Posts in Category: Work
Music, Design & Travel – Sketchbook 54
The sketches are (pretty much) all on Instagram now at @sandysdrawingroom so I’m not posting them here so much. I like the immediacy of Instagram: draw them, photograph them post them. Quick. Here are some of the drawings from my 54th concertina sketchbook. 
Music at a fundraising dinner in the Grange Cricket Club.
Nice dinner, better music.
Members of the Royal High Pipe Band.
Discussing design at a Planning Appeal Hearing.
Discussing design with partners and staff at HTA. We review our projects in every Monday afternoon. Over the course of a few weeks we try to get round them all.The other guy is on a train. I love drawing people on trains now.
The passengers are captivated by their phones and don’t seem to notice. I miss out everything except the person to try and draw them more accurately.
Ali Germain on his way to the HTA Christmas party in London.
Isla
Innes and Fraser
Innes (?)
Some training with the Scouts.
And a great night watching Deacon Blue’s 30th Anniversary Tour, 31 years after I last saw them. Loved it.
September to November 2018
Drawings of people I know and people I don’t.
The London Underground is a pretty unpleasant place: too busy and too hot from from April to October. I avoid it when I can but you can’t use a Boris bike for every trip so to pass the time I’ve plucked up the courage to draw people i don’t know who’re sitting four feet away.
They get off, of course, so I’m quite often left with incomplete faces, but I quite like that anyway.
No negative reaction from any of the subjects so far.
Drawing people I know is more straightforward.
Innes waiting for Fraser to finish swimming.
Fraser & Innes watching football on Tv & Ipad.
My niece Anna.
Julie in Heathrow. Easier to draw people at events.
Watching the Proclaimers in London.
My mum, and others, celebrating 40 years since she became minister in Townhill Parish Church.
The traditional church hall cup of tea afterwards.
Peter Murray & Richard Rogers introducing the NLA’s exhibition on offsite manufacture in construction, which features a number of our projects.
The Cubs doing a craft project at their camp.
Kenneth Williamson guiding us through an illuminating talk on Edinburgh’s suburban railways. I live right on top of one, so i’m very interested.
At the RIBA Stirling Prize in the Roundhouse in Camden.
Fraser, Isla and Innes at the Armistice Memorial.
The kids watching the fireworks next door.
Listening to a moving talk from Hannah Graf, the UK’s highest ranking transgender army officer.
At Coram, for the launch of Cycle to Mipim 2019.
And finally, a small number of drawings focused on buildings, rather than people. This is Market Street with HTA Sketch Club.
Ludgate Hill in London.
At Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, a really beautiful place.
Performance
On the tube, I sat opposite this chap with his one legged glasses. He was reading Oliver Twist and making hurried notes. In his black tie and black suit I imagined he was off to a funeral, to give an address.
Eugene has told me a story or two. He’s on the streets and he’s had what I think you a call a chequered past.
It was a summer of performances and this was the highlight: CirColumbia at the Edinburgh Festival. Great fun to draw.
The festival closing fireworks from Ramboll’s fifth floor Princes Street office were spectacular.
A table topping performance from Hearts.
Watching food being prepared; a bit of a show.
It’s the end of the summer, so there’s quite a high turnover in the office. The students go back to uni and the next lot arrive.
I took Dougie down to Derby and wore him out.
Talton House – August 2018
Talton House in the Cotswolds with my mum, my three sisters and all our families. Busy, but 2018’s weather meant life was mostly lived outside in the garden.
Some time with the people I’ve known the longest.
Gardens were the theme of the week. Hidcote.
The kids drawing on the wall. That was allowed.
In Stratford-upon-Avon with the family. Isla says none of these people look anything like themselves.
But that this is much worse.
In between times I did some travelling.
And we started a competition to design some accommodation for a school in Malawi. Without safe accommodation many of the kids, particularly the girls, don’t make it through school. Education is a route out of poverty so we’d like to help. Deadline mid October, winner goes to Malawi to help build it.
We Work – May 2018
Here are some drawings mostly done whilst working.
Not all of them obviously, this is Innes waiting whilst Fraser played football with his Cubs.
But mostly: cycling reunion to celebrate being part of the HTA team that raised £725,000 for children’s charity Coram.
Lunch at the Scottish Property Awards with Dr John Boyle and Hazel Sharp Webb of Rettie. Rettie were award winners on the day.
Alan Caldwell, our client for Studio Dundee, sitting in the garden of the Whin House he built with Makar.
And making lunch for my family: very kind, and not an easy crowd to please. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – my Dad is the best human in the entire world” tweeted Alan’s daughter recently. Isla certainly reckons he does a great pasta sauce.
Actual work is often meetings rather than drinks receptions, lunches or hanging out in your client’s garden: London management meeting.
In Manchester. Popped by to visit our hard working team, and a huge site.
Sketching some ideas for transforming my local area: open spaces amazing, traffic bad.
Picking up the kids from the school on May the fourth.
The stylish hall in the school.
A chair.
A forgotten holiday sketch, lock gates on Neptune’s Stair Case, Fort William.
Morar – April 2018
Some sketches, in chronological order (unusually).
Dragging the boys round the shops in the car, making last minute preparations for a holiday on the beautiful west coast of Scotland.
On the beach at Camusdarach making the first of many sand castles.
The local port is Mallaig.
Over the sea to Skye. Skye is home to a disproportionate number of beautiful, subtle, architect designed homes.
These two are by the inspiring Dualchas.
An uplifting community centre with a nice cafe, a cracking view and great hall. By Will Tunell. I love what a community development trust can achieve: remove the profit motive and make something great.
The train journey from Mallaig to Fort William is amongst the most scenic in the world. And very popular with Harry Potter enthusiasts. We took the (cheaper) local service.
