This week end Felix and I (the cat I share the workshop with) started working on two pieces. The one at the back has working title of Turbine…its the remains of our very old teak sun lounger which finally died this year. The other piece is a new departure. For the first time I decided to build from scratch one of my sketches. It’s a huge learning curve as it
Well, work has started on the demolition of 210 flats that from the start of the 1970’s has dominated and turned Flint from one of the UK’s oldest and fascinating, fortified towns to a South London suburb…. the master plan which replaces these blocks with houses on proper streets and lanes will feature here soon…
So it seems that the happiest place to live in the UK according to the recent Office of National Statistics are the Western Isles. Given the debate about the validity of measuring happiness why are Eilean Siar, Orkney & Shetland top of the list followed by Rutland and Anglesey happy places to be? I suppose the answer is shaped by the fact that the bottom three is Swansea, County Durham
Sue took some pictures of the Shard this week…as you can see it appears to come straight out of The Fountainhead!
I have been painting on my Iphone again. Its getting easier since I bought a little touch screen pen for it. (£4.99 from Amazon). I have no idea how it works as it looks and feels nothing like my right index finger. Anyway here they are…
Having an HD digital camera on your IPhone is great but if you really want to ‘see’ something you have to use a sketchbook. Here is a drawing made under extreme conditions, standing on the walls of Dubrovnik in 35 degrees, drawing as we circumnavigated the city defensive walls. What is magical about the city is the way it conveys its ‘DNA’. Originally a Roman city built between the cliffs
Another drawing is emerging. This seems to be a set of defensible houses located in the shallow mouth of a Western estuary. Some time ago they were flooded after an unusually high tide. You can just see the lines of the walls rising out of the surface built up out of assembled stones in frames and roughly cast blocks located on the windward side. You can also see copper bottomed boats
We just happened to be down in East Manchester looking at a housing site when we chanced upon this little scheme in New Islington, next door to Fat’s Islington Square. Just when you thought UK housing had dropped into some form of stasis this sort of thing pops up and gives you a bit of hope. The first thing to notice is the ambition to make proper streets. The repetition
Can’t help thinking that the latest coalition backed initiative on town centre regeneration, fronted by Mary Portas is little more than window dressing. Which is probably something Mary knows quite a bit about. A whole page in yesterday’s Guardian with Mary sitting in front of what looks like a hastily pinned up wall of action/ideas/connections (just like the lady detectives do in the Bridge and The Killing). But really the
The architectural press lately have been showing photographs of famous architect’s workstations. Well here is mine over at TY. Pantone pens, great fresh rolls of white trash paper, thick black pens and a challenge to design some houses in the woods. Couldn’t be happier!
