The UK government has recently passed new legislation requiring electricity suppliers to fit free real time electricity price monitors in homes in a plan to massively reduce electricity consommation in homes. With Britain committed to reducing its carbon emissions to 60% of 1990 levels by 2050, I am certain that this measure will go at least some way to seeing how much electricity they are wasting. Who knows, checking your consumption metre might become just as addictive as checking your blog stats (addicts, you know who you are!). Read more on the ICE website.
Filed under: Architecture
Over the last few days the way we live, architechnophilia, and inhabit have all been covering a new pre-fab wooden house in Hackney designed by David Adjaye. Pre-fab does exactly what is says on the tin. It is PREfabricated and it allows the construction of some FABulous buildings in less time than it takes concrete to set. I remember seeing a documentary about a pair of artists who dreamt of building their own house for their retirement. In the end chose to have a house designed by a German team who specialise in pre-fab metal structures. The house arrived in pieces on a flat bed lorry and within a matter of days, a team of five or so had ratchetted the whole thing together in a latter of days (if any readers remember seeing this programme and know who they were I would be much obliged if they could share the knowledge!).
There are quite a number of streets in Hackney with grand old Victorian semi-detached houses set back from the road, especially around London Fields and Victoria Park. Every so often however there is a house missing, presumably victims of stray second world war bombs in this area of East London. And quite often these gaps are filled with new and exciting architecture. I haven’t seen Adjaye’s house for myself, but I can well imagine it filling such a void.
ps If anyone reading happens to be going to Hackney this weekend (I’m sure one of you will be) and happens to be passing, could they get me a picture so that I don’t have to steal somebody else’s… thanks
Last night I went to the brilliant and rather amusing Fischli and Weiss exhibition “Flowers and Questions” at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris. To say rather amusing is somewhat of an understatement: I spent so much time smiling, if not laughing out loud, that if ever I left one of the exhibition rooms without the corners of my mouth turned up, I was inclined to feel it was a bit boring. In fact I think this happened only once.
This pair of artists play on our perceptions of materials and our sense of scale. One room was filled with jet black objects all apparently made from different materials: a tree trunk, a stone facia for a fireplace, a cutlery rack, a leather pouf. They were all in fact cast in rubber. More unbelievably, in another room which appeared to be an artists work shop filled with tools, rotting food, furniture, cargo pallets, razor blades, cigarette packets etc etc, I was stupefied to find out that every single object had been cast in plastic and then painstakingly painted. We were permitted to pick up a plank of “wood”. It was in fact a plank of plastic that seemed to float up with no effort. This illusionary game played with materials made apparently everyday objects unusually tactile.
In front of two video projections is where I spent most of my time. One was the ultimate childhood dream. It showed footage of one of those chain reaction sequences that kids dream of but apparently only grown ups get to build. Something falls over, it tips something else, a bowling ball rolls down a spiral etc. Only in this system, it wasn’t a ball that was kept moving, but a flame. Paraffin flows, and catches fire, balloons burst fireworks rocket up tubes and set off detonators, fire extinguisher foam dissolves blocks of sugar cube that support a vat of chemicals on the point of tipping over and so on and so on.
From the sublime to the ridiculous in the second video. A nature video but with our two heroes in a panda and mouse suit living out their animal existence.
In fact, I loved it so much that I am going to go back.
Showing in Paris until 13th May.
Filed under: Architecture
Two articles on the way we live caught my attention…
Since my final year project is well and truly rooted in the domain of tall buildings, I was interested by Calatrava’s Chicago spire
and because, quite simply, they build beautiful buildings, cast an eye over Hertzog and de Meuron’s work in Beijing
Thanks for Mary for finding this article about the camapaign to confer sainthood upon architect Antonio Gaudi, creator of my favourite building site in the world: La Sacrada Familia in Barcelona. I say building site because the colossal cathedral is not due to be finished for another twenty to forty years.
It is well known for its UNESCO protected facades, but it is the columns that flank the impossibly tall and narrow nave, sculpted like impossibly slender trees that are astonishing. All imagined and engineered without finite element analysis or any other modern day computer wizardry. The grounds for Gaudi’s beatification are his pious lifestyle and his divine inspiration (attempts at finding a “miracle” to confirm his saintliness – a prerequisite on the saint application form – have resulted in some pretty hilarious and far-fetched tales. See the article for more). I have no doubt that Gaudi lead a pious life and there is no doubt that having a new saint on the block will help with the construction of this cathedral: every drop of concrete has been paid for by private donations and gate fees so a few extra pilgrims would do no harm. It would be a shame however to confuse mastery of the mechanics of materials for divine inspiration. A wander around the crypt at the at the Sagrada Familia demonstrates some of Gaudi’s technical mastery through his models (details of which deserve a post of their own).
The same could be said of other ‘devinely inspired’ engineers and architects: Christopher Wren for St Paul’s, Michelangelo for St Peter’s, Imohotep and his step pyramid (Egypt’s first). They may have prayed a lot but they are also all great engineers!
