Posts Tagged: urban sketches
Fettes Rise AGM 23/04/13
My neighbours, at the Fettes Rise AGM. There are challenges to living in 60’s designed housing and we discuss them every year. But mostly, it’s unbeatable.
Beautiful Facades on Currently Unloved Buildings, No1- 19/04/13
A simple building off St Andrew’s Square in Edinburgh. Nice proportions, materials and details, but tired and unloved looking. There are lots like this, and there’s a lot to be learned from looking at them.
The City, on the day of Maggie’s funeral 17/04/13
I had a pleasant walk through the traffic free city on the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. This is the enormous Cheesegrater building by Rogers Stirk Harbour. The scale, in relation to the adjacent Lloyds, is incredible, the lobby alone is about five storeys high. I wonder what they’ll put in it? 
Below is Paul Finch giving an insightful talk to HTA the night before. The Thatcher legacy was the main topic, really. 
Flats on Dundas Street 4/3/13
A typical new town flat block. Flats on the upper floors, shops and commercial on the ground. Regularly proportioned (but differently spaced) windows and a common, high quality material ties it together beautifully.
‘Its about the balance of repetition and variety, it’s almost a mathematical formula’.
Plane, train, pub 18/03/13
Evening travel to London pub by plane then train. Edinburgh airport is a lot nicer when it’s not first thing in the morning (security staff are much more friendly). Kings Cross pub below is a surprising mix of tourists staying in local cheap hotels with names you’ve heard of to wasted old folk staying in cheap local places you haven’t.
Elegant Kings Cross Construction
A remarkably elegant new piece of the Kings Cross redevelopment. One Pancras Square, I think, by David Chipperfield Architects. Elegant design and elegant construction system.
New St Andrew’s House 15/03/13
An inspiring trip to the defunct New St Andrew’s House for HTA Sketchclub. Impressed by the attention to detail shown by much maligned ’60s architects…
Quartermile 13/03/13
I really like these high quality towers slotted in between the old buildings on the old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary site in the middle of the town. The buildings and the masterplan are by Foster and Partners. It’s all of a high standard rarely achieved.
Cartoon in Blueprint 8/3/13
My cartoon describing the excellent Assemble & Join project our graphics team did at Lower Marsh in London was published in this month’s Blueprint magazine. Credit to Lucy Smith & Theo Adamson.
http://www.assembleandjoin.co.uk/
Fix on Whitecross Street 27/02/13
We lived on Whitecross Street until 2007. It’s changed lot’s since then. This was a pub I never went into: too scared. Kev & Pam went in one night and someone was chucking darts randomly around the bar. Now it’s a coffee shop where I stopped for breakfast.
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