Sketchbook 66

August to October 2021

A sketch of Broughton Street in Edinburgh, drawn with HTA Sketchclub. We started sketchclub about ten years ago as a response to people in the office wanting to improve their drawing skills. I realised how much I enjoyed drawing and that I hadn’t done much observational drawing since school. I’d done plenty of drawing with work, but it was generally drawing to explain an idea or to show what a place that didn’t exist might be like. Observational drawing is different. You need to understand what you are looking at for one thing. What is the spacing of those windows? How many are there? How does that chimney meet the roof apex? That sort of thing. And the action of looking and thinking makes you wonder what a space like this is for and how it might be better used. Covid restrictions have reclaimed some of the space for people but how could this be developed to make a better space here?
Sketchclub in London
Two sketches from HTA Sketchclub in London. This is our new street on the edge of a park for Pocket Living. If you draw what other people made you don’t have the complete picture of the process that led to it. Here we can look at what we made and discuss it with the team who spent years making it happen.
Looking at the world with work. This time a tour led by Lisa Williams exploring the black history behind some of Edinburgh’s familiar landmarks.
Basil Spence’s Sunderland Civic Centre. It’s an interesting building, with a rigorous geometric logic driven through the design from the organisational diagram to the floor tiles beneath your feet. Sunderland City Centre is moving North, taking up the space left by the industries that once lined the River Wear. The council are a key part of this change, and they have left here and moved to a new Civic Centre near the river.
How the basic clay tile makes a pattern that reflects the building plan. The slight difference in tone of each tile is beautiful in combination.
Top left is the building plan. I tried to draw the tiered steps/ ramp accurately, to try to understand it better. Next to the central column a man is making a plein air oil painting of the building.
I’m here for a consultation event on what might happen once the building is demolished. There’s some debate about that but not really any about the demolition principle which has been agreed locally for years, so people want to know what’s happening next.
The Edinburgh office went to see Laura Mvula at the Festival (there’ a limited Festival).
Home stuff: Scout Camp at Fordell Firs.
Scout camp fire.
Innes’s football tournament at Wardie.
Holiday in London. In Kev & Pam’s cool back garden.
We swapped houses with Rory.
It was a good arrangement for a Covid summer: make your own plans and keep it simple.
One of Rory’s lovely old cameras. I do drawings like this to try to capture the precision but my lines aren’t crisp enough to do the objects justice.
In London we walked a lot.
Off to Stamford Bridge, for a tour.
Waiting for a football match to finish in Queensferry.
A very little little bit of Stirling Castle. We are working with the MOD just now so I’m paying close attention.
Ruari back from Germany. It’s lovely to see him after Lockdown separation.
Tube passengers.
Isla waiting for a consultation.

Sketchbook 65

Second Lockdown and thereafter

We had another lockdown. I drew less than at any point in the previous nine years. I’ve included a few of them further down, for completeness, but I lost the habit really. I just worked. I got back into it when we were allowed out. This is a key worker on the tube.
A temporary Covid Test Centre, a feature of many community car parks.
And of course, vaccine roll out. This is my first. Alongside our lockdown dog.
Meeting people in gardens. This is father in law Michael.
And again.
My mum.
When we were locked down, I tried to draw the local place, the highlight was this church on our High Street.
Local bins, marginally less interesting than…
…than a local bridge. (It is quite interesting actually, clearly two bridges which you’d never realise from above.)
On the positive side, here’s Craig’s first day back at work cooking lunch. 28th April 2021.
The first work trip to see a site in York. Handy for meeting the London team, who we haven’t seen for months.
The May board meeting, the first of the year to be held in person.
Hotel view.
Running into interesting looking people as we travel again.
Me.
I’ve learned some things from Lockdown. One is how much I enjoy a cycle into work and the other is you can attend presentations anywhere. I now pass these cottages everyday so I stopped to draw them, while listening to one of our Friday morning masterclasses.
Otherwise, life is similar to how it was. Saturday and Sunday mornings involve football. This is Lochend’s scenic pitch.
Jac’s H Type Citreon in Victoria Park. Supplier of coffee to many locals and the parents watching Spartans across the road.
More classic French design, and my attempt to render some shadows.
After football: Fraser on the couch playing XBox.
Julie on the couch texting. This is one of the lonely lockdown sketches. It’s from February. I think I only drew two drawings that month, when normally there might be ten.
Isla feeling ill on the sofa, in January.
The only other January drawing.
The dug. He’s on the sofa already, and he’s only just got here.

