GP 62: Where Severance and Opportunity Collide: with Tom Holbrook of 5th Studio

In this episode of the Grow Places Podcast, Tom Larsson is joined by Tom Holbrook, Director of 5th Studio, to explore what it means to work across the full spectrum of architecture, urban design and strategic planning. Tom describes how 5th Studio has spent over two decades navigating what he calls "border country," the complex, often neglected edges of cities where political boundaries, infrastructure, severance and opportunity collide. From the Olympic Park in Stratford to Oxford and Cambridge colleges, from railway land to heavy infrastructure, he explains how synthetic, transdisciplinary thinking and a willingness to zoom between strategy and making within the same team sets their approach apart. Drawing on the Sun Tzu maxim that strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, and tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat, he makes the case for holding both together if we want to solve the most intractable problems facing our towns and cities.

The conversation also traces the arc of creative planning in London, from the early days of the Architecture and Urbanism Unit under Ken Livingstone and Richard Rogers through to the emerging potential of regional mayors and mission-led leadership. Tom reflects on the loss of medium-grain developers and the challenge of follow-on delivery, the risks and rewards of working with railway land, and why the traditional viability model may no longer be fit for purpose. With a background that began in theatre carpentry and film set design before leading to architecture, he brings an unusual perspective on the art of pulling things together and making big impressions from limited resources. Candid about the damage of the austerity mindset and optimistic about the need for fresh thinking, he argues that the problems facing us, from climate to housing to hollowed-out high streets, simply will not wait for the economy to catch up.

Transcript

Welcome And Big Picture Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Grow Places Podcast, where we explore the virtuous circle of people, growth, and place. Brought to you by Grow Places and hosted by our founder, Tom Larson.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Tom, thanks very much for joining me today on the Grow Places Podcast. Having us over at your amazing office on a sunny day, surrounded by all of your various projects on the wall. It would be great to introduce yourself and then maybe if you could sort of maybe summarise what do you think connects all these projects together?

Fifth Studio’s Range And Method

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Sure. So I'm Tom Holbrook, I'm uh director of Fifth Studio. Um I I guess we're we're very much we're sort of our portfolio spans from leafy Oxford Oxford Cambridge colleges through to heavy industry uh railways kind of infrastructure. It's quite a confusing spectrum of stuff. Um the thing that that sort of tends to unite those bits of thinking are really uh interesting complexity, um a kind of interest in creating narratives about um how things at different scales interrelate. Uh I guess uh an interest in in synthetic thinking, so gluing stuff together, um thinking beyond silos, drawing together different sorts of knowledge, and thinking about um things that maybe would be in quite separate little boxes. Um we we got really interested when we set up in uh the stuff that architecture at that moment, I guess in the 90s, had forgotten that it was interested in. So those kind of territories that um were once quite kind of central to the discipline, if you like, um like town planning, the idea about new towns and cities, um planning generally, landscape, um uh strategy, logistics, uh, industry, industrial design, um, you know, that kind of spectrum of stuff, uh, together with um traditional architecture and and conservation. I guess we we very much started in in Cambridge originally with that idea of working with what exists, so um what's now uh referred to as retrofit or um uh creative reuse, I guess is sort of very much in our DNA as a practice.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, yeah, no, amazing. And um it's all the stuff that you know we find quite interesting as well, because cities, places, towns, they're they aren't one-dimensional, are they? By their very nature, they are the intersection of different um physical things, but also obviously people and um transport, and you know, that's what makes them what they are. And um it it's refreshing almost that that kind of like general practitioner idea, what you're saying, around urban design and planning and development. Um but I can I can imagine developing a business, you know, that that's people like to put people square pegs in square holes, etc. So how have you found that like over the years? I imagine intellectually it's very enriching, and for the people working here, we're actually trying to navigate through how you tell that story about yourselves to clients, etc.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Yeah, it's very tough and very much uh the forefront of our minds at the moment because we're we're just um we're constantly trying to explain that story. Uh we originally we originally would describe ourselves as generalists, but nobody wants a generalist, right? I mean it's just who who it feels very weak. Um uh and we're probably you know the sort of knowledge that we bring to stuff isn't general. It's it's kind of you know, it is about um we have a very senior team, very experienced team, and and uh they bring real expertise. So in a way, that sort of uh to to describe that as generalism, although it has a kind of wide spectrum, but it is there, there are particular sort of things that you get really good at doing. Um but yeah, it's super tough. And I guess we've just um it's best described through saying, well, look, we've spent 20 years in this place doing very different roles over time, but collectively kind of contributing to shaping change and uh you know developing that kind of narrative about um change and regeneration.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

And if you go back over that sort of 30-year or so period and thinking about these um sort of fringe fringe is the right term, but you know, fringe aspects of the profession and fringe maybe locations, has um has there been much change over that period in how you operate within the system in terms of who you work for, types of briefs, the types of locations?

