Tea matters (130/365)

[white_hart]

The trouble with architects is that they seem to see buildings as primarily artistic, and not functional. Which is why every time we have a meeting about our new building it ends up overrunning with lots of people asking questions such as:

Where are people supposed to make tea?

Will there be a quiet space for people to sit and eat lunch?

If the kitchen is in the open foyer area, how do we make sure that people don't take other people's food, or personal mugs, or wine that's cooling for receptions? And who is going to tidy things up when (inevitably) people don't put their cups in the dishwasher?

Yes, but really, tea is actually important, and it just feels like it's been shoved in here as an afterthought. And no, saying "but there will be a cafe in the building" doesn't help, because who wants to pay through the nose for a teabag and some indifferently hot water?

And that is why this afternoon's committee meeting overran by 45 minutes and left me incapable of spending the rest of the day doing anything other than filing my email. Which, to be fair, did need doing.

Comments

[jinty]

We had a big architect refurb of a bit of our old building which had lovely big skylight windows from the Victorian industrial times whereby that was the only way you got light into the building. It's listed so you can't do stuff that is too radical to it, but again the architect vision was to 'enjoy' the lovely light rather than blocking it in any way. We moved into it over the summer and it was ice lollies all round, people being sent home because it was too hot, and bedlam in general.

The windows are now supplied with blinds where possible and with opaque tint on the skylights - it's a shame not to be able to see the sun but the comfort is definitely better.