Professor Robson must not confuse excellence with fame, for fame so often results from hype (The Argus, July 13).

Those of equal aesthetic expertise oppose the schemes he champions not only because they consider the designs poor and inappropriate but because they fear that untried, asymmetrical, highly-experimental constructions upon unstable geology risk collapse and massive loss of life.

Recently, an apparently only modestly experimental high building collapsed at Paris Airport with tragic loss of life.

A few years ago, Victorian houses collapsed in Kemp Town because of the erosion of the chalk on which they were built.

The King Alfred site is not even solid chalk and includes wash-down from the ice age.

Add the forecast rising sea levels from ice cap melt-down to accompanying increased wind and sea surge and the effect of arctic water weakening the gulfstream and you can see shoreline buildings will suffer greater wind force and sea erosion.

Is this the reason the King Alfred developers are halving the height of their scheme?

Now consider the Marina Tower. At least it is symmetrical. But 40 storeys, built against the sea, on the sea floor, with wind and wave undermining stability? Get real.

Brighton already has one of the highest population densities in the country. The last thing it needs is increase at the centre with very expensive flats for the prosperous, further straining public services and intensifying traffic congestion.

We desperately need essential public service workers. Unless we have affordable housing for them these services will suffer. Council owned building land must be used for this specific purpose and retained in public ownership to ensure this provision.

Overpopulation, especially of social imbalance, does not make a city dynamic, it creates claustrophic suffocation.

-Oscar Thompsett, Patcham