Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Timber cladding decision
I got the go ahead today for timber cladding following a meeting with building control and discussions on the fire regs. Above are the calculatiosn based on "the enclosing rectangle method". The excel calculation is the interpolation of the size of the rectangle and published tables.
phew!
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Monday, December 03, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Rafael Moneo:
Reduction is always risky, but [Alvaro] Siza's observations [on his working process] could be simplified in this manner:
"place: origin of all architecture."
"distance: provided by the fact that it's others who build."
"discussion: pay attention to those who will be using the building."
"contingency: the solutions to the specific problems of each job are to be found in the conflicts that accompany the reality of the context of the work."
"uncertainty: thanks to the vagueness of the goal being pursued at the start of the job. The reaction is not resignation. On the contrary, that all well-done jobs end in surprise is a source of satisfaction."
"mediation: architecture as something that calls for group work, accepting one's limitations (constructive, functional, legal, etc.), sacrificing direct personal expression."
"nonsatisfaction: every architectural work is, in the eyes of its architect, unfinished; the architect necessarily feels that his solution failed to resolve all the conflicts inherent in the surrounding reality."
"evidence: architecture as the opportunity to test the uniqueness of things, the uniqueness that in their evidence allows us to discern their very essence."
from daily dose of arcitecture from in turn Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects (2004)
Reduction is always risky, but [Alvaro] Siza's observations [on his working process] could be simplified in this manner:
"place: origin of all architecture."
"distance: provided by the fact that it's others who build."
"discussion: pay attention to those who will be using the building."
"contingency: the solutions to the specific problems of each job are to be found in the conflicts that accompany the reality of the context of the work."
"uncertainty: thanks to the vagueness of the goal being pursued at the start of the job. The reaction is not resignation. On the contrary, that all well-done jobs end in surprise is a source of satisfaction."
"mediation: architecture as something that calls for group work, accepting one's limitations (constructive, functional, legal, etc.), sacrificing direct personal expression."
"nonsatisfaction: every architectural work is, in the eyes of its architect, unfinished; the architect necessarily feels that his solution failed to resolve all the conflicts inherent in the surrounding reality."
"evidence: architecture as the opportunity to test the uniqueness of things, the uniqueness that in their evidence allows us to discern their very essence."
from daily dose of arcitecture from in turn Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects (2004)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Minimum space standards
Minimum space standards made an unscheduled return to the housing sector last week when regeneration agency English Partnerships unveiled a set of minimum requirements that go beyond the old Parker Morris standards abandoned 40 years ago. The new standards apply to all EP schemes from 1 November 2007, the agency confirmed this week.
The agency’s requirement for minimum internal floor areas (MIFA), calculated in line with the RICS Gross Internal Floor Area, are:
• 1 Bed / 2 person dwellings – 51 m2
• 2 Bed / 3 person dwellings – 66 m2
• 2 Bed / 4 person dwellings – 77 m2
• 3 Bed / 5 person dwellings – 93 m2
• 4 Bed / 6 person dwellings – 106 m2
The agency’s requirement for minimum internal floor areas (MIFA), calculated in line with the RICS Gross Internal Floor Area, are:
• 1 Bed / 2 person dwellings – 51 m2
• 2 Bed / 3 person dwellings – 66 m2
• 2 Bed / 4 person dwellings – 77 m2
• 3 Bed / 5 person dwellings – 93 m2
• 4 Bed / 6 person dwellings – 106 m2
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Colour and what not to do
I found the colour that I was thinking of (charcoal blue) for my house windows on an old church and also an example fo what not to do - white windows eek!
Monday, October 08, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
"bold simplicity threaded by an odd streak of vanity"
Quote about Scottish Architecture:
source
Ranald McInnes
Rubblemania: Ethic and Aesthetic in Scottish Architecture
source
Ranald McInnes
Rubblemania: Ethic and Aesthetic in Scottish Architecture
Monday, September 03, 2007
ARCHITECTURE BRIEF
The man who fell to earth
A month after he died, police have finally managed to piece together the skeletal details of Mohammed Ayaz's long journey from a remote village in north west Pakistan to his final, sorry end in the car park of a DIY superstore in Richmond, west London.
