Environment Network (UPEN)
January 2013
In the Spotlight: Pamela Cole
What is your full name?
Pamela Cole.
Where were you brought up?
I was brought up in lots of different places because my parents were in the Forces. In my childhood I moved every three years. I think of myself coming from Yorkshire - that’s where I was sent to boarding school.
How long have you been at the University?
Since 2005, I must be just starting my 8th year.
What is your position here?
I’m Head of the School of Architecture.
What do you enjoy about working here?
Working with students is tremendously rewarding.
One of the things that I enjoy about working here is the fact that I am learning all the time - I have developed many interests through discussing various aspects of construction with students, that’s made the work very enjoyable.
It’s also great to see students, youngsters coming into the profession even if the profession is not terribly healthy at the moment.
I enjoy working in a collegiate staff group - we demand a lot of each other but we also get a lot back. The way we teach is actually collaborative a lot of the time. In team teaching, often with practitioners, we are able to bring many ideas about practice, about the real world into the School - I think it is very healthy and this is one of the reasons why we develop very good and employable students, because we are firmly grounded in practice.
What would you like to see UPEN achieve?
The tendrils from the overarching forum of UPEN - it would be good to see those filter through to the learning levels of students to a greater extent. The idea of UPEN should make us think a little more broadly about the areas that we teach in and how we get students to think about and approach their work.
UPEN offers an excellent strategic movement within the University but it would be good if it could filter down to students and then actually feed back up into University planning. I mean our students are the people that have the brighter ideas, they would then be participants in global environmental development, and carry that stake with them as graduates.
What did you do before working at Portsmouth?
For 25 years I was a full-time practitioner with my own architectural practice. I also did some teaching at Southampton Solent University on a part time basis.
What is your specialist teaching/research area (in layperson terms)?
I’m something of a generalist, but I have specialised in professional practice, the law and contract that underpins the profession of architecture. I am also developing a greater understanding, whilst working with students on projects, as to how practice both impacts and liberates the way of working and the possibilities in terms of achieving a design.
I think it’s important particularly in architectural design that students don’t work with isolated thinking. There are lots of parameters that have to be taken into account when you are designing space and it’s a tough call to actually think of all of those at the same time, but that’s what an architect does – they are incredibly agile at bringing lots of different constraints to a problem and managing those, to come out with the best solution. And they need to be seen to be transparent and fair, which leads to my involvement in developing the professional judgement of students.
What do you enjoy doing in you spare time?
I like walking and cycling – and reading a good book when I have time to. I’m a good cook in a Mrs Beeton way, and like many architects I dabble in cake decorating – it’s a form of model making.
How might environmental change affect your discipline?
Massively - I think it’s one of those key areas of the construction industry.
We have to consider environmental change at every step of the way. It should be a key driver even if we think short term.
It is concerning that there are buildings now that have only been up 25 years and they are being demolished. The cost implications in terms of our environment are tremendous, but the economic market has become much more of a key driver than it ever was. The pace of change combined with the current quest for perfection - from fruit, to human form, to building environments - leads to a rate of churn that must surely be unsustainable.
It’s quite tricky to see how environmental considerations will overtake that in the short term; but that’s what you need, you need environmental considerations to actually have a much greater impact upon decisions. The government is beginning to do that, they are tweaking the building regulations, requiring additional things that move us in the right direction, but oh so slowly.
You are trapped in a lift with the University Strategy Group. You have 30 seconds to get to the 30th floor – what are you going to say?
What would make a difference to UPEN’s future is involvement with forward planning, with identifying where we need to be in 10 or 20 years time.
The UPEN could and should be involved with the fabric of the University. With both the teaching and the fabric. The University might invest in its existing building stock in different ways, we need to aspire to have a building stock which makes clear statements of who we are and what we do. This University can use their buildings as a real vehicle to make a statement about environmental concerns. Being involved is what counts.