The highlight of the trip is the Glenfinan viaduct. It looks out towards the memorial to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Arrived 22nd June 1745. Made it to Derby. Routed 16th April 1746. Back to Europe 20th September 1746.
Eigg, Rhum and Isla in the same picture.
Sailing back from Eigg.
There’s some cracking domestic architecture on the mainland too.
I do work too (though sometimes this all looks like holiday). Back home and waiting my turn to talk at a Scottish Government seminar on Build to Rent.
My sister’s brilliant fundraising book sale in aid of Alzheimer’s Research UK. With excellent help she raised £1,700.
Back to the cold. Fraser and Isla sheltering from the elements at our local community football academy, Spartans.
Nairn – February 2018
Back in February: at the beautiful (and somewhat hidden) Ardclach Bell Tower. We stayed in Nairn. I loved running on the beach in the dark and the snow, then retreating back to this cosy flat to warm up.
Culloden Battlefield. The line of the Red Coats and the line of the Jacobites, in the snow. The bothy on the left was a field hospital, the battle was over in an hour. There’s not much in the sketch, but standing here and looking gave me the time to consider what had happened.
The aftermath: the impressive Fort George. The Victorian splendour of Nairn.
Back amongst the sculptural shapes of the city.
Chatting to the architects of EH4 and listening to a theory about how the spaces we make and the patterns of ownership contributes to the loneliness that afflicts society.
At the Devil’s Cut to celebrate Craig Jone’s Rowley’s 50th. Craig is trying out fifty a wee bit before me. I’ll check how he gets on, if he doesn’t like it maybe I’ll not bother.
Some folk on the tube. I used to be shy about drawing people on the tube but now I realise we are so close together that everyone is pretending there is nobody else here.
Jennie & Steven Got Married – 24 March 2018
A great ceilidh to end a lovely day celebrating Jennie & Steven’s wedding. 
Sketching the three beautiful bridges while listening to three good speeches. Family weddings are so much easier than when I last turned up at them twenty five years ago. This is mostly because I’ve decided how many cheeks to kiss and nobody asks me if it will be my turn next.
At the lovely ceremony in Dalmeny Church. The four guys in front of me are Andreas, Ruari, Marc and Douglas: three boys and their dad. As the register was signed they played a brass medley that ranged from Wild Mountain Thyme to Star Wars. It was amusing for everyone and moving for some of us, a memory of my dad. A very special event.
That was undoubtedly the main event of the last wee while, but here are a few other sketches of recent events. Above is Fraser at World of Wings. We learnt about how the vulture is really a good thing, despite the reputation. He cleans up after animals have already died and gets disease out of the eco system. I liked the red tailed buzzard as he was happy to pose for a sketch.
Watching a film about the housing crisis: dispossession. We need more subsidised housing, across the country.
My old flat.
Trying to get planning to put new homes on brownfield land, but people make it difficult so don’t expect all our housing to come through this route.
It’s not easy. You might need a barrister. He turned up with his suitcase of papers. Another reminder of my late father.
Duff House.
Some travel.
At a talk about the excellent work of architects Reiach & Hall.
Staying at the Culpeper. A London pub with five bedrooms.
A small businesses being creative and making the most of every inch of space in our cities. The opposite of bland hotels with long corridors and a smell concocted by an expert in user experience. Loved it.
London to Cannes in 6 Days – March 2018
I rode to Cannes in aid of children’s charity Coram. Our team of 4 raised £20,000 through very generous donations from friends and colleagues. Many thanks to everyone who donated. It’s a good cause: you can still donate here.
I rode the whole 900 miles, as I expected to do. I also expected to sketch the whole journey but I didn’t really get close. This is my bike in the hotel the night before.
This is the rider briefing on the morning we left. After that I hardly managed anything. Everything moves too fast and actually requires a fair bit of concentration; there’s no time left to think about sketching.
Some people eating snacks on the bus inside the train that transfers you through the tunnel. Cycle to MIPIM is a bit like I imagine the army might be: you have a job to do and people shout at you when you don’t do it, and even when you do (though there was less of that this year).
I drew some riders.
And some ride captains.
I even managed one lunch stop (but there were six).
After six days and nine hundred miles I arrived in Cannes for a good round of interesting lunches and meetings, and some parties. I enjoyed the chat and learned a fair bit, but at the back of my mind was the feeling that I need to go back, concentrate harder, cycle less, and draw the whole route.
Maybe next year.
22nd February 2018 – #BTRLon18 or Nine Hours for Nine Drawings
The Build to Rent Forum is the place where the main industry characters come together and discuss how they’re getting on. I spent a day drawing the discussions. The drawings were in aid of excellent children’s charity Coram who I’m raising money for by cycling from London to Cannes. Please donate here if you can.
I spent nine hours drawing: here they are:
Where’s the land? Getting the day started with a bit of debate and some interesting questions.
The Collective have convincingly imbued their business with a social purpose.
I used to be confused by investors because they talked in jargon but now they just talk about how to make nice places for folk to live in. I can understand that.
This might make you wonder what the people focused people will talk about? They’re wondering what lessons to learn from the huge amounts of data that are being generated by all these new residents in new buildings. What’s really going to work for people?
To talk about this, we went for lunch.
Iain Murray’s passionately expressed views are just the thing to beat the post lunch slump.
The Scots are in London learning from the folk who’ve built more than we have, but there’s quite a bit in the pipeline north of the border.
Quite refreshing view of the potential of Build to Rent to meet housing need, from Councillor Darren Rodwell.
Finally, James Murray calmly set out the policy framework that we’ll all be working within, and why it is the way is.
So that was it. An informative day, some interesting insights and good practice listening and drawing simultaneously! Many thanks to David Jennings from Movers and Shakers for sponsoring me.
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