Sketchbooks 63 & 64

Summer 2020

Some signs that lockdown’s ending: ‘carport cinema’ with Amy & Ali.
People coming to visit (in the garden): my mum.
A garden visit from Nicolas the physio.
A trip to Lucinda, Stuart & Tommy’s in Dunbar, the furthest we’ve been in months.
With them on Belhaven Beach.
Out in cafes drawing the world again, this time in Broughton Street.
And to cap it all, a holiday. We stayed for a week in Culloden and made some trips. This is Dunrobin Castle.
Fraser & Innes gaming in beautiful Dornoch.
At Chanonry Point, opposite Fort George, dolphin watching.
Cawdor Castle
Julie reading on the beach at Nairn.
We stayed in the Station Master’s house in Culloden. It had been used by Murdoch Paterson, engineer, to oversee the construction of his masterpiece: the adjacent Culloden Viaduct.
A friendly rail engineer took me out onto it as he closed the line for engineering works. A spectacular sight from above and below.
Another view of the cottage.
Some signs that not all is back to normal: I turned up at the wrong hospital for a long awaited appointment. They just took me anyway as there was absolutely nobody else about.
Our Tuesday talks are still online.
That’s quite hand for sketching them though.
This is the view from Derek’s good value tea cabin in Granton. It was demolished not long after I did this sketch so this one is a historical reminder.
A ‘Morrison’ bike I bought. I’ve been keen on bikes forever but never knew they sold Raleigh’s in New Zealand as ‘Morrison’s’. Delighted to get my hands on one.
One last go at fixing my original Brompton.
Family stuff. Eileen, Michael and Janice at Anna’s third birthday party.
My mum at Dunfallandy.
Alastair at Dunfallandy
Some of the veg we grew in the garden.
When I planted these I thought we might run out of food. They’re a bit earthy for my tastes so I’m very glad things didn’t work out that way.
Socialising at the Patersons. We stick to the garden, they get to go inside. Life’s better, but it’s by no means normal.

Locking down: March to August 2020

COVID 19, Sketchbook 62

This sketchbook was all about lockdown one and the easing we had after it. I stopped updating sandysdrawingroom during that time: there was a lot on I think, and the website stopped working. I’ve fixed that, and for the sake of continuity I’ll add them all here. I’m writing this in October 21, now on sketchbook 67, so there’s a lot to catch up on.

The sketch above is on Leith Walk, a couple of days before lockdown one was announced. I’d just been on the phone to my partners discussing what might happen and looking at the sketch brings back all the feelings of uncertainty.

The next day: people are working from home and the pubs are shut.

24th March. The remaining food rescued from the HTA fridge and the first day in fifty years that HTA hadn’t made lunch for everyone who was in the office.

Time to get used to working from home: straightforward enough as it turned out. The sketch shows our first go at producing face shields for the NHS, the government having found itself short of suitable PPE. Eventually this grew into quite a collaborative effort and my colleague Richard Foxley won the British Empire Medal for his work.
Time to be at home. There was a lot less time than I’d imagined, but the weather was fantastic and I broke the days up sketching the following from my surroundings.
Paying attention to the garden, in this case one of the rocks that sits to the north of the house.
The sketch below is annotated to show where the above plants are located in my garden.
It was a period of being outdoors when ever possible.
Fixing the bike.
Eventually we were allowed some visitors again, outside.

In the house, it was like this:

My workspace.
The hall.
The garage.
Hanging out with the family. We were aware that we were lucky to have company.
Fraser
Isla
Julie
Julie
The boys doing Scouts and Cubs on line.
Isla, in a mask our neighbours were nice enough to make for us.
The new way to visit the shops.
Lots of time working at home, and drinking coffee.
Keeping up with colleagues online.
The end of the day. After a while we were allowed out again. I’ll cover that in the next one.

Sketchbook 60

January to early March 2020

These are my sketches from the period before the COVID 19 lockdown.

Not a sketch, but a portrait of Architect Richard Murphy. Richard kindly helped me raise sponsorship for children’s charity Coram, who I’ve cycled from London to Cannes in aid of every March for the last five years. I finished it in early March. I didn’t do the cycle, of course.
Things looked pretty normal at the start of the year: here’s Innes watching TV on 02/01/20.
Time for all the usual stuff: a trip to Melrose.
The ususal sketches of commuters…
…family members…
….work colleagues….
… and an epidemiologist. I was about to hear a lot more from them.
Sketches from a trip to Dublin.
A talk about saving the planet, rather than simply ourselves.
Haircuts for the kids.
Kids parties and presents.
A crowd. 4th February, crowds were perfectly normal then.
This sketch, from 16th March, is when I (finally) realised it was all going to change. I was trying to be colourful about it.
An ominous sketch of the house, where I was about to spend the next few months. That’s in the next book, which for some reason I haven’t got round to scanning despite all the extra time people imagined lockdown would bring.

Sketchbook No 59

November/ December 2019

November is charity art auction time with Article 25. I sold one in the auction and bought one too.

Flying to London for the auction.
The painting I sold. It’s of a building on Blackwall Basin that we are designing for The Canary Wharf Group.
The auction.
Sticking with the art, we ran a life drawing class in the London office.
We us the board room for the life drawing. It’s normally in use for meetings, and, if you’re careful, you can spend some time drawing fellow partners.
Some design team members, elsewhere.
Innes getting ready for training at Spartans, one of a number of excellent local community football set ups.
His sister at home.
I drew the people either side, Isla filled in the middle.
Commuters
Mostly the commuters are in London.
All the people on the train….
I think I’ve drawn some of them before.
A trip to Dublin
Edinburgh travelers on their way to the London Christmas Party.
The London Christmas Party
The fire station being refurbished on Macdonald Road.
The Clockhouse in the former Greenwich Dockyard. Henry VIII built his ship here but you’d never know.
Twelve Triangles cafe, off Leith Walk.
A tuesday Talk on Gender Equality in Public Space.
Another on Mikhail Riches outstanding Stirling Prize winning homes in Norwich.
Grumpy on Christmas Day.

