Park Hill – Urban Splash
October 21st, 2010
UPDATE: 5/3/14 Park Hill today Utopian estate left to die
Color Me Goodd! Urban Splash brighten up Park Hill Phase One
For a larger version of this photograph click the image itself.
Design Research Unit: 1942 – 72
October 12th, 2010
UPDATE: 2/6/14 At last the photographs
Norwich University College of the Arts Gallery 30 Oct – 27 Nov 2010
Curated by Michelle Cotton
Cubitt announces a national touring exhibition about the history of the Design Research Unit.
Formed in London in 1942, the Unit was responsible for some of the most important design produced in post-war Britain. It pioneered a model for group practice, being the first consultancy in the country to bring together expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. By the 1970s it was one of the largest and most established design offices in Europe. This exhibition will be the first of its kind, mapping the history of the group and the currency of their designs. It will identify key examples of their work and document an approach that was shaped by inter-war developments in artistic discourse and post war trends in industry and communication; in particular the accelerated demand for corporate design.
UPDATE 1/11/12 I am sorry this article is so out of date. There was an travelling exhibition at the time of which I caught the last day in Norwich on a wintry afternoon in the snow. It was a fascinating glimpse into a past when design was considered more important than it is now, and a walk down memory lane to the days when Watneys owned pubs and produced plastic barrels with which to decorate their beer pumps and branded ashtrays, not to mention the 1970s plastic lettering on the pubs. Here are some photographs from the exhibition:-
My Flickr set from the exhibition:-
Design Research Unit Exhibition – Norwich
Here’s a link to the Guardian article about the exhibition:-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/12/design-research-unit-branding-britain
The British Rail design guide is online here:-
https://www.doublearrow.co.uk/manual.htm
Heard through @jacobsamwillson
Why We Need a Fair Society – Will Hutton
September 26th, 2010
“Ever more sophisticated CCTV policing the fortresses of the rich and the desolate housing estates of the disadvantaged has become the iconic social intervention of the age.”
This phrase jumped out at me today while reading the Observer and Will Hutton’s long and accurate portrayal of broken Britain and the reasons why https://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/26/them-and-us-will-hutton
Within this blog I have written about housing estates with obtrusive CCTV – Maiden Lane for a start – and mentioned gated communities but it wasn’t until I read Will Hutton’s article that I saw how these two were related and in the worst possible way, both symptoms of a widely separated and decaying society ill at ease with itself.
This is clearly part of the problem that regenerating the Modernist estates is only going to partly solve. So long as the disparities of wealth and shortage of subsidised housing persist then so will the cameras. They are not here to stay. Unlike others I do believe there will come a time when we as a society will be able to do away with the “surveillance state”. But that time is not yet, not even close.
Maria Bethania – Royal Festival Hall
July 17th, 2010
Cathy Come Home – reviewed
July 16th, 2010
“Now I was pregnant again, some would say it was wrong to have another kiddy when you’re overcrowded as it is. But I don’t think so, I think kiddies are God’s gift, you don’t do right to deprive anyone of the chance of life, love’s what’s important in a child’s life, love is more important to a child than nice surroundings, I know, because I lived in what they call a respectable home, and I didn’t have it”.
The New Jerusalem – A home of your own – 1995
July 13th, 2010
UPDATE: Watch it on YouTube -> New Jerusalem
“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” – Revelation 21:2 – King James Bible
This fifty minute documentary covering the period from the end of the Second World War in 1945 until the arrival of Thatcherism in 1979 provides a comprehensive look at both the motives and the actions of the major players in the field of slum clearance and post war reconstruction with a particular emphasis on Birmingham and its problems.
Title shot – click above for larger image – original VHS
So begins this wonderful evocation of the feelings at the time that here was a new world to build.
Homes for Heroes – documentary review
July 12th, 2010
This documentary first broadcast by the BBC in 2005 is a compilation of film clips linked together by a commentary from architectural critics and is an attempt to put together a coherent account of the events following the Second World War when the country was in great need of new housing.
The film lasts one hour and what follows is a list of the main subject headings with reference to the films from which the clips are taken. The film shares many of its clips with High Rise Dreams reviewed earlier in this blog, though that film being half the length.
Homes for heroes opens with a jaunty jazz tune and Oliver Cox, one of the LCC architects of the 1950s saying that “there was a very heady feeling at the time, that we were building a new Britain”.