Planning Returns And Work On Edges

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah, no, there really has. I mean, I suppose one thing that we're all experiencing is a resurgence of planning and uh creative planning. You know, sort of we uh I think everyone's woken up to the fact that uh we need to get much better at it. It needs to be a tool for shaping change and for driving change. Um and uh and you know, now new towns are back on the agenda again. That that legislation has always been on the on the on the books, you know, but sudden suddenly it's like much more available to start thinking about using. Uh and in a number of areas, like I said, about retrofit and creative reuse, working with existing buildings, that's certainly come up the agenda. So so I think that kind of understanding about uh you know why you need a strategy and uh the relationship between detailed projects and strategy. Um but those have all come to the fore, and people I think I think there's a political resonance. Politicians have realized that that's powerful. Um so that's definitely a shift. But but you're you're right in the fringe observation, I think, because so much of our work is literally on the fringes, and it's uh whether that's the edges of a city or uh a typical fifth studio situation is border country, it's on the edge of two or three different planning authorities, or um like the Olympic uh project, I guess, um the Lee Valley's you know been a boundary condition for millennia. Um so we find ourselves we're always cropping up uh in what have now become quite familiar situations of like okay, so there's a political boundary, but there's also like loads of infrastructure, and there's you know a really difficult rail line and lots of severances and a river and uh you know, etc. And those are the places where it just needs a lot of intervention to make something happen. Uh, and and similarly with conservation, it's uh you know quite a lot of our work in with Oxbridge Colleges are with a building that they did in the 70s, or uh and a 17th-century grade one listed uh building, and then a lot of land that's you know could be brought into more productive uses uh and and a desire for something new. And it's sort of like that mix is is a really sort of heady one, trying to get your head around that and what's the right thing to do in the right order to do things in.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, interesting. And um, and like as you say, everything you're you're talking about is well for for me particularly is very you know intellectually rich and stimulating and challenging and and um you know uh a draw in those senses, but you know, development is hard enough at the best of times, isn't it, on a on a flat piece of land with one owner and an entity. So so maybe like you probably have quite a unique perspective over that period about how actually these you know these fringe, these these mixed, these border locations, how have you seen those actually translate into projects, into delivery? Um is there a trick to that? Is there anything you've learned or insights from that?

Olympic Park Lessons On Delivery

SPEAKER_03 9:21

Um well uh the I mean the Olympic park is probably the best example of something going really well. Um you know there's there's lots of things in in the UK that we could do better, but I think the Olympic project was an extraordinary, is an extraordinary uh thing, and uh and generally speaking, it's been well done and it's pretty rapid. So when we got involved in 2006 originally, uh, you know, the it was really early days, Ken Livingston was the mayor of London, really saw the opportunity to use the Olympic project as a kind of tool to address very stubborn levels of poverty poverty in in that area. Um and I guess you know, the legacy as it was framed, um, the sort of upshot of that is still playing out, and it's certainly where London is changing most rapidly. And we're still involved in 20 years on, we're still we're still involved in that uh in that project, trying to, with you know, as the fortunes go up and down, we we were our client, uh, the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation was uh in the same sort of area as Lehman Brothers. So I I remember going to a project meeting um pretty early on in that project, and these people coming out with boxes of their, you know, family pictures and uh uh keyboards and stuff, and that was kind of the end of a certain of a certain moment in that. So we've seen some incredible economic cycles, ups and downs, different client organizations, um different sorts of work from master planning to delivery through to you know, sort of bits of infrastructure, uh, very long-term plans. Um and then projects like blocks a bit further up the lee that that um, you know, sort of open access factory that that was delivered kind of as part of that thinking. Um so an extraordinary I mean, I uh so to answer your question about you know how does it work, I suppose it's just you need some pretty stubborn people to stay in there to ride those ways of uh ups and downs. And uh in that case, a very effective development corporation that owned land, that um could assemble land, that could draw on finance, um could do stuff uh uh sort of proactively in order to shape and create a market that others could then sort of participate with. Um so I think that's been a an extraordinary experience. Yeah.

