A PROFESSIONAL LIFE GEOFFREY HUTTON, DIPARCH (DIST), ARIBA, FRSA

Burial Service

Thanksgiving Service

Eulogy .

Geoffrey Hutton DipArch (Dist) ARIBA, FRSA was born in 1931.  He attended the Hull School of Architecture where he was awarded the William Hoffman Wood Travel scholarship and a Diploma with Distinction.  After qualifying he attended the Royal School of Military Survey and was commissioned as a National Service Officer in the Royal Engineers serving in a Field Survey Squadron.  He entered architectural practice in 1955 and worked on a variety of building projects in this country and in Africa notably on Independence House in Lagos, a 25 storey office block to celebrate Nigerian independence.  In 1960, he was appointed an AJ Research Fellow jointly with Michael Rostron to work on a major project for technical information. He resigned in 1963 to start his practice which was later joined by Michael Rostron.

Author of many articles and series in the technical press, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has been a director of the National Approvals Council for Security Systems, and was a director of TRADA Certification Limited, and was the first Chairman of the Construction Industry Computing Association; he was a Director of the Scottish Stone Liaison Group (SSLG) and the Natural Stone Institute (NSI) in Edinburgh. He was familiar with the insurance industry as a name at Lloyds where he was vice-chairman of an action group.  He had an interest in environmental medicine and has been published in the American Archives of Environmental Health.  He was a member of British Standards Institution committees on documentation, technical manuals and handbooks, building trade literature, and microcopying of engineering drawings.  He also served as a member of the advisory committee for the Royal College of Art Readability of Print Research Unit, as an external examiner at The Queen's University, Belfast; as a member of the Ministry of Health Inter‑Regional Hospital Board study group on sanitary assemblies; of the Construction Industry Research and Information Association steering committee for The Construction Industry Thesaurus; and as founder Chairman of the Construction Industry Computing Association.  He was consultant for the BS code of practice on non-loadbearing walls and a BS guide on the care of historic buildings.  He also specialised in investigating building failures, for example of curtain walls, and the causes of ill-health in buildings such as allergies, fungi and asbestos.  He won many awards for technical publications, such as the Cape Universal Technical Manual, the British Gypsum White Book and the Barbour Compendium, and he was the lead contractor for two EU IMPACT projects on electronic publishing developing an on-line information system for the construction industry.  Since 1970 a large part of his practice has been the investigation of latent defects or building material failures and out of this arose his advocacy of an environmental approach to the control of decay in buildings which has since been adopted by English Heritage.  In 1990, H+R under his guidance were given a DTI SMART Award for industry with Dr Sarah Watkinson of the Department of Plant Sciences of Oxford University to develop alpha-amino-isobutyric acid as a fungal inhibitor.  In 1992, H+R also became the major UK partner with BRE and the Scottish Institute of Wood Technology in the DTI EUREKA Serpcon project for the environmental approach to detection and treatment of timber decay in buildings.  He prepared many reports on construction and conservation matters including economic studies of the building industry 'A future for stone' in 1980 for DOE and 'A future for stone in Scotland' in 1997 for the Scottish Executive.  He started the Architectural Salvage Index and acted as an expert witness

He was senior partner in Hutton + Rostron.  He was also chairman of Hutton + Rostron Environmental Investigations Limited which has pioneered environmental control of fungal attack in buildings, Hutton + Rostron Data Exchange Limited and Fungal Control Systems Limited which is jointly owned with Isis Innovations Limited of Oxford for the purpose of developing systemic inhibitors for dry rot

He had a continuing interest in historic buildings from his award winning measured drawings of the York Merchant Adventurers Hall in 1949 and his dissertation on the Hull Paragon Station, to H+R’s involvement in historical and material research, and work on listed buildings, particularly after disasters such as the fires at Cullen House, Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Castle.  He was responsible for setting up one of the earliest Conservation Areas in Thames Ditton, Surrey in 1964 and continued to take an active part in environmental and amenity matters up to his death in 2010

 

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GEOFFREY HEWLAND HUTTON (1931 - 2010)

A MEMOIR FROM MICHAEL ROSTRON

 

I first met Geoffrey in June 1961, when we were both 30, Yorkshiremen and qualified architects, with some achievements behind us including National Service in the Royal Engineers.