Special report: refugees in Britain
* Esther Addley and Rory McCarthy
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday July 18 2001
* Article history
The police didn't know how long the body had been there, but it was clear the man was dead. Tucked under a tree, just inside the railings of Homebase carpark, the prone figure was spotted by one of the store's staff as she arrived just before 7am. She assumed he was a drunk who had tumbled over the railings and fallen asleep while staggering home along Manor Road. It was only as she edged over for a closer look that she noticed that his limbs were grotesquely misshapen, and the pool of lumpy liquid in which he was lying was not vomit, but the man's spilt brains.
The area was hastily screened off and police launched an immediate murder investigation. But it soon emerged that a witness had seen the dead man a few minutes before his body was found. A workman at nearby Heathrow airport had glanced upwards to see him plummeting from the sky like a stone, his black jeans and T-shirt picked out against the washed blue early morning sky.
A month after he died, police have finally managed to piece together the skeletal details of Mohammed Ayaz's long journey from a remote village in north west Pakistan to his final, sorry end in the car park of a DIY superstore in Richmond, west London. It is a story of breathtaking courage fired by a fierce hope that a decent life might lie in a distant country where he knew no one. It seems all the more tragic that this heroic odyssey should have ended in desperate bathos on a sunny Thursday morning, in the sort of quiet, affluent suburb in which the young man probably hoped he would one day raise a family.
At Bahrain airport the night before, at about 1am local time, the 21-year-old Ayaz somehow broke through a security cordon and sprinted through the dark towards a British Airways Boeing 777 that was preparing for takeoff. As the ground crew backed away and the enormous aircraft dragged itself round in an arc towards the runway, he ran under the wings and hauled himself into the cavernous opening above the wheels.
At takeoff, a number of passengers noticed that the man in black had not emerged from under the plane. Local Bahrain news reports claimed that by the time it was lumbering into the air, the captain had been told there might be a stowaway. But for some reason, perhaps because the sighting was unconfirmed, or because schedules were tight, or because runway security was not his responsibility, he did not turn back. This was put to BA and its response was that a captain would never take off if he believed security had been breached. Tim Goodyear, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association in Geneva, describes the apparent decision to proceed with the flight as "somewhat unusual". "On the other hand, one cannot say that any captain should have behaved in a certain way." Hindsight, he says, is a terrible thing.
Ayaz's family have had little time to grieve. They have spent the past week in the fields harvesting this year's onion crop. The harvest is good; mountains of red onions are piled by the roadside, but market prices are bad again. They make barely one pence a kilo. Since Ayaz's death the family of five brothers and four sisters face a mountain of debt.
The small village of Dadahara sits in the broad, green valley of the Swat river in northern Pakistan, close to the Afghan border. The Queen visited in the 60s to see the beautiful, once-forested mountains. But there is little work now, little opportunity for education and only one telephone between 3,000 villagers.
Ayaz, a keen cricketer and footballer, left school at 16 and went to work in the family's fields, farming wheat, barley, corn and onions. "He always spoke about going to work in America or England. But they don't give visas to poor people like us," says his brother, Gul Bihar, 26.
Seven months ago, Ayaz finally decided to join the thousands of young Pakistanis who travel to the Gulf states every year to work in construction, hoping to save enough money to send home to their families. He found an agent who promised him work as a labourer in Dubai. It would cost 120,000 rupees (£1,300) to arrange the flight, the visa and, the heaviest cost, to meet the agent's exorbitant fees. The family borrowed heavily from their relatives and Ayaz, who spoke little Arabic, flew out to Dubai with a promise of a salary of 400 dirhams (£77) a month. It was more than many earn in Pakistan but even if he saved most of his salary it would still take at least two years just to pay back his relatives.
It soon became clear it would take Ayaz a lot longer to earn back his money. His employer in Dubai kept his passport and paid him just 100 dirhams (£19) a month, barely enough to buy food. "He was a very strong man, very brave and very good at working. He just wanted to earn money for the family so his brothers and sisters could be educated and have a better life," says Gul Bihar. "He phoned us a few weeks before he died. He was very upset. He said: 'I've been here for six months but I haven't been able to send you any money because I haven't been paid. What should I do?'"