Finally, I wonder about the wisdom of granting sainthood to an architect/engineer. The bible is not exactly full of praises for worldly construction afterall…
Engraving The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré
Filed under: Life in Paris
There has been an obvious lack of posts on this site for some time now. I would like to be able to say that the reason for this is the amount of time I have spent following the build up to yesterday’s first round presidential election, but then that would not be entirely true. With the media hype, maybe you would think it was impossible not to be aware of the daily twists and turns of the presidential polemic. In fact, over the last couple of weeks, this has not been the case for me partly, I think, for the following reasons.
Firstly, the equal coverage of each candidate, enforced on the media by law, had a strangely distorting effect. For example, in the mornings when I was most likely to listen to the radio, I had all the information I needed about where the most minor of candidates had taken their soap boxes, but add this up over twelve candidates and it made for a lot of noise and not a lot of perspective. Also, in order for it to be equal, it was difficult to comment about one candidate’s policies without having to list the other twelve’s. I think that this equal coverage has many merits. It gives the smaller candidates a platform, and without which I am sure the success of Olivier Bescanenot (almost 1.8 million votes in the first round), an exciting voice for the future, would be diminished.
The second phenomenon is that at work no one talks about the elections, or if they do, they only talk about who they are not going to vote for. Interestingly, more than one developer has pointed out the terrible consequences for the construction of large-scale projects if Sarko doesn’t get in. A little short-sighted perhaps if they actually want find anyone to build their projects… Outside work, it is a similar story. North-eastern Paris is not exactly a stronghold of the right. In the bars where I hang out there is little chance of finding a Sarko supporter. That said, until the eve of the first round, I was yet to encounter anyone who was really behind Ségolène (interestingly, Ségolène gets corrected to semolina on my computer). There was still fear of a repeat of 2002 when the left was divided, leaving a rightwing and an ultra rightwing candidate to choose from in the second round. And so, despite their dislike, or in some cases loathing of her, she was quite likely to get their vote, and no wanted to talk about it because the choice was rather depressing.
Last night, in a vegetarian thai restaurant (with a tantalizing menu that deserves more attention from me) a friend rushed in who had just returned from the polling station where she had been helping with the count. More than 50% of the 11th Arrondissement had voted Sego. Apart from the three guys I met at party on the eve of the election – the first Sego ‘militants’ I had encountered in a social context – I am sure that plenty of those votes were cast with gritted teeth.
And so onto the second round… Which way will centrist bronze medallist Bayrou’s 18% share of the vote go? Will enough transfer to the Sego camp for her to pull through? One thing is for sure: any shame at voting Sego – the tactical vote to some – has past with the first round. I am sure that those in the quartier that gritted their teeth in the first round can unclench their jaws in the second. There is no-longer a choice to make, and in anycase they won’t be voting for Ségolène, they will be not voting for Sarko…
Filed under: Life in Paris
It is possible that in my previous post I may have shown some sympathy toward pigeonkind. Well, all that is over with, as this afternoon, one of their number disposed of their digestive load on my head (unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on which way you look at it, I wasn’t wearing my hat). I hope they all get bird flu.
Filed under: Life in Paris
I noticed this dead pigeon at the bottom of the Rue de Faubourg St Denis. It was surrounded by several other pigeons who were just staring at it. Then, one by one, they all tried, albeit unsuccesfully, to fly off with their dead friend in their clutches. This seen went on for about five minutes, until birdfood again seemed more interesting than mourning. I wish I had started filming earlier
It’s not just about the trains. It’s about the track, the gentle curves, the tunnels, the soaring bridges…
click this link to fly the route of the TGV Est Européen from Paris to Strabourg in 5 minutes, stopping at all the major bridges along the way, naturally…
Choose life, choose reducing your carbon footprint, choose highspeed train travel instead of flying
Thank you SNCF, for making trainspotting cool, at least for a day. Yesterday, a especially modified train with bigger wheels and go-faster stripes set a new train speed record of 578 kmph. The only thing that is faster on rails is the Maglev train, which doesn’t even touch the rails, and at that, only goes a few kilometres per hour faster.
It is fair to ask whether this record attempt was worth the 30 million Euro price tag. Travelling along France’s more minor train routes, there the decay and tattiness to be seen that is indicative of the large sums of money that have been diverted into the TGV programme. That said, France’s highspeed network is a great asset: where there are highspeed lines, flying simply takes longer. The development of the highspeed network has also pumped large sums of money into structures research, especially in the domain of bridge design. This record is in part another stage of that research process. The data recorded from sensors on the trains, tracks and bridges will help improve the understanding of these components under the intense vibrations that a train travelling at these sorts of speed can generate.
There is no doubt however that a significant reason for spending so much money on this attempt is the hard sell. France wants to export highspeed technology to South Korea and even to the United States. It is just possible that a train that travels at over 300mph is enough to make even the US, where internal flights rule the day, sit up and take notice.
Check out this trainspottingtastic coverage from France2:
