Expedition dominated the inaugural Velodrome pool tournament with strong performances across the board, resulting in our very own shark, George Oates, being crowned the winner.
Contractors, Architects and Project Managers were dispatched with consummate ease starting with ISG’s main man Mr.Goodlife falling in the first round to some excellent cue action from Ben Alexander. Sterling black ball dominance was shown by Messer’s Weir and Staeblein but unfortunately Mrs. Hopgood Oates fell in the all female consultants first round grudge match. By the 4th round only Oates remained to represent Expedition in the semifinals, a round won with some ease against old architectural adversaries.
May 29th, 2009
Last night, a crew from the office went to Stockton to see the opening of the Infinity Footbridge. More photos from the opening party to follow…. In the meantime, check out video footage from the BBC of the opening. And see what the Happy Pontist has to say…
May 15th, 2009
Reading through Matthew Taylor’s blog yesterday, I thought it a happy coincidence that he chose to talk a little about religion and secular society - much along the same vein as we briefly touched on at this week’s ThinkUp session. I think he has managed to state very eloquently what we were intimating towards but somehow never quite reached - that we should realise we are all subject to our own complicities and should be forgiving to ourselves and others for this.
May 14th, 2009
Think Up Monday Number 9
This session was the second in a two-parter about what it is that we believe to be of fundamental value (see Think Up Monday Number 8 for more details of the brief). A fuller account of the day’s discussion will follow, but now, here is a list of fundamental values discussed, presented as a list by way of summary for Think Up Monday Number 10. Well-being…Integrity…Courage…Friendship…Empathy…Reciprocity…Contribution…Happiness…Engagement…Trust…Respect…Chivalry…Honesty…Faith…Excellence…Big-picture-ism…Catalysis
May 11th, 2009
Following on from our trip down to the Weald & Downland Museum I popped into a church just round the corner from our flat the other week and came across the following:
The church was built in the 1930’s using timber from three barns dating back to the 17th century. The whole building is raised on masonry quoins to give the church building more height than the original barns, and apparantly (according to some old dear who couldn’t stop talking about the building) was erected by ship-wrights. She was convinced this accounted for the impression that was given by the roof of an upside-down boat - I’m not convinced!
May 7th, 2009
Following our visit to the Weald and Downland Museum in Singleton, I have been considering how the needs of society may change over time. To suggest how hap-hazard this might be, I uncovered this extract from Popular Mechanics, February 1950. It attempts to predict life in the year 2000…
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/05/miracles-youll-see-in-the-next-fifty-years/
May 5th, 2009
Of fundamental value…
Chris, Ed and Tim briefed us as follows for this Think Up session, part of a double bill:-
April 27th, 2009
Chris Wise talks about how, “our percentage fee culture treats architects and engineers like commodities and actually pays them less the better their designs work,” in his third article for Building Magazine’s comment column. He says it’s time for a rethink.
“Its bananas. The harder we work, the less we get paid, and we can’t blame the recession.” Read more at Building online
April 24th, 2009
The seventh Think Up Monday, held last Tuesday (keep up!), was held at the Weald and Downland open air museum. The museum, set against the back drop of the South Downs, exhibits buildings that have been moved from their original sites in order to save them from destruction. During this gloriously sunny day, the group was given the opportunity to explore buildings with ages spanning seven centuries, from the 14th Century hall from Bearhunt to the 21st Century Downland Gridshell building (Edward Cullinen Architects and Buro Happold).
April 21st, 2009
The third instalment of Shape to Fabrication, the annual gathering of the UK Rhino community, took place yesterday.
Fred Labbe presented our recent work using genetic algorithms for multi-objective optimisation of built form, on the Santa Maria del Pianto project in Naples. The presentation can be found here.
Jon Mirtschin presented his suite of structural plug-ins for Rhino.
April 16th, 2009
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