Days later, without telling his family, he crossed to Bahrain and climbed on board the flight to London. Getting into the wheelbay of a Boeing 777 is not easy. It involves climbing 14ft up one of the aircraft's 12 enormous wheels, then finding somewhere to crouch or cling as the plane makes its way to the end of the runway and starts its deafening engines. Ayaz had to contort himself around the huge pieces of articulated steel while the Tarmac slipped by only feet beneath, the engine accelerating to 180mph. But it was probably only when the wheels left the ground and began to retract into the bay that he realised how much trouble he was in. "There certainly used to be a belief that there was a secret hatch from the wheelbay into the cargo bay, and then into the passenger cabin, as if it were a castle with a dungeon and a series of secret passageways," says Goodyear.
In fact, the undercarriage compartment has no oxygen, no heating and no pressure, and there is certainly no way out. By about 10 minutes into the ascent, the temperature in the wheelbay would have been freezing. At 18,000ft, minutes later, while passengers only a few feet away were being served gin and tonic and settling down to watch in-flight movies, Ayaz would have begun to hallucinate from lack of oxygen. At 30,000ft the temperature is minus 56 degrees. Even if the young man managed to escape being crushed by the retracting wheel mechanism, he was as good as dead from the moment his feet left the runway.
"He didn't have a chance," says Paul Jackson, editor of the specialist magazine Jane's All the World's Aircraft. "At that temperature you're a block of ice - there's no way you're going to get away with it, unless the plane is forced for some reason to fly at an unusually low altitude."
By the time the plane reached British airspace, he was almost certainly long dead. Shortly after 6am, somewhere between 12 and 20 miles from Heathrow, the plane locked on to its approach path and began to descend over Barnes in south west London. Between 2,000 and 3,000ft, the captain opened the undercarriage and lowered the wheels; the young man was tipped out into the early morning sky.
The moment Ayaz's body struck the Tarmac in the car park at the Richmond branch of Homebase, he became the problem of Detective Chief Inspector Sue Hill. She had a distressed supermarket worker and the badly disfigured body of a "suntanned man, of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance", but not much else to go on. The man was carrying a book with a few phone numbers in it, which suggested he was Pakistani, but no identification. "It was harrowing," says Hill. "I sat in the Homebase car park and thought, this is someone's son. What a bloody awful way to go."
What struck Hill and her team immediately was how lucky they had been. It is difficult, in fact, to imagine how a body slamming into the ground could have contrived to avoid the B353 only feet away, the railway line at the end of the car park beside which is a primary school, or the tightly packed red-brick houses of Manor Grove just across the road. The police have cause to worry. Across the road from Homebase, a few yards to the left, is an enormous Sainsbury's supermarket, completed a year ago on the site of a derelict gasworks. It was here, in October 1996, that 19-year-old Vijay Saini's own journey ended. He had stowed away in a jet from Delhi in the same way as Ayaz did, and fell out at almost exactly the same spot. His body lay undiscovered for three days. In August 1998 a couple drinking in the nearby Marlborough pub saw another body tumble from a plane, and land on what they thought was the building site of the new Sainsbury's. Despite a widespread police search, that body was never found, and police think it may have landed in a reservoir. There were reports of a fourth body being discovered while the Sainsbury's complex was being built.
"The undercarriage is always lowered at the same point, that is why they are falling at the same place," says John Stewart, of the airport noise pollution lobby group Hacan Clear Skies. "But it's an almost uncanny coincidence - these people fly right across the world in this way from different places, and they all end up in a car park in Richmond. If there are any more bodies to fall, that's where they will fall."
Only one man is known to have survived such a journey. Vijay Saini's brother, Pardeep, was found at Heathrow in a disorientated state shortly after a flight from Delhi landed - he was thought to have entered a state of suspended animation in the freezing temperatures.
It took Interpol, Pakistani community workers in the UK and a number of fortuitous coincidences to track down Ayaz's parents. A committee member from the Pakistan Centre, a community organisation in Newcastle, happened to be holidaying in the Swat area, and came across a small village, the talk of which was the young man's death; he went to Dadahara. "All the conversations that I had with his father, he was trying to plead for the body to be sent back," says Shabbir Ahmed Kataria, who works at the centre. Kataria organised a collection to send the body home, with anything left over to go to the family.
On July 5, three weeks after Ayaz died, his body began the final leg of his journey. The coffin was taken to Heathrow, and loaded into the hold of another British Airways plane, this time bound for Islamabad. Ayaz's father, Gul Diar, is a deeply religious man who has struggled to rationalise the death of his son. His wife suffered a minor heart attack after hearing the news and is in hospital recovering.
