As I write I’m sitting in my butterfly chair at the front of Craigston watching people come and go for Open House. (Over 140 through the studio this year – double last year’s numbers!)

Over the road people are streaming around the old Windmill and the Spring Hill Service Reservoirs. Both of these structures were built as pieces of public infrastructure. They had a clear purpose: providing a municipal utility for the emerging city.

Too often public utilities seem to be constructed with the focus firmly on the utility, and not the public. It wasn’t always thus...