Last week I joined an engaging tour of the new Moda development in Hove organised by the RIBA Sussex Branch team.

The talk & tour by design architects Whittam Cox Architects was a fascinating insight into the care and consideration they had put into the challenging but crucially important site in the heart of Hove. The site will have an enormous effect on the present and future of Hove and so I was eager to see it first hand and hear about the thought process that led to the dominant and gradually crystallising built form.

Starting with: What IS the point in visiting work by other architects?

Many of us are so busy juggling multiple projects and running on the treadmill of practice that we don’t critically engage enough with completed buildings and can often lose sight of a couple of key things.

Firstly, we love designing and experiencing beautiful buildings. Too often I forget the joy and satisfaction that great design and beautiful architecture can give me. Just getting out there and seeing some buildings, hearing about the stories of success and challenge, discovering a new material or an old one used in a new way can remind us why we do what we do when too often it is easy to forget. Lifting your head up from the drawing board is a great way to stoke the old fires and reinvigorate.

Secondly, and I’m sorry to break this to you architects near, far and since the dawn of time…….you don’t know it all.

Even over a stellar career a prolific architect might have 2-300 buildings completed and built. Spread across multiple sectors, varied locations and differing scales and budgets, the possibilities are endless and no two projects will be the same. Therefore, we must learn from others and harness the benefit of hindsight. Learn from their mistakes and benefit from their insight, expertise, craft and guile.

The important but challenging part is making yourself available for feedback. Understand that you will benefit from learning more and recognise where you can do things better.

Getting out there and experiencing a building is the only way to truly understand how buildings affect its occupants and users, and only by understanding those things that we can try and solve the riddle of macro v micro. Visiting Moda and hearing from its designers genuinely changed my opinion about the development on the micro, but not so much on the macro.