"Allah gives and Allah takes away. He was meant to die at this time," said the old man, wearing a cotton prayer cap and stroking his long white beard. He greets guests and then walks out to the graveyard at the edge of his land. His son was buried here two weeks ago under a large mound of brown earth ringed by stones and covered in a dirty plastic sheet. Two large, plain slabs of slate stand up out of the top of the unmarked grave. "My son was as strong as four men but he died in search of bread," his father says.
LINK
A month after he died, police have finally managed to piece together the skeletal details of Mohammed Ayaz's long journey from a remote village in north west Pakistan to his final, sorry end in the car park of a DIY superstore in Richmond, west London.
Special report: refugees in Britain
* Esther Addley and Rory McCarthy
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday July 18 2001
* Article history
The police didn't know how long the body had been there, but it was clear the man was dead. Tucked under a tree, just inside the railings of Homebase carpark, the prone figure was spotted by one of the store's staff as she arrived just before 7am. She assumed he was a drunk who had tumbled over the railings and fallen asleep while staggering home along Manor Road. It was only as she edged over for a closer look that she noticed that his limbs were grotesquely misshapen, and the pool of lumpy liquid in which he was lying was not vomit, but the man's spilt brains.
The area was hastily screened off and police launched an immediate murder investigation. But it soon emerged that a witness had seen the dead man a few minutes before his body was found. A workman at nearby Heathrow airport had glanced upwards to see him plummeting from the sky like a stone, his black jeans and T-shirt picked out against the washed blue early morning sky.
A month after he died, police have finally managed to piece together the skeletal details of Mohammed Ayaz's long journey from a remote village in north west Pakistan to his final, sorry end in the car park of a DIY superstore in Richmond, west London. It is a story of breathtaking courage fired by a fierce hope that a decent life might lie in a distant country where he knew no one. It seems all the more tragic that this heroic odyssey should have ended in desperate bathos on a sunny Thursday morning, in the sort of quiet, affluent suburb in which the young man probably hoped he would one day raise a family.
At Bahrain airport the night before, at about 1am local time, the 21-year-old Ayaz somehow broke through a security cordon and sprinted through the dark towards a British Airways Boeing 777 that was preparing for takeoff. As the ground crew backed away and the enormous aircraft dragged itself round in an arc towards the runway, he ran under the wings and hauled himself into the cavernous opening above the wheels.
At takeoff, a number of passengers noticed that the man in black had not emerged from under the plane. Local Bahrain news reports claimed that by the time it was lumbering into the air, the captain had been told there might be a stowaway. But for some reason, perhaps because the sighting was unconfirmed, or because schedules were tight, or because runway security was not his responsibility, he did not turn back. This was put to BA and its response was that a captain would never take off if he believed security had been breached. Tim Goodyear, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association in Geneva, describes the apparent decision to proceed with the flight as "somewhat unusual". "On the other hand, one cannot say that any captain should have behaved in a certain way." Hindsight, he says, is a terrible thing.
Ayaz's family have had little time to grieve. They have spent the past week in the fields harvesting this year's onion crop. The harvest is good; mountains of red onions are piled by the roadside, but market prices are bad again. They make barely one pence a kilo. Since Ayaz's death the family of five brothers and four sisters face a mountain of debt.
The small village of Dadahara sits in the broad, green valley of the Swat river in northern Pakistan, close to the Afghan border. The Queen visited in the 60s to see the beautiful, once-forested mountains. But there is little work now, little opportunity for education and only one telephone between 3,000 villagers.
Ayaz, a keen cricketer and footballer, left school at 16 and went to work in the family's fields, farming wheat, barley, corn and onions. "He always spoke about going to work in America or England. But they don't give visas to poor people like us," says his brother, Gul Bihar, 26.
Seven months ago, Ayaz finally decided to join the thousands of young Pakistanis who travel to the Gulf states every year to work in construction, hoping to save enough money to send home to their families. He found an agent who promised him work as a labourer in Dubai. It would cost 120,000 rupees (£1,300) to arrange the flight, the visa and, the heaviest cost, to meet the agent's exorbitant fees. The family borrowed heavily from their relatives and Ayaz, who spoke little Arabic, flew out to Dubai with a promise of a salary of 400 dirhams (£77) a month. It was more than many earn in Pakistan but even if he saved most of his salary it would still take at least two years just to pay back his relatives.
