Architect has grand designs on home city

Jun 22 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

The architect who created the £36m Trinity Gardens development on Newcastle's Quayside has strong views on the city's buildings. And as regional chairman of the Institute of Directors, his forthright opinions do not stop at bricks and mortar, writes Peter McCusker.

The questionnaire

What car do you drive?
Mercedes Sports Roadster.

What's your favourite restaurant?
Café 21 and Vujon in Newcastle.

What makes you laugh?
Political correctness.

What's your favourite book?
The Screwtape Letters, C S Lewis.

What's your favourite film?
Lawrence of Arabia.

What was the last album you bought?
There hasn't been a decent album since Pink Floyd's Meddle in 1971.

What's your ideal job, other than your current one?
A business angel investing in good ideas.

If you had a talking parrot, what's the first thing you'd teach it to say?
Get off your perch mate.

What's your greatest fear?
The press losing their freedom.

What's the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
Believe in your intuition.

Worst business advice?
Take legal action

What's your poison?
Jura single malt.

What newspaper do you read, other than The Journal?
The Week/Sunday Times.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?
£5 for working for two weeks holding the end of a survey tape at Cragside, Rothbury at the age of 16.

How do you keep fit?
Windsurfing and running in the summer. Walking the dogs in Northumberland during the winter season.

What's your most irritating habit?
Not listening enough.

What's your biggest extravagance?
Spending money on dinghies, windsurfing and kitesurfing equipment.

Which historical or fictional character do you most identify with/admire?
Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

And which four famous people would you most like to dine with?
David Niven, Ellen McArthur, Ruby Wax, Ranulph Fiennes.

How would you like to be remembered?
For trying to conserve the best of what we have for my children to enjoy.