Railway Land Risk And Missing Developers

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, no, that's really, really interesting. And um and as as you you were talking there, I was thinking about the notion of no viability in in this. And I don't just mean financial, obviously financial is part of it, but technical viability, political viability, you know, when you're in all of these boundaries. And as you say, it does often take that like determination and some some key figures within that. And um when it we talk about you know, New Town agendas or um using railway land or other things which I know you're you're involved with. Um do you think that you know the formation of something like a Platform 4 or the bodies like Homes England, these kind of or the New Towns, you know, commissioned, these things uh are the sort of the the tip of the arrow, so to speak. They kind of need to be there to push through uh because because public private development partnerships, etc., are good and helpful, and obviously private developers um can bring investment as well, but the sorts of locations that we're talking about here, you know, particularly at this time, there is there is not really going to be that sort of that delivery um unless some of these mechanisms are in place. So how's your experience working in those environments? Um and what's your sort of thoughts on where we can go really?

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Yeah, I mean I I think um Platform 4 um are it's a that's a really exciting uh development around railway land, and so often a railway you know brings these incredible system benefits about connecting places up. Uh, and quite rightly the MPPF has started to frame around you know much uh higher expectations about what happens around stations and so on. Uh and I think an organization that can use railway land and and be you know address some of the massive risks that there are around working with them. Um that's that's really necessary to you know for to come forward. And uh there are very few organizations that can do that. Um however, I think you know there there is uh I think there's a need to open up the process a bit more. There's a lot of reliance on big house builders. Um, we've lost that kind of medium grain of uh development professionals of developers and uh contractors. And I think that's really problematic because you need that sort of agility, you need, I think, both uh uh uh interventionist public sector that's ready to take on risk and can set stuff up, um, can take on these big plots as a master developer. Uh, but you need the follow-on. And at the moment, I think the follow-on is is really not there. It could, you know, that's from our point of view a big concern. And I do think we need to get better at the relationship between strategy, between infrastructure, which is too often uh siloed within transport professionals. Uh, we don't look enough at what what the transport is doing, you know, what kind of place does that create? Because the railway, although it connects stuff up, creates severance and creates a kind of scar tissue, if you like. So many of our projects are dealing with uh the consequence of that, whether that's Stratford Station or whether it's uh you know a new line somewhere. Uh it's very hard to cross the railway line. It's hard to work next to it. Um, so I think we need to evolve some thinking around how we do that better, how we use land better, more productively, bring uses right to the station uh area and and uh get the most out of that kind of public investment in infrastructure to make great places uh that connect well.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. Um and so would you see that kind of like that orchestration role then as something which um obviously you're a part of of that process, but um how does that how does that work at its best? If you were to go back at like pick an example maybe over that period of 30 years where you were like, oh, we were really motoring here, this was really like stakeholders were aligned, there was real momentum, you know. Um it feels like, frankly, you know, in the UK, obviously there's a lot going on globally at the moment, but um momentum and dynamism are not really words I would associate with the UK at the moment, um, particularly in terms of what we do. And there's as I say, there's various reasons for that. But is there anything and you can go, Carl, we were really rolling then? You've mentioned the Olympics, which maybe is the good example of that. But that was a a unique project, and I think it's been an incredible global exemplar of how to do the Olympics in a way that's not just about the Olympics in a really sustainable way. But it does show, doesn't it? Like obviously, if if every if every fringe project or every infrastructure project had the dynamism that the Olympics had, where where we could be.

