Want a (free) hug? This is outside Camden tube during a pointlessly brief trip to London.
Free Hugs is an international movement, but I haven’t spotted it in Edinburgh yet. It’s for fairly expressive people I think: a big hug with someone you’ve never met on a busy corner in London. Am I too Scottish?
Earlier in the week we went out for tea with Jonathon and Pavlina who are sadly leaving.
Now that might just be reason for a hug.
It’s the start of a new year for the business and time to look back on the last one. A weekend in sunny London spent in Clissold Park and Mike’s back garden. Me and the gang catching up with old friends and colleagues. Back in Edinburgh looking at the hard, but still attractive, Bakehouse Close. A comfortable scale of space with some nice details by Oberlanders.
Twenty eight years ago I became friends with Adam, Campbell, Ali and Kev.
I still look forward to any chance to meet up and we enjoyed a lively weekend in Newcastle. It’s fun, as well as a reminder that we are all getting on a bit. You need to exercise so I’m getting out on the bike.
Ali looking worried. His politics is SNP so in Scotland in 2015 I don’t think he has much to worry about.
Admiring the Britannia on the last day of the Easter holiday. It’s an interesting tour: a glimpse into a world where hierarchy must be emphasised in everything from crockery to wall panelling to drink, otherwise the illusion might slip.
We’d spent some time in York, having fun and looking at trains.
This might look like boys activities, but we all enjoyed it. Back home, the Stockbridge Arts Club had it’s first meeting. It’s a foil to our partner’s “Book Group” and might take a little while to find it’s core purpose…
Waiting for a train in Dundee, thinking about what the new station might be.
Something we looked at earlier this year in London, but didn’t get.
The Cock is a pub designed by HTA about thirty years ago.At that time HTA were specialists in what people called ‘Public Housing’ so when someone called looking for a ‘Public House’, the entrepreneurial partners got right down to it. They did another twenty pubs after that, of which this is one. Just off Portland Place, this one’s a cheap place for a pint in an expensive part of town. I’m across the street for breakfast, reflecting on talking about sketching last night in Camden.
In the Lighthouse in Glasgow listening in on design charette follow up…
You meet more interesting people on the train.
This is 90 year old war veteran Ted Bullock who lit up our journey between York & Berwick.
With youthful energy he told us about building landing strips for Spitfires on Gold Beach after the Normandy landings. He’ll have told the stories before, obviously, but the way he told them made them sound fresh and gripping, none more so than his recollections of listening to Churchill’s ‘We will fight them on the beaches’ speech in a bombed out West Ham. Too young, but filled with hate, he signed up and went to war.
He got off at Berwick, his new home. It all sounds serious but he was mostly a man for joke filled tales of adventures and scrapes. A pleasure and privilege to have met him.
With my colleagues for breakfast at Duck & Waffle 40 storeys up the Heron Tower. Planning the future of our business. Impressive neighbours peer in the window.
Work is busy. The weather is cold and grey. Sketching will remain an indoor activity for the next month or so. This limits any outdoor views to what’s right in front of the coffee shop window as I eat breakfast. I think this is called a TX4, from the London Taxi Company.
The weirdest way to travel remains the sleeper. In the bar at the start of the journey you can just glimpse the romance of rail travel from bygone days. Seven hours later you join the rest who’ve hardly slept to queue for a shower in Euston station.
At the Edinburgh Urban Design panel in the City Chambers. Former Provosts watch over the group to remind us to do the best for this amazing city. I’m a back seat driver on this one, so I watch David H doing his professional presentations in Edinburgh… …and on Grosvenor Street in London.
Alan Hamilton in Hemma at lunchtime.
Our HTA Sketch Club joined forces with the London Society for a trip to the Royal Festival Hall. I was inspired by some 1951 illustrations of the design, and by the characters who came along to draw and chat about it afterwards.
It was a great pleasure to meet octogenarian former architecture tutor Maggie, who set me straight on a few things.
Earlier, I felt among friends with oldest pals Scott, Pete and Dougal…
…and alone hogging a big empty table in an otherwise packed west London restaurant.
Back home with Isla and Fraser.
First, on the left a kind of calibration setting: Alistair Darling, on his way to London, after announcing he’ll stand down at the next election. His likeness gives you an idea of how much/ little the other folk I draw look like themselves. He was nice enough to not object to my drawing him.
In the middle is our Richard Foxley reminding HTA London about the importance of post occupancy evaluation. How are you going to know what to design next if you don’t know what people really thought, and felt, about what you designed last time?
At the BPF dinner in London listening to Sir Howard Davies and an exuberant gospel choir.
Halloween Fraser.
Work’s an activity not a place: in Saltaire, Titus Salt’s model worker village of the 19th century.
There’s plenty of inspiration to be had here but me and Richard Foxley are 15 cycling miles from our meeting and looking for some conclusions.
We’ll come back.
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