It soon became clear it would take Ayaz a lot longer to earn back his money. His employer in Dubai kept his passport and paid him just 100 dirhams (£19) a month, barely enough to buy food. "He was a very strong man, very brave and very good at working. He just wanted to earn money for the family so his brothers and sisters could be educated and have a better life," says Gul Bihar. "He phoned us a few weeks before he died. He was very upset. He said: 'I've been here for six months but I haven't been able to send you any money because I haven't been paid. What should I do?'"
Days later, without telling his family, he crossed to Bahrain and climbed on board the flight to London. Getting into the wheelbay of a Boeing 777 is not easy. It involves climbing 14ft up one of the aircraft's 12 enormous wheels, then finding somewhere to crouch or cling as the plane makes its way to the end of the runway and starts its deafening engines. Ayaz had to contort himself around the huge pieces of articulated steel while the Tarmac slipped by only feet beneath, the engine accelerating to 180mph. But it was probably only when the wheels left the ground and began to retract into the bay that he realised how much trouble he was in. "There certainly used to be a belief that there was a secret hatch from the wheelbay into the cargo bay, and then into the passenger cabin, as if it were a castle with a dungeon and a series of secret passageways," says Goodyear.
In fact, the undercarriage compartment has no oxygen, no heating and no pressure, and there is certainly no way out. By about 10 minutes into the ascent, the temperature in the wheelbay would have been freezing. At 18,000ft, minutes later, while passengers only a few feet away were being served gin and tonic and settling down to watch in-flight movies, Ayaz would have begun to hallucinate from lack of oxygen. At 30,000ft the temperature is minus 56 degrees. Even if the young man managed to escape being crushed by the retracting wheel mechanism, he was as good as dead from the moment his feet left the runway.
"He didn't have a chance," says Paul Jackson, editor of the specialist magazine Jane's All the World's Aircraft. "At that temperature you're a block of ice - there's no way you're going to get away with it, unless the plane is forced for some reason to fly at an unusually low altitude."
By the time the plane reached British airspace, he was almost certainly long dead. Shortly after 6am, somewhere between 12 and 20 miles from Heathrow, the plane locked on to its approach path and began to descend over Barnes in south west London. Between 2,000 and 3,000ft, the captain opened the undercarriage and lowered the wheels; the young man was tipped out into the early morning sky.
The moment Ayaz's body struck the Tarmac in the car park at the Richmond branch of Homebase, he became the problem of Detective Chief Inspector Sue Hill. She had a distressed supermarket worker and the badly disfigured body of a "suntanned man, of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance", but not much else to go on. The man was carrying a book with a few phone numbers in it, which suggested he was Pakistani, but no identification. "It was harrowing," says Hill. "I sat in the Homebase car park and thought, this is someone's son. What a bloody awful way to go."
What struck Hill and her team immediately was how lucky they had been. It is difficult, in fact, to imagine how a body slamming into the ground could have contrived to avoid the B353 only feet away, the railway line at the end of the car park beside which is a primary school, or the tightly packed red-brick houses of Manor Grove just across the road. The police have cause to worry. Across the road from Homebase, a few yards to the left, is an enormous Sainsbury's supermarket, completed a year ago on the site of a derelict gasworks. It was here, in October 1996, that 19-year-old Vijay Saini's own journey ended. He had stowed away in a jet from Delhi in the same way as Ayaz did, and fell out at almost exactly the same spot. His body lay undiscovered for three days. In August 1998 a couple drinking in the nearby Marlborough pub saw another body tumble from a plane, and land on what they thought was the building site of the new Sainsbury's. Despite a widespread police search, that body was never found, and police think it may have landed in a reservoir. There were reports of a fourth body being discovered while the Sainsbury's complex was being built.
"The undercarriage is always lowered at the same point, that is why they are falling at the same place," says John Stewart, of the airport noise pollution lobby group Hacan Clear Skies. "But it's an almost uncanny coincidence - these people fly right across the world in this way from different places, and they all end up in a car park in Richmond. If there are any more bodies to fall, that's where they will fall."
Only one man is known to have survived such a journey. Vijay Saini's brother, Pardeep, was found at Heathrow in a disorientated state shortly after a flight from Delhi landed - he was thought to have entered a state of suspended animation in the freezing temperatures.
