The needThe need: Summer…
The old Precinct
Built in 1986: brown brick, a fountain nobody's allowed to throw coins in, and Jane's flower stall by the doors. Now the planners approve Janesfield: thousands of new homes, every one with a shopping list.
Stage 1 · The need · Stop 1 of 3
Why we need it
The back alley's bill so far: 3 weeks · See the bill
The information · A worry about the old Precinct
I start as a worry. The old Precinct is full, and Janesfield's new homes are coming. Somebody at the client has to say what happens next.
The wrong way
The client's boardroom
Victor, the client's project sponsor, makes the case for a new, bigger centre next door, called The Glasshouse. The Precinct keeps trading until the new one opens.
Victor: The Precinct keeps going. We build it a big sister next door.
Nobody asked
Head Office copies the need from the last centre it built, forty miles away. Nobody asks the Precinct's maintenance team. What they know stays in a notebook on a nail.
Stan (maintenance engineer): When escalator two wore out, the new one came in through the service yard in three pieces. We keep that route clear.
In useIn use: Twenty years later…
Worn out
The Glasshouse's escalators wear out, as escalators do. The new ones have to come in, and the old ones go out. The crew looks for a way through. There isn't one: shops on every side, and no door or corridor wide enough. It was never in the need, so nobody designed it.
In use
Six weeks
Six weeks: a shop emptied and its front taken out to make a way in, the floor propped, two small cranes in the mall, and the escalators closed all summer.
In use
Watching
Stan, long retired, comes to watch with a cup of tea from Jane's. The Precinct always kept a route clear for its escalators. The sheep watches too.
Stan: We'd have told you. Nobody asked.
The need was copied in a week, by someone who'd never seen the Precinct. The shop front cost more than the biscuits would have.
+3 weeks on the back alley's bill: A need written without the people who run the Precinct: no way to change the escalators, a shop front taken out and a summer without them.
The back alley is the shortcut: quicker today, dearer later. Every stop adds what its shortcut cost to the bill.