Sketchbook 58 September ’19

Craig Jones Rowley
Craig Jones Rowley making lunch at HTA Design in Edinburgh. The sketch ended up in a cook book we’ve made that celebrates our culture, our work, and the food we’ve being feeding everyone for 50 years.
This is the London office lunch queue.
Some drawings of the family. This is Michael, or ‘Grumpy’ as the kids know him.
Julie
Isla sitting in a box
In the livingroom
Watching the kids skiing at Hillend.
I cooked 50 burgers for the kids, undercooked a couple for the adults.
I went to Knockhill to watch Michael Crees.
Local man Rory Butcher won.
Nic Hamilton’s Ford Focus being prepared for the final race.
Speaking in Glasgow City Chambers to an interesting audience of German and Scottish construction professionals. I was talking about off site manufacture, and how it’s changing everything.
I learned some basic first aid with the Scouts. One of those things where you wonder why you didn’t learn it years ago.
With HTA Sketchclub in Leith. We sketched a few things: I liked this SuHuHa project and it’s proximity to different neighbours.
Ben handing over his RIBA Presidency to Alan Jones after an excellent two years.
Listening to Phil Jupitus interview David Mach.
Getting the bike out around Perthshire with Balfour Beatty and our hosts Synergy Cycles.
The HTA team round the coffee point. A good spot to catch up on wha’s happening.

Sketchbook 57 – July 2019

In Leiria with Eva and her family.

Making paper by hand in a mill refurbished by Alvaro Siza.

Grandad’s house….

Jose, from the Leiria urban sketchers.



In Lisbon, and on the beach in Estoril. The water is three degrees cooler than off the Hebrides.

Our flat, and a lady on a train. she came and sat next to me so I hid the drawing.

Isla on the train.

Fraser on the train.

Lunching

Dunfallandy House in Pitlochry, with the family.

Andreas on the piano stool.

Steven building a rocket, Gran doing the crossword.

Pitlochry dam. It’s the fifth time we use get power from the same water and the least effective, but it’s impressive to look at.

In London, in Caroline’s garden.

In Edinburgh, in Matt & Mina’s garden.

On the train

Ronni & Lewis at the Edinburgh Festival

Sketching St Philip’s Church, recovering from the office summer social

May 2019 – Sketchbook 56

In my tent, ready to get up and tackle day three of this camp.

Day three is the last day, and it begins round the flag pole.

I’ve been helping some Cubs and Scouts get their art badge.

It’s a team effort, well organised by Dylan with the support of many D’Mains volunteers.

Travelling.

At Glasgow School of Art, looking at what Hilmi and Mo have been up to.

The project work is great. I like looking closely at the buildings around us too. This is just round the corner from the Edinburgh office.

It’s a warehouse: a well designed bay is repeated and some parts are elaborated, some played down.

Beautiful and unconventional urban design in Edinburgh at Shaw Street.

With some of out HTA Design team winning the “Clients’ Choice” Award at the AJ100 Awards.

Eating with Rettie at the Scottish Homes Awards, and talking about the prospects for Build to Rent in Scotland.

Working on Build to Rent with the Edinburgh Park Design team.

The project is for Parabola. Here it is being reviewed by Architecture & Design Scotland.

Travelling

Travelling, and dinner with the helpful Specifi team in Edinburgh.

Travelling.

An LSE talk on peoples’ attitudes to living at high density.

At home: Fraser & Innes playing on my phone between football and swimming lessons.

 

 

Sketch Book 55 – April 2019

The theme is maybe years, or numbers. Seven kids in the rain in a hot tub at Tom Bent’s birthday bash.

At the Macallan distillery. Twelve year old for me.

We cycled round Loch an Eilean with the three kids and stopped to hear the echo from the island castle.

Innes losing his first tooth.

Sketch One from the excellent Highland Folk Museum in Kingussie.

Sketch Two

Isla racing up the Landmark climbing rock.

Peabody talking about numbers, huge financial ones, and how you reconcile them with a social purpose.

Three Crabs in Henry’s Cellar Bar.

Helping at the 30th Craigalmond Scout Coffee Morning.

On the DLR. I thinkĀ  it’s far harder to sketch on the DLR than it was six months ago. We have thousands of new passengers from Londons new housing developments, and there’s no longer any space.

Two memorials commemorating the 36,000 who died in the First and Second World Wars with no grave but the sea.

Four blocks nicely composed into a West Edinburgh housing development.

Julie sorting our summer holiday.

Three judges and one of our team at the AJ100 Awards judging.

In York Station waiting for the last train home.

At Silverknowes with about eighty Scouts, Cubs and Beavers.

DLR sketch two.

Soderberg in Soho. The first outside Edinburgh I think. Very nice too.

That’s a sketchbook, minus a bunch of drawings of what we might do the house, and I’m not putting them up here.