Leadership That Makes Policy Real

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Yeah, absolutely. And uh I guess it's that it's that uh I mean I get really excited by stuff linking up and join joining together, and that includes uh uh the you know, politics, economics, the kind of uh the the the the art of the possible, I think. Um and we you know my I suppose my earliest example of that really coming together was um Richard Rogers and Ken Livingston uh and a whole bunch of people like Mark Breerley around the architecture and urbanism unit. Um, and that was really, you know, the new mayor of London, a newly established post, fairly amfettered by um, you know, sort of backstory, a history. Um and uh kind of not having the skills that it needed. And I you had that uh a conversation I know recently with Puja Public Practice, um, but that you know I think that kind of um figuring out that to do this to, you know, I I've now got I'm now in control of a city. Uh what do I need to do in order to make policy, which is something relatively abstract, uh how do I make that flesh? You know, how do I make that really happen? And the Architecture and Urbanism Unit was really that one of those moments where, okay, so London's gonna need some big thinking about, I don't know, the the estuary or uh yeah, the the area around the Lee Valley or stuff that had been neglected. And you know, I used to live in London sort of in that period, and it's um it it you know it was a great place to be, but it wasn't particularly functional. Um, cycling, you know, cycling infrastructure, how we move around, how the transport system serves serves the city. And I I I think what was really interesting about that was that the profession had lost those skills at that moment, and there were lots of uh trips abroad to the Netherlands, to people like Maxwell and uh you know um uh uh Westate and uh and others who had retained that kind of ability to think strategically, to make a plan, uh, to uh articulate that, articulate policy spatially. Uh, and gradually the Architectural Nervinism unit pieced those skills uh back together in London with London practices, and we benefited from that as did many of our peers, is just okay, we've now found a client for stuff we've all you know. I had been teaching that stuff at Cambridge uh when we set up the practice, but um to have a client for that was really exciting, and I can see that happening now with uh you know the emerging sort of regional mayors, the the ability to fuse together in a place that you know well, a very specific place, um political clout, kind of popular policies, transformational policies, um local economics, kind of macroeconomics, and and uh and the resources to do stuff or to lead on stuff around a kind of mission, if you like. This very helpful phrase that Mariana Matsucatu, the economists came up with a sort of um her uh example is the uh Apollo program, but kind of you know articulating this, this is where we want to get to. Um and these are the tools we need, including design, architecture, you know, better public realm, transport, like these kind of physical things that I think we tend to neglect in this country.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Learn thank you for that. That's a really, really uh Really like deep and insightful sort of perspective, I think, on on exactly where, you know, where where there is this opportunity if you look at it in a positive sense, like where we can. Whether through, as you mentioned, partly through this kind of uh maybe some devolution or some control, give it back to to places more locally. But in essence, it doesn't matter if it's a local or if it's a national, uh, it's it it takes that kind of leadership, doesn't it? And that kind of um that that strength of of will to kind of see some of these things through that aren't aren't easy. And and maybe just on that then, like for you, for you personally, you know, why because as we've touched on, this sort of this you know, working in architecture urban design at the best of times isn't easy, doing it in these kind of sort of slightly off uh uh generalist ways, maybe we'll call it that, but you know, generalist ways, fringe locations, everything you've just described better than I just did there. Like, do you have a sense personally why you do that kind of work?

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Yeah, I mean, uh it's something uh it's something I've thought about a bit. I mean, I grew up in fairly remote places. My dad was a a writer, so we tended to go to um he he just wanted quiet, you know, so he could get on with his writing. And and so as a kid I ended up with him in his study. Uh, you know, I'd be left to my own devices. So I spent a lot of time uh hanging out in the woods, you know, sort of um uh making building kind of worlds, I suppose, and that's uh that very much uh kicked it off. Then I by the time I left school uh I my first job was in the theatre. So I I I um um I was then apprenticed as a stage carpenter and spent the first few years of my working life as you know backstage in this kind of location, which is very much to do with putting stuff on, uh making you know, using relatively small uh budgets to make big impressions. And I guess that was just a really interesting, and that progressed into film where it's sort of just similar kind of thing with a slightly slightly more money. Um and I think that kind of that that idea of being an impresario or kind of pulling stuff together or uh putting something on, uh bringing stuff uh from different threads into a situation that that is engaging, it's always been really motivating for me. Um, and I guess that was my path to architecture because people said, well, if you if you want to come off the tools and be part of the art department, you know, it's a very class-driven uh industry in in film, so you need a degree and you need to go to Kingston. And it was really at Kingston that I made that shift from you know, with some incredible tutors from film design and TV through to oh, you could actually do this stuff as a permanent situation, spend like 20 years thinking about something rather than uh you know a week thinking about the next uh game show setting or whatever it was that seemed very, very uh uh yeah, in in impermanent to me by then. Yeah, so that's uh I guess that's what's um that's been the thread. I didn't ever mean to be an architec architect, it was just the the closest approximation to uh the sorts of things I was interested in.

Zooming From Strategy To Making

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah. Really interesting. And um and we've talked a lot about the the big picture urban design strategy side, but what you've just touched on there is the kind of the actual the making side, isn't it, of of this, and making buildings and that sort of change of scales. Do you enjoy that change of scales within what you do?

