All these are eclipsed, however, by a fantastical scheme designed some years back by architects Birds Portchmouth Russum (BPR) for a sequence of new buildings on the Morecambe seafront. They took the form of colossal mechanistic prawns. Although this was for a real competition, it was obviously a scheme destined never to be built. But it had an underlying seriousness: the Lancashire resort had fallen off the map and needed putting back there. If the prawn-buildings had been built, people would have flocked to see them. Rather as they flock to Gateshead's opening-eye bridge, which has to be kept opening and shutting even though hardly any big ships pass by.

Why is all this going on? Why don't architects just carry on building shoeboxes they way they always used to? Well, plenty do: the right angle has long been a symbol of architectural purity or dogma, depending on your point of view. Those that don't, those who go all organic, do so because they have been liberated by computer programmes and manufacturing techniques that allow them to design buildings in almost any shape. The serious point is that nature has evolved incredible structures for very specific purposes. Engineers are exploring how they might learn from these but architects, mostly, are just playing around with their high-tech toys as if they were moulding Plasticene. Don't worry: they'll soon grow out of it.

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