Posts Tagged: fraser

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.

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 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 54 Side One – January & February 2019

Drawing people:

an Aberdeen fan on the DLR.

Work colleagues James Lord,

John Nsiah,& Rory Bergin.

Innes,

Fraser (& the bit of my family tree that plans to cycle up the Hebrides in 2019).Douglas

My Mum.

Innes, Isla & FraserNeil

Murray

Footbaallers

Commuters

On a train

Listening

Gairlochy

Life model PaulAnd in paint. I mean, these parallel lines are all very well but it’s nice to get the brushes out.

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.

 

 

Morar – April 2018

Some sketches, in chronological order (unusually).180407 - Innes & FraserDragging the boys round the shops in the car, making last minute preparations for a holiday on the beautiful west coast of Scotland.

080418 CamasdarochOn the beach at Camusdarach making the first of many sand castles.

180418 - MallaigThe local port is Mallaig.

180410 - to SkyeOver the sea to Skye. Skye is home to a disproportionate number of beautiful, subtle, architect designed homes.

180410 DualchasThese two are by the inspiring Dualchas.

April 2018 - AnCrubhAn 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.

180411 JulieThe 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.

10419 GlenfinanThe 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.

180412 - Isla Eigg RumEigg, Rhum and Isla in the same picture.

180412 Loch NibheisSailing back from Eigg.

180413 Raw ArchitectureThere’s some cracking domestic architecture on the mainland too.

180418 - Scottish Govt SeminarI 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.

180421 - Book SaleMy sister’s brilliant fundraising book sale in aid of Alzheimer’s Research UK. With excellent help she raised £1,700.

180428 - SpartansBack to the cold. Fraser and Isla sheltering from the elements at our local community football academy, Spartans.

Jennie & Steven Got Married – 24 March 2018

Jennie & Steven 3 - 24 March 2018A great ceilidh to end a lovely day celebrating Jennie & Steven’s wedding. Jennie & Steven 2 - 24 March 2018

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.

Jennie & Steven 1 - 24 March 2018At 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.

World of Wings 18 March 2018

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.

Dispossession

Watching a film about the housing crisis: dispossession. We need more subsidised housing, across the country.

Bothwell House 25 March 2018My old flat.

180320-Aitch - FinchleyTrying 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.

180320-Aitch OfficesIt’s not easy. You might need a barrister. He turned up with his suitcase of papers. Another reminder of my late father.Duff HouseDuff House.

emergency exit 21 February 2018Some travel.

 

Neil Gillespie 27 February 2018

At a talk about the excellent work of architects Reiach & Hall.

Culpeper 19 March 2018Staying at the Culpeper. A London pub with five bedrooms.

Culpeper 21 February 2018A 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.