Posts in Category: Places
Belleville Rendez-Vous a Ronde – 28 Juillet 2015
Watching Sylvain Chomet’s Belleville Rendez-Vous in Bicycle Outfitters Ronde in Stockbridge. An appropriately stylish location for this beautiful animation, I think.
It’s a cycling theme as this is our last fundraising event before our team of twelve ride 100 miles (each) this weekend. Through incredibly kind donations, we’ve raised over £15,000 for homelessness charity Shelter. Many thanks to everyone who has helped through donations, gifting raffle prizes, baking cakes or offering free use of venues.
It’s been great fun. Now to ride the 100 miles…
Shelter Quiz in Hemma – 1 July 2015
We are raising money for Shelter, so had a pub quiz to raise some cash. Hemma gave us the venue for free, and we had generous donations for prizes. We raised £1300, about 10% of our target. The fundraising page is here, if you’d like to help. Many thanks to those who already have. 
Later, a holiday touring lochs in the Trossachs.
Windy Katrine on the Sir Walter Scott.
Rainy Lomond.
We did most of it by bike, which is very tiring if you are three.
The rest by bulky Ford.
Meeting Gavin Turk – 30 June 2015
At New London Architecture’s Thomas Heatherwick lecture: an inspiring experience. He clearly inhabits the same world of difficult sites, demanding briefs and tight budgets as the rest of us, but he manages to conjure something completely extraordinary from the same ingredients. The lecture slides are straightforward: it’s the ideas that shine through, and how they solve relevant problems.
Contemplating his amazing work and optimistic office the next morning, I wanted to draw something simple and utilitarian, to get back in touch with my own ‘reality’: a truck making deliveries at St Pancras. 
After breakfast I headed for Hackney, expecting I’d seen enough inspiring characters for one trip, and it was time to do some real work (the protestant work ethic is never far away). Instead, I ran into Gavin Turk and talked about how you might make space for creative free thinkers in the overheated, investment focused, London property market.
Well he talked, I sketched and noted the presence of paintbrush in the hand of a YBA. I was pleased he signed my sketchbook. It says:
“Gavin Turk
did not draw this”.
A Long Drawing of a Long Lunch – 23 June 2015
In Manchester discussing how devolving power to regions can lead to more effective and more appropriate solutions to the current housing crisis. Lots of support for this and lots of good ideas. I think Scottish devolution has opened people’s eyes to the benefits of local decision making but they haven’t yet experienced it’s overwhelming, empowering, energy.
Lunch over, I headed out into the warm Manchester sunshine and was surprised to see it was 5.00pm. Lunch and ideas are important, but they are a means to the end: designing better places.
Next day: Derby. We’ve started the design of Phase Two of Castleward so it’s a good time to think about the bits of Phase One that work (mixed use/ mixed tenure/ mixed typologies/ the biggest trees we’ve ever planted/ streets) and the bits that don’t. If being an architect is sometimes quite hard work, it’s all made worthwhile when you see things you imagined realised.
Making Jaguars in Coventry & Warwickshire, in the Shard – 16 June 2015
At an event in the Shard hearing about the power of a research, design and manufacturing based economy in the Midlands. Prosperity, creativity, enviable quality.
Jaguar CEO Dr Ralph Speth gave the keynote address. Manufacturing economies are prosperous economies when the quality of product is as high as this, and we heard about the combination of education, investment and supply chain required to operate at this level. You need a good supply of great places for people to live too, and we’d love to help with that.
I’m increasingly fascinated by design and manufacture, so I’ll ask if I can sketch the factory.
Golden Lane – 24 May 2015
Chamberlin Powell & Bon designed the Golden Lane Estate in London before they designed it’s larger and more famous neighbour, the Barbican. They’re both outstanding, but I prefer Golden Lane.
We went for a visit with HTA’s London Sketch Club and the London Society. The ‘kids’ weren’t that impressed, which certainly ups the ante next time I’m reviewing their work.
It’s a bit windy and not that warm but this could well be summer, so the real kids and I played outside whilst Julie did some shopping.
Baked potatoes for tea.
Building Paradise – 6 June 2015
This is Cala D’Or, Mallorca.
The place is the creation of Don Jose Costa Ferrer, Don Pep, who bought the beautiful but unproductive land in 1933 for the equivalent of 80 euros. He made a masterplan, sold the plots, and designed the houses using a simple palette and sold them to his creative friends. 
A stone’s throw from the tourists enjoying the natural beauty of the beaches you can find the place Don Pep created. As the houses have been upgraded or replaced people have stuck to the rules he set, to their credit.
Combine the architecture with the trees, both the familiar pine and the exotic palm, and you can see the Don Pep vision.
Whilst there I enjoyed cycling up to San Salvador at a bit less than half the pace of a pro, on a bashed up Pinarello.
Mostly we were swimming off the beach and…
… at Casa Binimelis.
We are sad to go home but Palma de Majorca is our new favourite airport. 
Grumpy reading Private Eye on the plane.
Some Summer – 17 May 2015
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.
Drama – 6 May 2015
Work is about making things and sketching is about learning from some of the great things others have made. A week spent looking at inspiring and dramatic development. 
This is O’Donnell & Tuomey’s Saw Swee Hock Building for the London School of Economics, more drama than you’d think would fit on such a tight site.
Victoria Street in Edinburgh, linking the Grass Market with George IV Bridge in spectacular fashion. A six storey pedestrian street sitting on a lower level that climbs from single storey to three storeys whilst looking like a crescent but mostly running straight. Other sketches of these two locations should be here.
Most spectacular of all, the dramatic construction of the third Forth Bridge.
With the kids at soft play. The flags and pennants are on the Britannia outside. 
Fraser watching a Dusty drama. The next few days will see drama too, as our political parties try to sort out a hung parliament. I’ve just realised that most people don’t realise that Nicola Sturgeon, the undoubted star of the whole process, isn’t actually standing. Dramatic days ahead.
Outdoors/ Indoors – 8 April 2015
The kids being chased round the garden of Grays Court hotel by Henry the resident dog. Our slightly rowdy bunch spent a warm and sunny afternoon in their elegant, calm garden. 
Back in Edinburgh we are inside waiting for the hailstones to stop and the icy winds to die down. 
Luckily some of the excellent Dr Seuss books are being made into films. We stayed in and watched ‘The Lorax’.
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