This is from the steps of Malcolm Fraser’s Poetry Library, from the lottery era. The steps are for listening to outdoor poetry readings I think, but there’s not much call for that in November. It makes for an interesting raised view point.
This is pretty much my favourite place in London: the platform level of St Pancras. The platform is raised up to let the railway pass over the adjacent canal and the columns on the ground floor were set out to suit beer barrel dimensions. It was built as a proud little but of the Midlands in central London. We went with HTA’s sketch club and Peter Ctori talked us through some of the history, from an engineer’s perspective. My colleagues sketches are on
Lastly some houses in Combe Down, near Bath.
I spoke at an Urban Design London event about the fun we’ve been having designing for how people live, with Fizzy. Life, Places, Buildings, as the Scottish Government says.
This is Fizzy’s Mark Allnutt combining a provocative presentation with a pitch for some land. James Pargeter and Rosemary Slater are listening. I’m listening too, but that’s a cracking view across the reservoir back to the city. It’s the long horizontal strip window that makes the view, but we don’t do them in housing anymore, everything’s vertical. Why’s that?
It’s time we got on with PRS, and maybe it’s time we got over the Georgian window.
Walking round the Olympic Park with HTA Sketch Club admiring the set piece buildings and retreating to Hackney Wick for a pint and review of our work. I didn’t get much drawn but for other people’s super views of the velodrome and other sites go to:
http://www.hta.co.uk/news/posts/september-sketch-club
Steve Tomlinson of the London Legacy Development Corporation showed us round.
Back at Stratford International a week later enjoying it’s Futurist drama.
Six years after moving into Hudson House we’ve grown out of it’s biggest space and it’s time to get our own place. Broughton Street is a good part of town but there’s a limit to how many people you can squeeze into the former drawing room of a New Town terraced house. Twelve is too many, I think.
10/9 The state we are in today: L&Q (London & Quadrant)’s Jerome Geoghegan let us in on a few stats on the state of housing in the south east. It’s ambitious stuff. I was left thinking that the UK economy has two aces: London and North Sea Oil. Is that a reason to go indepenedent or to stay unified?
9/9 Looking Back: Lesley Riddoch handing out the Saltire Housing Design Awards at the Lighthouse in Glasgow. A couple of years ago these were often for second homes! For me, the cream of this years less divisive crop was:
http://www.cmcmarchitects.com/the-ramp-house/
http://fwparchitect.wordpress.com/about/
http://nordarchitecture.com/projects/westbourne-drive/
3/9 Looking Forward: HTA’s ‘Grow-Your-Own-Home’ is shorlisted in the Sunday Times Home of the Future Competition. You can vote for it (or one of the others) here:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/british_homes_awards/
If we win it, they’ll build it.
11/9 Having breakfast in Hoxton, a chance to reflect on the above. My reflection is: it’s all very well listening to people talking about stuff, but I better go and do some work.
Bridgeton. There’s loads of space to develop. The new stuff is as good as the legacy buildings from the area’s industrial heyday. The Library/ Grade A Office/ Boxing Gym is a super building with an approach to mixed use you’d expect to have been vetoed at some point.
I came by bike after well balanced Saltire Awards judging in Edinburgh and toured around by car. The car reckoned it was 30 degrees.
Cool business space from a snooker hall:
http://www.collectivearchitecture.com/
Amazing mixed use:
http://pagepark.co.uk/projects/olympia
Library
Cycling round Edinburgh looking at new office space. The parliament end of the old town is my current favourite location and this is local landmark the Tolbooth. It was apparently built in 1591 but could be much younger. Not much changes through the generations in this architecture lark.
I gave a short presentation about our work for Fizzy and how to design for a business, as opposed to a building.
We’d assembled a good crowd, (there were three other speakers) so a good discussion ensued. It’s written up on HTA’s website:
I had to miss the start of this to go to Manchester on the look out for a brilliant wee project.
Got up to Banchory in plenty time for dinner with the team and lively debate over a few drinks after (they asked us to put the lights out when we were done).
It was mostly constructive, and set us up for the next day’s tour. Any notes are just my thoughts: the jury doesn’t meet until late July to decide who might win what.
For me, every project was worth looking at and I’d have been proud of any of them.
Richard Murphy is building his own house just a long the street from the office. Sketching it is like unravellng a little puzzle so I can’t imagine building it is all that straightforward.
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