bikes and things

Superbly shot and edited little video documenting the construction and installation of the Room for London on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Unfortunately embedding isn’t allowed so you’ll have to view it over at Vimeo.

I recently got hold of a copy of – John Pawson – A visual inventory – which is incredibly cheap at around £20 on Amazon. After reading a Guardian article about the book I was intrigued as to the quality of the content of the book, essentially a series of snaps and observations from one of the most minimal Architects working in the UK. His last book, which I bought whilst I was still at University, was called Minimum and, as per it’s title, was about as minimal as you could get. If I was entirely honest it wasn’t my thing at the time.

When I got the book I was struck by the richness of the imagery and the sheer variety of images from his travels around the world. In some ways the words and captions as well as his opening text were equally as powerful. The excerpt below from the introduction is for me a great description of the power of imagery as an Architect.

Part of the daily compulsion of photography is that it allows me to see what I saw over and over again. A camera is essentially and eye with a memory and I would be the first to admit that I am obsessive where this facility for recall is concerned. Since first acquiring a digital camera, I have accumulated over a quarter if a million image files. On the one hand, there is an attraction to photography’s speed and immediacy. Where the process of making a building is usually measured in years, an image can be captured in a fraction of a second. But more pressing for me is the sense that if you don’t record everything, moments slip away and are lost forever. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to this because architecture is a relatively permanent medium, involving enduring arrangements of stone, glass, timber and metal. My instinct is to translate things into a form I can hold onto and come back to – even letters and odd lines from books. You never know when a picture capturing the texture of a wall in Syria in the midday sun might be just what you ned as a reference to convey and idea to a client or colleague. When a member of a team returns from a site visit full of enthusiasm for a building or detail they have seen, my reflex response is always, ‘show me the photograph’.

I’m intrigued by the idea of a daily compulsion to photograph, to record, to capture or to retain or even amplify a memory. It’s a theme I have started to become more and more interested in after seeing family albums from my childhood as well as images of my Grandparents as young adults. The recording of images has massive significance in this context for later generations and I’m hoping won’t die. I’ve also tried to engage in this following my 365 project in 2009 and more recently by starting to collate prints of each year in boxes and maybe albums going forward. I like the idea of snaps also and that not too much artistic or overt meaning is overlaid in the first instance which could otherwise stop you taking that photo. Surely better to snap some friends, that interesting light, or that texture on the pavement that would otherwise be missed and entirely forgotten than to hold back as it’s ‘not good enough’. The message I get from this book is almost certainly – take more pictures!

Pawson seems to summarise a unique way of seeing through his book that in some ways I feel only an Architect could do. He’s not a photographer as such but he is using the medium to his advantage and again that medium is informing how he sees, his compulsion makes him see so much more and he has seemingly become acutely aware of his surroundings. He clearly has a real intrigue, eagerness and passion for seeing which is so well described here. It’s incredibly inspiring to read through and delve into the image captions. The work also has all sorts of meaning for an Architect reading and is incredibly thought provoking. I read the book in two sittings to process the first series of images before going back for more. I think I’ll be dipping in again and again in the future.

The smallness of human life is graphically expressed in this graveyard, in the low stubs of the headstones dwarfed by the towering tree trunks. Perhaps unexpectedly, the effect of this monumental contrast of scales is a feeling of comfort – the secure tranquility of the final resting place overseen by these massive forms, whose benign nature seems to be underlined by the little wooden nesting box on the central tree.

An example of one of the short captions that accompanies each image. They’re short enough to not get bogged down in, but long enough to give some background and context to each image and describe what Pawson saw that fascinated him so much. In summary, a beautiful book to own. I think mine will be very tattered before too long. A must purchase for any Architect with even the slightest interest in visual representation or photography.

Updated: A few of the spreads are on the Pawson Tumblr account. avisualinventory.tumblr.com

Back in January I posted about a Tumblr blog I’d found via Twitter – Need some design inspiration? This collection of images and format inspired me to start my own version entitled – architecturepastebook.co.uk.