We were both looking for employment.  Geoffrey had recently returned from Nigeria (driving a Ford Prefect across the Sahara!) where he had designed and built Independence House and I was unsatisfied with my work at the LCC Architects Department.  Geoffrey had qualified at the Hull School of Architecture and was from a longstanding Yorkshire family

In 1956 the Architects Journal instituted a generous Research Fellowship to organise construction information.  The first Fellowship was awarded to Michael Ventris, who achieved fame in de-ciphering Linear B, but made little impression with organising architectural information.

He was succeeded by Dargan Bullivant in 1959, who promoted an information classification system from Sweden, known as SfB.

The Architects Journal then advertised for a successor to Bullivant and I applied for the post.  Unknown to me, Geoffrey also applied.  I was accepted, but so was Geoffrey, so there was a Joint Fellowship.  It was probably not to the liking of either of us initially.

Our first meeting (in a sort of basement coal-hole office in Queen Anne’s Gate) was not auspicious.  I soon realised that Geoffrey was extrovert and full of ideas, most of which eluded me, as I tended to be quiet and introspective.

But, during the next eighteen months, we created and had published Element Design Guides, based on Bullivant’s classification and intended to provide architects with detailed guidance.  This required us to provide a 40-page weekly supplement, which everyone said was impossible, but we managed to do it with the help of commissioned (and guided) authors.

It was a very successful publishing venture, but embarrassing to the Architectural Press.  Geoffrey and I doubled their circulation almost overnight, but also doubled their printing costs.  One memorable result was that we were promoted from the basement coal-hole office to the owner’s luxurious office on the first floor.

Like all temporary appointments, it came to an end: Geoffrey to start his own architectural practice and me to join the War Office and work on a new building system, known as Nenk.

Geoffrey was very successful in his new practice and acquired many clients, so he was overloaded with work.  In 1964 he invited me to join him in his practice.  So was born Hutton+Rostron.

The partnership was never intended to be a design practice.  Its main purpose was research and database design for the publishing of technical literature to serve the building industry.  Notable successes were the Barbour Compendium, British Gypsum White Book, Architectural Periodicals Index, Building Cost Information Service, BSI Catalogue and Buyers Guide, British Defence Equipment Catalogue, Concrete Year Book and the Builder Illustrations Index which received the Wheatley Medal.  There were other clients in the field of data processing including the BT Fax Directory.  His work culminated in the development of an on-line information system for the construction industry known as Alpha DIDO.  Despite ground breaking innovation and the award of EU grants, the system was not a commercial success coinciding as it did with the phenomenal growth of the internet

Over many years he also concentrated on the investigation of the pathology of ‘sick’ buildings, those which suffered from rot, damp, crumbling masonry, curtain wall failure and all the other ills from which buildings (like people) suffer, with the creation of Hutton+Rostron Environmental Investigations Ltd.  In addition, Geoffrey undertook significant studies on the future of the British stone industry especially in Scotland which was funded by the Government.  Some of his achievements include helping with the restoration of Windsor Castle after the fire in 1997 (for which we received a letter and medal from the Queen), and the refurbishment and conservation of other notable buildings such as Brighton Pavilion, Hampton Court, Clandon Park and 78 St James’s Street.  He also developed the Architectural Salvage index.

Geoffrey was the driving force in Hutton+Rostron.  I was a ‘back-room boy’ using my talents in data processing, computer programming and mathematical analysis, but we both attended and spoke at many international conferences and gained a satisfying reputation.

I resigned from Hutton+Rostron in March 2003, when I was 72.  The practice was then continued by Geoffrey and his sons Tim and James.

He is survived by his wife, Gaynor and his three children, Caroline, Timothy and James.

Geoffrey was a good and stimulating colleague and a loveable friend and I will continue to miss him.

 

© Hutton + Rostron, 2009