Majestic Jestico.

Despite a barrage of gruesomely self-congratulatory PR (from the designers), I took a look at the new site of London architects Jestico + Whiles at www.jesticowhiles.co.uk. I have to declare an interest in that a year or so ago I did a misguided amicus curiae evaluation of the existing site. Not well received. After a long silence, here's the new one, accompanied by that heavy pressure from the designers' PR machine. This had the effect of creating instant reservations about the site, particularly about the noise and its Flash-based tricksiness. But I rather like it. You click to enter the site from a white text on dark blue (and therefore uncommonly readable) opening page, which has the basic address, email address and phone number. Sign of the times, there's no fax number. The main page assembles itself as a set of overlapping images that shimmy around when you run the cursor across them. There is a noise to go with the shimmy. It starts off like Darth Vader doing a bronchial intake and ends like somebody shaking a tin of coins at you in the street. You rest your cursor on an image and, to the accompaniment of Darth Vader and the collection box, out slides the basic information. Click on the image and up it comes big with the sound effects and more information. After you have done this a couple of times you notice the slider running across the bottom, which produces more images of the same. You can also explore on a number of other criteria which the press release seems to suggest uses fuzzy logic but which, I think, has merely to do with adjacency. The really big plus is the absence of any embarrassing practice 'philosophy'. For once, the architecture speaks for itself.

Sutherland Lyall strides forward resolutely into the cyber New Year.