It took Interpol, Pakistani community workers in the UK and a number of fortuitous coincidences to track down Ayaz's parents. A committee member from the Pakistan Centre, a community organisation in Newcastle, happened to be holidaying in the Swat area, and came across a small village, the talk of which was the young man's death; he went to Dadahara. "All the conversations that I had with his father, he was trying to plead for the body to be sent back," says Shabbir Ahmed Kataria, who works at the centre. Kataria organised a collection to send the body home, with anything left over to go to the family.
On July 5, three weeks after Ayaz died, his body began the final leg of his journey. The coffin was taken to Heathrow, and loaded into the hold of another British Airways plane, this time bound for Islamabad. Ayaz's father, Gul Diar, is a deeply religious man who has struggled to rationalise the death of his son. His wife suffered a minor heart attack after hearing the news and is in hospital recovering.
"Allah gives and Allah takes away. He was meant to die at this time," said the old man, wearing a cotton prayer cap and stroking his long white beard. He greets guests and then walks out to the graveyard at the edge of his land. His son was buried here two weeks ago under a large mound of brown earth ringed by stones and covered in a dirty plastic sheet. Two large, plain slabs of slate stand up out of the top of the unmarked grave. "My son was as strong as four men but he died in search of bread," his father says.
LINK
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
RE-UZE
"Don't Dump That is all about helping preserve the environment by keeping perfectly useful items out of landfill sites; with new local forums opening all around the United Kingdom it's getting easier and easier."
www.reuze.co.uk
www.reuze.co.uk
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Lorn Macneal
This extension by Lorn MacNeal is interesting - made me reconsider timber for the overhang in my own house...
and the view from the interior of the fixed window pane...
and the view from the interior of the fixed window pane...
Friday, June 08, 2007
Planning Advice Note PAN76: new residential streets
Successful places
A sense of place can be created in many ways. A strong influence is through the inter-relationship of buildings, the spaces around them and their wider context. Layouts, street patterns and specific dimensions are key elements in this relationship and need careful consideration alongside the design of the buildings. Streets also make up a significant proportion of the public realm in built up areas. It is therefore essential that they are well designed and make a positive contribution to the overall quality of the environment. Designing Places identifies 6 qualities which make a successful place. These qualities should be applied to all new streets.
Distinctive
New street designs should respond to local context to create places that are distinctive. We need to avoid designing new places that do not fit well with their surroundings.
Safe and pleasant
New residential streets should be designed with the aim of creating safe and attractive places. One way of achieving this is through controlling vehicle speeds. Creative layouts should be used to minimise vehicle speeds naturally. This will lead to street environments which are safer for pedestrians and drivers, and reduce the risk of road accidents. Road layouts should also pay attention to natural surveillance from buildings and passing traffic. This can help to ensure the safety of pedestrians. The best way to achieve this is through the comprehensive design of streets, buildings and public spaces.
Easy to get to, and get around
New streets should be easy to move around by all modes of travel. They should connect well with existing streets, walking and cycling networks, and allow for links into future areas of development.
The design of a successful place will begin with understanding how new housing can be connected to both the movement and settlement patterns of an area
Welcoming
Street layouts and design details should encourage positive interaction between neighbours. The street is not just about the footpath and the carriageway, but the proximity of the footpath, garden and front door. The street should allow for people to meet, chat and enjoy. Together, this can create a strong sense of community, which can foster a sense of pride and welcome.
Adaptable
Experience shows that street networks are enduring features of our towns and cities. It is therefore important to plan networks that are easy to move around and allow for future adaptation.
Resource efficient
New streets should use materials that are durable and easy to maintain. Solutions such as recycled materials and porous pavements, as part of a sustainable drainage system ( SuDS) are encouraged. Energy efficient layouts should also be considered. For example, they can be orientated to maximise shelter and take advantage of natural sunlight.
The six images in the order they are shown (presumably relating to the six points)
source
A sense of place can be created in many ways. A strong influence is through the inter-relationship of buildings, the spaces around them and their wider context. Layouts, street patterns and specific dimensions are key elements in this relationship and need careful consideration alongside the design of the buildings. Streets also make up a significant proportion of the public realm in built up areas. It is therefore essential that they are well designed and make a positive contribution to the overall quality of the environment. Designing Places identifies 6 qualities which make a successful place. These qualities should be applied to all new streets.