At first I wasn’t sure whether I would use it or whether I would become bored with it. I’ve embraced it entirely and have, shock horror surprise surprise, become a little obsessive about it. It started out as a way of recording a series of precedent images I was looking at during work time. Rather than save images to a folder on the server and lose any idea of what they were or where they had come from, I would chuck them at the Tumblr. We would then refer back to them later in the day when we were discussing design progress or the development of the architectural language for a series of construction details. Previously I had started to use the Gimme Bar web service but hadn’t connected with it in the same way really. For some reason the Tumblr (with the chosen theme) seemed a better way of doing it. Also as it was public there was a certain pressure to keep the quality up.

architecturepastebook.co.uk – something to dip into for inspiration?

The blog has grown from a semi-personal scrapbook (or paste book) into a slightly more public semi-curated archive of great Architecture as well as the occasional inspirational image. The way Tumblr works is also part of this more social feel to the site as people can “reblog” posts. I can also do the same to theirs which allows me to re-use content I like from others, it’s through setting this up that I’ve really engaged with Tumblr. It’s become a place to record images I’ve seen during the day from the likes of Dezeen, ArchDaily and designboom as well as a few select users and groups on Flickr. Sometimes I will select a series of images from a completed building which I think is worthy or often just a single image that provokes a response such as a texture or composition. Sometimes it’s just nice concrete which I’m a complete sucker for.

I’m intrigued by the idea of a visual archive that can be looked back upon, something along the lines of day books or sketchbooks that I keep at work. I’m obsessive about these and love sketching details or small areas of plans or sections. I think we also suffer from sheer overload of visual information – “Where was that great detail in the magazine from last year? Oh I saw something like that a while ago, it was interesting how they solved it” etc etc. This is my way of addressing that and trying to keep inspiration to hand. The way I post also allows me to keep a link to the original article which I can refer to for further information.

Day books – full of notes, sketches and ideas.

As an Architectural Photographer I’m also keen on constantly upping my game and viewing imagery to critique and make my own work and techniques better. This constant viewing of other photographers work has also made me far more critical of the the visual representation and also the actual architecture that I see. This is also something I’m also keen to document – the stunning image or the play of light that the photographer recorded, the unique angle or way in which it was post processed or the composition of the image and so on.

Tumblr as a visual archive.

So, another website to maintain and curate but something that provokes a critical appraisal of work and somewhere to keep it all. Want to add something – an image or a project?

Submit something and I might add it.

A lovely little find from my mate Nat. A series of photos which appear to show multiple exposures of buildings before, during and after demolition. The EXIF says a Sony DSLR so I’d imagine they’re blended but still, they have a strange ethereal quality to them and incredibly beautiful. Wonder how they did them from the same spot without having to leave the camera there? Well worth popping over to Flickr to check out the whole set. A few of the best below.

All images © Andrew Evans

Nice to see a bit of attention on Peckham from the AJ. Would be interested to see the final results though.

I started my current job almost four years ago. I was fortunate to find the job just before the recession hit in early 2008, which seemed to strike almost overnight. I left my last job in a bit of a hurry, an interim step between two great employers if you like. When I started I was even luckier to be able to run two phases of a planning application. The first went in smoothly and was consented surprisingly easily after 3 months, the second less so and took another few years of negotiations and hard work to get sorted. Finally it did get consent, including planning, listed building and various other statutory approvals, but then nothing, there was no money to take the scheme forward. I enjoyed both parts of the job which were interspersed with other projects in the office. The best thing about working on these jobs was dealing day to day with a client, understanding their needs, relating to them, engaging with them and speaking to them almost daily at times, guiding them forward and reassuring them and aiming to achieve more than they ever thought possible. At many times you’re abstracted from that process of engagement but here I was seeing how it all worked and thriving on it. It really flicked a light on in me and made me want me realise why I had trained to be an Architect – I was made for it if you like.

Fast forward to last Monday and I find out that one of the phases is going ahead – with me as project Architect. Words cannot express how happy I am to be able to realise a project that I designed (with the input and guidance of my boss of course). There’s something so good about seeing something from start to finish and, fingers crossed, seeing a beautiful building and happy client at the end of that process. I’m so looking forward to solving some really tricky detailing problems and spending some time on site engaging with all the parties that go into making a brilliant building happen. That should keep me busy for the next few years.

Earlier today I was followed on Twitter by someone calling themselves @ArchLeaks. I didn’t pay much attention to it until someone else retweeted them with the following Tweet.

Judging by their Twitter feed they appear to have been sending this message to anyone who seems to be in the Architecture industry in the UK. Bizarrely a large number of people seem to be retweeting it and trying to get more traffic to his or her site. I was going to mark as spam and block but thought I’d dig a little deeper.

Now the aim of the site seems to be to get people to write negative comments about their experiences of working at various high profile Architects offices. The name, and approach, seems to suggest a kind of Wikileaks type of site naming and shaming of offices. Their own strap line seems to be ‘We young Architects need this information pool here‘ as well as ‘Reveals the hidden beneath the studios‘.

I have to say I was completely aghast at seeing this. There’s so much wrong with it I don’t know where to start. There’s so many reasons someone might have a bad experience at an office – such as a clash of personalities, working under the wrong director or partner who has since moved on, the sheer pressure of the environment, wrong choice of office, the person is a bit up themselves and didn’t take direction or weren’t very good at their job etc etc. Of more concern are the chances for anonymous abuse as there is nothing to verify if anyone had actually worked there! Now if there was some journalistic integrity or a big story to break then maybe I would be interested but I don’t think this is what is in mind. Gossip and hearsay are not sound reasons to trash a firms reputation online.

Having said that I’ve had experiences in some offices that weren’t amazing, but I moved on and put it down to experience. They’re stories for the pub with close friends, not for broadcasting on the internet. These experiences are also probably entirely un-representative of those offices and I would say that others have really enjoyed working where I hadn’t. At the same time I do think that some students are cut a rough deal sometimes but this perpetuates the idea that Architecture is miserable and Architects are hard done by. It’s also playing up to every tiny bit of negativity in the industry. Instead of say engaging with the RIBA policy on pay and conditions or speaking to the ARB about setting minimum standards we have an anonymous source of info that amounts to online bitching.

I’d imagine that a few cease and desist letters will be on their way if this site ever gains any real momentum. Although where they address them to I don’t know as the owner seems to have spoofed their WHOIS information to a professional footballer in Turkey. Interesting.

Updated:
As if by magic I was alerted to this article on the Guardian today. Wonderful timing David, wonderful and thank you.

Well worth a read for any self confessed work addict.

The challenge of work-life balance is a relatively new one, and it is an artifact of a world where you get paid for showing up, paid for hours spent, paid for working.

An interesting little project which was sent my way last week – I was left mouth wide open after watching to the end of the video. The idea of 3D printing is becoming far more mainstream and we use a fair bit of it at work – I even had a leaflet sent to me from HP showing their new desktop 3D printers recently. However this project takes a slightly different approach and uses the power of the sun and sand (silicon) as well as some clever computer work to create objects in the desert – the energy source and material are abundant. The hipster outfit kind of makes it too.

The project is described by it’s author Markus Kayser as follows:

In this experiment sunlight and sand are used as raw energy and material to produce glass objects using a 3D printing process, that combines natural energy and material with high-tech production technology.

Solar-sintering aims to raise questions about the future of manufacturing and triggers dreams of the full utilisation of the production potential of the world’s most efficient energy resource – the sun. Whilst not providing definitive answers, this experiment aims to provide a point of departure for fresh thinking.

Been thinking about a trip round Europe to catch up on some old building friends – La Tourette, Ronchamp, The Unité (maybe some buildings not by Corb too) – dive into Switzerland for a bit perhaps?

I was reminded of La Tourette after seeing a few hits to Flickr on this old neg from 1998/99 time. Would really love to go back.