“Besides the pipes leaking, the tanks not flushing, the urinals being clogged with cigarettes, the basins cracked, the lack of soap & toilet paper…”

19 Jan. 1965

Head Design Section,
Kuwait.

Dear Mr. Fuchs,

During my past few months in the design section I have noticed certain drawbacks, both in the environment itself & the administration which add to the already existing confusion & inefficiency in the department.

The first subject I will deal with is the environment. It seems strange to me that we who are involved in the creation of healthy, orderly and hopefully well-designed environments, work in such a disorganised one ourselves.

The toilets are unfit for human use. Besides the pipes leaking, the tanks not flushing, the urinals being clogged with cigarettes, the basins cracked, the lack of soap & toilet paper – the toilets are rarely even cleaned, and never with disinfectants. The kitchen – is deplorable & Bu Abbas should be sent abroad to take a course in sanitation.

– 2 –

The section itself is full of dust, due to lack of sweeping or proper sweeping; brimful with useless furniture & old drawings that occupy valuable space; ill-lit, and further painted a horrible green to reduce the already insufficient candlepower. The room is cluttered with wastebaskets – all too small (a few oil barrels would be more practical); storage space is non-existent; and no display area whatsoever.

For disciplinary reasons, so I am told, all exits have been locked except for the main one. First I think this is a negative approach to discipline, and secondly, it is impractical, tiresome & time-consuming to have to go through and around the whole section, to either see someone in one of the sections, or to pick up a drawing. I cannot see how the disciplinary reasons enter into the subject – for no matter where one would exit from, the administration would still be unaware of it.

The outer world must find our section very fascinating, judging from the flow of people that come in. They range from beggars, hawkers, shoeshine boys, salesmen and others. The problem could be easily controlled with the introduction of a reception area to act as a buffer between those that have business here and those that do not.

– 3 –

Of course, these are only some of the objections I have, but I think that they are enough for me to come to my first conclusion that the administration is either unaware of this disorder or incapable of coping with it.

Interior administration of the section is to say the least, poor. As head, you are rarely seen in the section itself, and it is rarer still when you hold meetings & discuss problems which must be discussed by the whole staff. This has resulted in a physical division of the administration & the section.

Each architect & engineer should have assigned to him permanently a group of draughtsmen who are solely responsible to him. When he is not busy he can loan them to others – there is no need for the administration to get itself involved in this.

All large projects and especially when they are urgent must have more than one architect working on them. This would prevent fast, sloppy and hastily designed work.

No work should leave the design section unless it has been thoroughly checked. Also, it would greatly improve the quality of work done in this section if all designs were criticised in their preliminary stages by the entire staff.

– 4 –

No draughtsman should be in charge of any project or be allowed to design it. If the architect is too involved with other work it is better he not take the project than depend on the design ability of a draughtsman.

All architects should develop the program of the building with the clients themselves, and attend all meetings themselves.

There is a lack of a mechanical engineer, an air conditioning engineer and a landscape architect in the section.

I think I can now come to my second conclusion, that no one man can run the whole section. There is a definite need for 2 efficient asst. heads, one in charge of the structural section and one in charge of the architectural design section. They should be solely responsible with the interior administration thus reducing the load from the head.

I have kept away from criticising the section's exterior relations as I plan to write a separate report on that.

I am attaching a sketch of a physically better planned section.

In ending I hope at least a few things of what I have written will be executed.

YOURS TRULY,