Distinctive
New street designs should respond to local context to create places that are distinctive. We need to avoid designing new places that do not fit well with their surroundings.
Safe and pleasant
New residential streets should be designed with the aim of creating safe and attractive places. One way of achieving this is through controlling vehicle speeds. Creative layouts should be used to minimise vehicle speeds naturally. This will lead to street environments which are safer for pedestrians and drivers, and reduce the risk of road accidents. Road layouts should also pay attention to natural surveillance from buildings and passing traffic. This can help to ensure the safety of pedestrians. The best way to achieve this is through the comprehensive design of streets, buildings and public spaces.
Easy to get to, and get around
New streets should be easy to move around by all modes of travel. They should connect well with existing streets, walking and cycling networks, and allow for links into future areas of development.
The design of a successful place will begin with understanding how new housing can be connected to both the movement and settlement patterns of an area
Welcoming
Street layouts and design details should encourage positive interaction between neighbours. The street is not just about the footpath and the carriageway, but the proximity of the footpath, garden and front door. The street should allow for people to meet, chat and enjoy. Together, this can create a strong sense of community, which can foster a sense of pride and welcome.
Adaptable
Experience shows that street networks are enduring features of our towns and cities. It is therefore important to plan networks that are easy to move around and allow for future adaptation.
Resource efficient
New streets should use materials that are durable and easy to maintain. Solutions such as recycled materials and porous pavements, as part of a sustainable drainage system ( SuDS) are encouraged. Energy efficient layouts should also be considered. For example, they can be orientated to maximise shelter and take advantage of natural sunlight.
The six images in the order they are shown (presumably relating to the six points)
source
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Ian Gilzean
Chief architect of the Scottish Execuitive's Architecture Policy Unit interviewed on a blog
http://www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Ian+Gilzean
with a link to the Building Our legacy pdf (2.9MB).
http://www.scottisharchitecture.com/article/view/Ian+Gilzean
with a link to the Building Our legacy pdf (2.9MB).
Friday, May 25, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Scottish Slate
Full article (without the images) from here
Reopening the Foudland Slate Quarries
Date: 28 April 07
Author: Mark Chalmers
For many Scots, the Glens of Foudland are familiar only through winter road reports: over this wild stretch of country runs the snowbound A96 road, which links Aberdeen with Inverness. Some will look up to the north-facing slopes of the Hill of Foudland and notice the overgrown rock faces. Few will realise that these scars are man-made: spoil heaps created by the once-extensive quarries which supplied the North-east with roofing slate. Today, these slopes are being eyed with renewed interest.
From the first workings on Easdale in the 1550’s, until last two slate quarries at Ballachulish closed in 1955, quarries spread along the Highland Line supplied both domestic demand and the export trade. These ranged from the "Slate Islands" of Easdale, Seil, Luing and Belnahua; at Ballachulish itself; the "Slate Belt" running from Luss and Aberfoyle to Birnam and Craiglea; also in the "Slate Hills" above the Glens of Foudland. Now, whenever roof repairs are required to old buildings, matching slate has to be robbed from another structure; this path leads in ever-decreasing circles, since fewer and fewer old buildings are demolished, yet more and more need maintenance. Historic Scotland, the guardian of listed buildings, realised that this Catch-22 situation wasn't sustainable indefinitely, and instigated a search for sources of fresh slate.
Hill of Foudland in the snow
The obvious first step was to look at the quarries which were abandoned last century. So far, the Khartoum quarry at Ballachulish, and the Hill of Foudland quarries have been examined and blocks of slate removed for analysis at the University of Paisley. Although everyone believes they know the colour of "slate", its full spectrum speaks of subtly different origins: Ballachulish slate is a deep blue-black; Snowdonian is dark purple; Westmorland slate is a shade of sea green; Easdale is gunmetal grey; Birnam slate is almost violet in colour… and Foudland slate is midnight blue with a crystalline sheen.
The Foudland quarries were opened up in 1754– local knowledge having unearthed a belt of slate running along the west border of Aberdeenshire from Auchterless towards the Tap o' Noth near Gartly. At their peak a century later, the quarries produced almost one million hand-split slates per year– which is an amazing total given the harsh conditions on the hill. The quarriers sat on the ground whilst cleaving the slate: but they did at least have small shelters– scathies– with slate walls and timber roofs to hold off the worst of the weather. At up to 1500 feet above sea level, and facing north, the quarries shut down each year with the onset of winter.
