Yesterday attended a very interesting lunch event “RIBA and Hong Kong Business of Design Week 2019”. Speakers included: 1/ Lucy Tilley of Adjaye Associates, who spoke about working internationally and understanding local culture and contexts (only 20% of their work is in the UK and the rest abroad), 2/ Jevan Chowdhury of Wind and Foster …
Behavioural scientist Paul Dolan in his new book Happy Ever After: Escaping the Myth of the Perfect Life by Paul Dolan (out 17 January 2019) challenges the ‘success’ indicators of modern myths as narratives and narrative traps: Myth: expectation to be ambitious, wealthy, successful and well educated, married, monogamous and have kids. These are guidelines …
University Challenge. Five universities have doubled their borrowings in the last academic year. Southampton, UCL, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Imperial (the last being the biggest borrower with GBP470M loans). Traditionally South East Asian and Far Eastern campuses (and more recently Middle Eastern) help fund home campuses. The University of Sheffield has a South East Asian Office …
In case you didn’t realise, fact 1: young architects don’t earn that. Fact 2: The old dudes definitely don’t unless they are already established, secure, boss-types on 30-70k in which case they won’t be applying anyway. If 25% of architects working in the UK are non-UK nationals (me included); and of that 25%, 80% are …
Museum of Architecture is a charity that helps the public engage with architecture and architects. It also supports architects to be more entrepreneurial, collaborative and informed on design for places and people through cultural projects like The Gingerbread City Masterplan – Imagining Cities of the Future. Cities should be inclusive, sustainable, healthy and easy to …
It’s beginning to cost a lot like Christmas. Caveat 1: Add up your receipts. Aim for 10% less than this amount next year. Caveat 2: This “How to Survive Christmas” leaflet makes me smile. I feel fed up in December (expensive, extensive, exhausting, manic, hoodie-wearing, hopeless, cold, grey, no money, no work, no exercise, irritated, fat, unfit). And now …
1/ Play NSSS (not so secret Santa) 2/ Catch up on what’s the plan for next year 3/ Show that you are a team player 4/ Talk about the big themes, architecture, life, dreams. Mundane work conversations should be for everyday use only and may actually kill the big themes 5/ Drink cocktails 🍸 SoHo …
All-you-ever-wanted-to-ask-the-RIBA-but-were-afraid-to are on display in stalls mode. Imagine not having to search for any answers online as they are all physically in front of you. Here I am with the President, Ben Derbyshire: My favourite display involved members’ participation. Members get two stickers according to their category and choose the issues that matter to them …
“Our building methods today must be industrialised.” – Mies van der Rohe (1924). It is now almost a hundred years since the Miesian quote but the building industry has not been modernising quickly, at least not quickly enough, considering the advances of life-changing and revolutionary business technology which have appeared in the last few years …
I serendipitously found myself at the Ideal Home Show this April because technically I was heading to the Great Eat: Eat & Drink Festival which I had tickets for thanks to a friend. Now it is debatable of course which ‘show’ is more enticing and exciting to you depending on the state of your tummy …