High Rise Dreams 2003 – documentary review
July 9th, 2010
This film made in 2003 is a potted history of the LCC architects’ department at County Hall and their designs and achievements in post-war housing, concentrating on the landmark estates and new towns, in addition to projects by others in Sheffield and Newcastle:-
Click the image for the web page
- Harlow new town
- Alton East Roehampton
- Alton West Roehampton
- Keeling House Bethnal Green – Denys Lasdun
- Park Hill Sheffield
- Tower blocks and system building
- Alexandra Road Housing – Neve Brown
- Byker Estate Newcastle – Ralph Erskine
- Trellick and Balfron Towers – Erno Goldfinger
Francesca Martinez
July 4th, 2010
UPDATE: Nice article in the Guardian here -> having the last laugh
After a hot day walking the streets of London (3/7/2010) in search of both good and bad housing I went to see Francesca Martinez at the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank.
Robin Ince provided the introduction during which time the purpose of the screen above his head became clear. It was translating speech into words on screen in almost real time in much the same way as the subtitles on television do; with occasional human intervention to correct words out of context.
It relayed his words very well but what was more suprising was that when Francesca was speaking, whose speech is less clear, it did an almost perfect job too, (a friend pointed out that she may have “trained” it).
When Robin Ince introduced Francesca Martinez she was assisted on stage to her chair, she has difficulty walking as a result of cerebral palsy, something she calls being “wobbly”. She is cuttingly funny, self deprecating and charming.
Click photo for larger image
Of the many funny stories and anecdotes she related I will repeat only one. She was once asked “Have you ever prayed to God to be normal?” to which she replied “No, because I can’t imagine any God that would make the rest of the world disabled”.
There was a lot of that. Humour directly related to her condition but not in sad or sentimental way, quite the reverse, in a spiky and incrediby amusing way. She is immensely likeable and I’m only sorry she doesn’t appear more often in London but given the breadth of her world tours I’m not surprised.
Sunlight study – Vue2
September 25th, 2009
I did some examples on Vue2 in Bletchley MK. Pictures linked from the table below:-
From August 17th 2008 until April 20th 2009 the sun never rose within sight of Vue2 NNW facing flats.
Where does the sun rise between those dates? Let’s take halfway, say 136 days from 17/8/08 to New Year then 109 days from New Year to April 20th. 136+109 = 245. Half that is 122.5. 136 – 122 = 14 so 14 days before the end of 2008 is our halfway point. This is about 17/12/2008, showing the sun rising to the South-East nowhere near the NNW facing flats.
The picture is taken at noon showing the arc of the sun sweeping South from sunrise SE to SW on setting at this time of year.
For only 365-245=120 days does the sun rise within sight of the NNW facing flats, and then only remaining visible for a short time
On Midsummers day the NNW facing flats would get just two hours of sunlight 0440-0640 from the East at a time when many people will be asleep, but that afternoon they will get five hours of sunlight from 16:23 to sunset at 21:29.
On 11-11-2009 the sun sets along the alignment of Vue2 and for two months it is not to be seen from the west, until 11-1-2010.
| 17/08/2008 | 17/12/2008 | 20/04/2009 | 11/11/2009 | 11/01/2010 | 21/06/2010 |
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Click individual photos above for larger versions
Here’s the sun calculator, you drag the pointer around then zoom in to your house and change the date to winter or summer.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/
This is the old one which no longer works
https://www.iesmith.net/tools/solarcalc.html
If you use it please be aware of the following to get the best out of it.
01) Open it up
02) Type in the name of a town and click the Go button
03) Zoom in with the vertical slider on the left or click the + button repeatedly.
04) Drag the red pointer to your street (note in Firefox the map started scrolling on its own so I switched browsers)
05) Drag the map across and drag the point separately to get the black X on your window
06) Switch from terrain to satellite (Map | Satellite | Terrain) to get a better view, zoom again and drag the pointer again
07) Once you’ve settled on the location click the calendar, set a date and tick the Daylight saving box if it’s the summer
08) Click calculate
09) At the point the map will probably switch to “We’re sorry etc . . . ” click the satellite button and you’ll have your picture back
10) Look at the sun position and sunrise and sunset positions for the date you chose