's homes appeared to be."

I remember at the age of twelve, travelling on the upper deck of a bus to choir practice, viewing with dismay, how boring people's homes appeared to be. The ubiquitous central light, the mirror over the mantelpiece, the magnolia distempered walls and the three-piece suite.

"...put my hand on my heart."

Little did I know then that it would take me some thirty years before I could genuinely put my hand on my heart and say "I can do better."

"... an exciting, sensuous and uplifting environment."

What do I define as better? ... an exciting, sensuous and uplifting environment which does not require the skills of a team of artisans such as worked on the restoration of Windsor Castle after the great fire, nor the budget that went with them. Although most donated their services for the prestige of being involved.

"...a system had to be evolved."

I believed from an early age that a system had to be evolved, by which we could construct homes in the factory. There, both quality and cost could be more tightly controlled. Nevertheless, for this to occur we have to overcome the stigma associated with self-assembly. A stigma generated over the past few decades by the rise of flat pack furniture, through the auspices of the likes of MFI and more recently Ikea. Namely, anything that we can dismantle and reassemble is of limited lifespan and of poor quality.

"And yet we are surprised."

Yet, imagine having to commission a new car from your local village garage? Providing them with a drawing and some basic materials. Steel plate for the bodywork, polycarbonate sheets for the lights, an engine block from the local car parts merchants, and expecting them to achieve a crisp and finely engineered vehicle. Yet that is exactly what we do when we commission a firm of builders. And yet we are surprised when the results are so disappointing!

"...the expertise of the finest craftsmen."

I developed my own unique computerised surveying and modelling techniques over a decade ago and I can now re-create the expertise of the finest craftsmen, at a fraction of their cost. What is more, no longer do we have to wait until building works are complete to view the finished article.

My portfolio concludes:

"...unique, beautiful and quite rare."

'A Christopher James client does not have to trust their imagination to see what the finished article will look like. They are able to share Christopher's vision from the very beginning. As many have discovered, it is a vision that is unique, beautiful and quite rare.'

"I am also a maverick and a Pisces, with my fair share of female genes."

For my sins I am a perfectionist, others have also described me as tenacious. I cannot give up on anything; I battle on until I succeed. I am also a maverick and a Pisces, with my fair share of female genes. Thus, I have many typically female characteristics including a strong sense of intuition and the ability to see the other person's point of view. It was this temperament that led to my departure from wishing to be purely an architect, at an early stage in my career. I wanted to reinvent the way we built not just for the sake of it, or for purely aesthetic reasons. But for all the social and ecological reasons society may at last be slowly awakening to. I was 'before my time' and that did not go down well with the somewhat pompous, self protective and restrictive establishment of the time.

"And so our boring landscape is protected."

Sadly, for the most part it is not architects that determine the style and nature of our buildings. It is the banks. Today, they are if anything more restrictive than they were some thirty years ago. They want safety and certainty. Boring boxes make them smile with profitable pleasure. The term 'grand design' sends them, without exception, into an hysterical diatribe.

And then there is the problem of the surveyors! With a need to compare your proposed 'grand design' with other similar property in your locality; of which, of course, there are none.

"But the banks sleep easily."

And so our boring landscape is protected. Forever blighted with bland, badly built, faux Tudor boxes.

"No grand design to disturb their blissful sleep!"

But the banks sleep easily. No grand design to disturb their blissful sleep!

But I digress yet again.

"I created homes of my own design."

I gave up a directorship with a large building company in my mid twenties and started to import Scandinavian timber-framed houses for private clients. I quickly went on to develop my own workshop where I created homes of my own design.

"...it sadly falls well short of fulfilling 'my dream.' "

Although timber-framed housing, some thirty plus years later, is heralded as the way forward, it sadly falls well short of fulfilling 'my dream.'

Furthermore, although modern ventilated rainscreen technology has recreated, albeit in a different way, many advantages of those early breathable solid wall structures of the Georgian period, few building materials survive our climate year after year without considerable maintenance. Without which they suffer visual and physical degradation if not complete disintegration.

'Further Reading - 'At last the'ghostly intuition' had emerged!'