Posts Tagged: people
A conference day – 24 June 2014
People should get more information to be able to compare the homes they’re considering buying: space, cost in use, broadband speed etc. The Housing Forum are pushing it and I went along to hear Ben Derbyshire talking us through how it would work.
It seems like a good idea, there’s more about it here:
http://www.mindthe-gap.info/
I was at a conference, so was quickly on to a new topic, a debate on Regeneration and particularly the accusation that it’s a process of gentrification. We need to improve the physical place but we need to improve the lives of the existing population, not just displace them. No disagreement there, but different ideas about how that can be achieved and how the approach in the south isn’t going to work for the rest of the country.
Then some football watching followed by a meal with Crestel. This was generally relaxed but interspersed with some emotional discussion of the upcoming referendum.
I feel fortunate to be taking part in a vote that arouses this amount of passion, a marked contrast to the parliamentary elections and the main stream parties.
Hospitality – 8 April 2014
The management of our Build-to-Rent projects will have more to do with the hospitality sector than the housing sector. We don’t want American ‘have an awesome day’ insincerity and we don’t want the tired atmosphere characterised by a solitary bar man slowly cleaning a glass and waiting for something (anything) to happen.
So I’m paying more attention to the places I like being in. Citizen M do it all well: the design, the hospitality, the buzz. No one stays here for long though. 
Round the corner in Let Me Eat, it’s the same faces every day. What could you do with that?
Build to Rent with the ULI 2 April 2014
At the launch of the ULI’s design guide for Build-to-Rent.
It’s a good guide. If you read it, I’d start at Chapter 6; Management as you need to understand that in order to understand the thinking in the design chapters. It’s an operator business, Build-to-Rent. There’s lots more potential investment than there is stock to invest in so there should be lots of design going on: a well-timed guide therefore. I’ve inexplicably lost my voice and sound like the Crankies’ grandmother, which makes it difficult to describe how we’re the right people to do this design work, but I sense cracking opportunities edging closer.
The launch was in the Royal Geographic Society in Kensington. In the bits I was in there wasn’t much evidence of their fantastic heritage. Livingstone, Shackleton, Hilary, Scott: all have spoken here I was told. Maybe I could sell them some portraits?
New bar / old pub 21 March 2014
In a couple of months, this is going to be Quartermile’s best new bar, bringing some new life to the central square. 
I like a lot about Quartermile, and right here I like the views through the Foster glass boxes. Some of the fit-outs lose that, which is a shame, but this bar will deliver the transparent design intention with views from the street through to the public space. Michele Civiera is putting it together and it should open in the summer.
Glassy new bars seem right for modern eating and drinking habits; old pubs less so. Wandering about Reading on a sleepy Tuesday night I came across the Nag’s Head. Everywhere I’d wandered past had that dull, empty feel you’d expect of old man’s pubs on a Tuesday night in Reading. This place was thriving: darts and real ales the focus.
I had two pints of Titanic Plum Porter, no darts. Off to Pangbourne the next day.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Quartermile/611795075565888
Scottish Property Awards 27 February 2014
At the Scottish Property Awards with some people working on the dramatic transformation of Dundee Waterfront. It’s a project gathering momentum.
As if to illustrate this, at the end of the listed awards it looked like they’d won nothing, but five minutes later there were two on the table. The transformation of the waterfront is particularly impressive as it’s only a part of the wholesale changes in the city. We often look abroad for good examples of this sort of urban renewal but there are lessons to learn closer to home. In Dundee they’ve got support for change from politicians, council officers and local investors and decades of work are coming to a conclusion.
Surprisingly radical for such a conservative looking bunch.
http://www.dundeewaterfront.com/
AJ Sketching Competition 26 February 2014
I was on the long list for the AJ sketching competition so went along to Saint Gobain’s innovation centre to see the work of the winners and talk about sketching. Felicity Steers won.
Watching football in the pub after.
Earlier in the week the kids dressed up to get into Deep Sea World for free and we visited the hospital (coincidentally).
My long listed sketch was this one.
http://www.saint-gobain.co.uk/infocentre.aspx
Scottish Parliament Lobby 4th February 2014
These people are here for the cross party cancer group. I’m not, I just sat down to sketch this interesting lobby when they began turning up, so I am happy to draw them instead.
The space could feel like a theatre lobby or an airport departure lounge, but it doesn’t, it has a different atmosphere. The architecture contributes to that, but it’s largely the fact that people are here for serious business. Up in the chamber (where sketching is not allowed) they are voting Yes to gay marriage.
Folk – 2 December 2013
James Lord at the Whisky Society (after the Dome and the Dogs). Tomorrow we will be talking about the future but for now we aren’t thinking too far ahead.
Innes getting into a proper seat.
Boom or bubble? 12 November 2013
The economy has changed: we are flat out busy. A mood reflected in a marketing presentation from Bryan Sabin of Higgins.
For balance, a man in orange specs reading Tory paper speculation on another housing bubble.
Scottish Heroes 14 November 2013
I started the week looking at Robert Ferguson, Scots poet, who died in Bedlam at the age of 24. He stands in the High Street near the office, looking like he’s in a bit of a rush.
I ended it listening to Iain Milne, Scots rugby hero and ’84 Grand Slam winner, at the SPF dinner with Arim. Most of the meal spent comparing notes on recent trip to the US. Not so poetic, but entertaining none the less.
www.arim.co.uk
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