Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
Two Tribes. I was sitting in the architecture studio yesterday listening to students explain their design ideas when we heard that whirring air-raid siren. I’m too young to remember the Vietnam War, although I do remember the ‘boat people’ at RAF Sopley in the New Forest. My first news memories, alongside the background threat of […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
Thinking on your feet. This week, my brain hurts. Not unpleasantly — but it hurts. On top of everything else, I ran a second edition of my Design Marathon late into the evening. Eight back-to-back video calls, each one a different house, a different city, a different problem. Whether to extend or not. What it […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
The Buffet Car. I’ve been redesigning a small terrace house recently. Trying to make it more usable. It’s typical for this type of house. Narrow. The front door, the lounge, the long corridor front to back. The stairs. All of it narrow. They’re like trains, but you have to live in them. And the bathroom’s […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
Without Prejudice. I think I’m coming to the end. It’s starting to feel like time to change direction. I’ve designed enough buildings. Just over one a week for the past twenty years. Alongside that, I’ve been teaching continuously. Some are small, some big. Mostly houses, but also adventure playgrounds, coffee shops, offices and industrial buildings. […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
The Dolphin Centre. I had a depressing visit to a town centre last weekend. One I grew up visiting. Where I bought a Pop Swatch in 1990. And where Our Price Records was the place for adding to the CD collection. Wherever you are, you’ll know the kind of place. You’ll have similar memories. Urban […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
Getting It Back. It’s dark. Wet. Rain blowing against the window. I’m waiting for the sun to come up so I can see the trees. In the meantime, I’m wondering: why are we obsessed with getting back what we spend on house renovations? We’ve all been trained to think like developers — to see our […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
Life is a Lasagna. I’m on the motorway. Cruise control on. 62mph. Sitting steady in the inside lane. It’s busy. All lanes. Both directions. 9am. I spot a tractor driving slowly over one of those bridges, built where a small lane once crossed this land. I’m listening to Senator Rand Paul talk about automation. How, […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
Mid-Winter Planning. Happy New Year. Well, Happy Mid-Winter. It’s a stupid time of year for a fresh start. We force this Gregorian New Year on ourselves, despite nature telling us it’s not a new beginning. It’s time to hunker down. Eat the nuts we gathered in the autumn and wait for the new growth of […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
The Good Old Days. I was in a coffee shop the other day. Coffee #1 in Shirley, Southampton, in case you care. While trying to edit an hour of video footage into a 37-second segment, I was distracted by an old couple at the next table. A gentleman had been sitting there for a while, […]
Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links
The House That Needed Turning Upside Down. Some houses tell you exactly what’s wrong the moment you step through the door; others take a little time to reveal their story. The terrace house I looked at this week — a tiny two-up two-down in Southsea — definitely belonged to the second group. A small two-up […]