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Very much so, and I think that's quite unusual that um so we work a lot with you know the big multidisciplinaries. Um increasingly as we move into sort of heavy, heavy infrastructure, we're working quite often with um bit the big engineers, and I and I guess you know they bring lots of different skills um and cover those that spectrum of disciplinary knowledge, but we do that in a very different way, in a very you know, as uh within a small team, uh that knowledge is is kind of much more mixed up. Um and there's something you know sort of transdisciplinary rather than multidisciplinary. Um so yeah, that's a I think that's an interesting shift. And through that, I guess we're finding threads between different demands, and we're also zooming in and out to from the big picture through to well, how would we deliver that as a I don't know, uh a sort of piece of concrete you can rest on in in this location. So I think that kind of interest in making and an interest in strategy within the same team and often within an hour, you know, on a project, it is pretty unique, and I think it's really informed the work we do and the way we approach things like a new railway line. Um that yeah, different different sorts of uh knowledge at very similar moments um brought together. There was a great actually that uh, you know, with current uh world affairs and stuff, the the war in with with Iran Iran. Um there's a number of people that come on the radio, kind of warologists, you know, that talk about these these issues, and uh there was a great quote. I mean, mostly it's nonsense, but I think sort of former head of the army or something came out with this. Uh I'll read it to you because I thought it was really good. Um, this is by Sun Su, a Chinese kind of military tactician, you know, and uh he apparently said strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. And and that describes so many projects that we've kind of, you know, you have to have those two components of it. Why are you doing something and how are you doing it, the sort of operations, uh, the um the tactical knowledge is and I think having that at the same time within a small team is is a very sort of fruitful uh way to approach the wicked problems, you know, kind of really intractable, complex issues.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah, yeah. No, amazing. And um yeah, maybe we should we should send that to the White House. That's right. Yeah, all the gear and no idea. Um and so with this sort of thinking and this perspective in mind then, like if you if you sort of project forward over, you know, hopefully you mentioned earlier, you know, you whether it's lemons or other things, you know, you know things are going in cycles, and maybe in downturns there's an opportunity, although it's painful at the time, to maybe think a bit more long-term, strategize, and yeah. So let's think optimistically that you know we we sort of spring out of the gates from this latest kind of downturn, which I'm not sure we will, but it might be a bit slower than that. But you know, what does the next sort of period, five, ten years or so, look like in terms of what you're you're hopeful we can achieve collectively, but also for you as a business?

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Yeah, I think that's a that's a a million-dollar question, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Um That's what people come to the podcast for, too.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Um I mean we've been sort of bumping along the bottom for quite a long time, and it does feel like surely we must be on the upswing now. You know, uh maybe this will work, maybe that'll work. And there have been such a series of shocks, I guess, to the economy that have uh yeah, just sort of strangled things a bit and made it difficult to to get going. But it does feel um there are some problems that won't wait for us to kind of get going, you know, uh, most obvious of which is is climate collapse and uh uh you know biodiversity issues in the environment. Um but there's a whole host of them, including affordable housing and and uh you know how we how we address carbon, I think. Um so somehow we've got to find a mechanism to get on with that. Um and at the moment it's clear that you know not very much is viable in traditional uh ways of approaching things, and if you look at you know traditional appraisals and and and so on. But uh I think uh uh we do we're getting close to the point where actually that's not not gonna wash anymore. So somehow that kind of uh traditional economic model has to shift in order for some stimulation to the economy to work, and whether that's a kind of war footing, you know, we've seen actually that uh in in military situations. I mean, the London Plan came out of 1944, the ruins of the Second World War. Patrick Abercrombie had the first um, you know, first inklings of how London could respond to growth, uh, probably at a point where the country had never been poorer. And we know that was a very feckined moment for new ideas, right? The NHS uh kind of uh social safety net, kind of new ideas about education and access and uh uh and ways that you know, social relationships and all sorts of stuff. So an idea of really fresh thinking. Um and maybe you know, rather than sort of stodging on with uh, well, we can't afford anything and nothing's viable and we can't invest, we need to get to that kind of moment. I hope so, because I think um otherwise it's uh I think the austerity mindset has been really, really damaging to uh the environment, particularly. Um, even that's at a level of detail, you know, tripping over a pothole on the way home, or stuff not working, and uh towns, towns and cities being really hollowed out uh on their high streets and uh sort of lack of general investment and care in stuff. Uh I think it you know that comes with all kinds of uh economic and political ills. Uh so yeah, so at some point we're gonna have to say, well, hang on a minute, let's just sort of rethink it a bit, st sidestep the problem and uh find different ways to get going.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Tom, thank you very much for your time today on the Grow Places Podcast. It's been fascinating talking to you, um, learning more about that wide range of experience and skill set and um something which I think is is really unique and and really needed in terms of everything we've talked about today. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Great. Thanks for asking me along. No problem.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Thank you for listening to the Grow Places Podcast. For more information, visit growplaces.com and follow us at We Grow Places across all social channels. See you next time.