The slate industry here was never heavily mechanised and although quarrymen from Wales were drafted in to train the local workforce, Scottish quarriers were actually more efficient, recovering twice the amount of quarried material as usable slates. Due to its often poorly-defined cleavage, Scottish slate is not capable of being split into the smooth, regular slates which come from abroad: blocks were cut to whatever size could be produced.
Courtesy of Scottish Stone Liaison Group
Image courtesy of Scottish Stone Liaison Group
Foudland quarries supplied slate for buildings within a 50 mile radius– including Balmoral Castle– since this was the practical limit of horse-and-cart haulage. Paradoxically, the coming of the Great North of Scotland Railway from Aberdeen to Huntly should have allowed Foudland slate to be distributed further afield: in fact, it enabled cheaper slate to be imported. The turn of the 20th century saw a slump in the building industry– this recurs with monotonous regularity every few years– and the Foudland slate quarries closed 100 years ago, as depressed demand and competition robbed them of their market.
The early conclusion of the recent foray into the Foudlands is that major reserves of workable slate are certainly available, but the manner of working these old quarries has led to a collapse of their working faces. Quarrying started too high up the hill, and only the top of the strata were worked, all the time dumping spoil immediately below. Since the quarries at Foudland cover three square kilometres of hillside, we have literally only scratched the surface. In the largest of the old workings, the Gutter Quarry, all the faces have suffered erosion and weathering: the freeze-thaw action of a century of winters has created fantastic stratified patterns, and the waste tips are overgrown with heather. Another issue is that there is no water supply close to the most-promising of the old quarries– and water is essential for lubrication during drilling and cutting: ironically, water is in surfeit further down the hill, and dams were built to harness it to drive a mill which cut and polished the slate.
Gutter Quarry, Hill of Foudland
So, how to resolve Catch-22? A beginning may be "snatch" mining where useful slate is recovered from the waste tips– at Foudland, it is known that after the quarries closed officially, individual quarrymen continued to win slate at least until the Great War. Traxcavators would scrape back the overburden to expose a workable face– in the past, Foudland slate was quarried using a combination of timber wedges and iron pinches to lever blocks free, whereas black powder was used for blasting at Easdale and Ballachulish, to great destructive effect. Today, the advent of diamond wire saws and compressed air for drilling would reduce wastage.
There’s a strong economic case for re-opening, since the repair and refurbishment sector has high margins, and a Scottish slate producer would have a captive market. In addition, “architectural slate” for flooring and cladding are profitable areas, and a use has finally been found for the spoil: crushers can turn it into slate chips for hard landscaping. We should take pride in using materials whose subtle colour and tone is sympathetic to their context; which sustain our native industries– but most of all, which create buildings that look like they belong. The rebirth of Scottish slate may start here, in the lunar bleakness of Foudland.
Reopening the Foudland Slate Quarries
Date: 28 April 07
Author: Mark Chalmers
For many Scots, the Glens of Foudland are familiar only through winter road reports: over this wild stretch of country runs the snowbound A96 road, which links Aberdeen with Inverness. Some will look up to the north-facing slopes of the Hill of Foudland and notice the overgrown rock faces. Few will realise that these scars are man-made: spoil heaps created by the once-extensive quarries which supplied the North-east with roofing slate. Today, these slopes are being eyed with renewed interest.
From the first workings on Easdale in the 1550’s, until last two slate quarries at Ballachulish closed in 1955, quarries spread along the Highland Line supplied both domestic demand and the export trade. These ranged from the "Slate Islands" of Easdale, Seil, Luing and Belnahua; at Ballachulish itself; the "Slate Belt" running from Luss and Aberfoyle to Birnam and Craiglea; also in the "Slate Hills" above the Glens of Foudland. Now, whenever roof repairs are required to old buildings, matching slate has to be robbed from another structure; this path leads in ever-decreasing circles, since fewer and fewer old buildings are demolished, yet more and more need maintenance. Historic Scotland, the guardian of listed buildings, realised that this Catch-22 situation wasn't sustainable indefinitely, and instigated a search for sources of fresh slate.
Hill of Foudland in the snow
The obvious first step was to look at the quarries which were abandoned last century. So far, the Khartoum quarry at Ballachulish, and the Hill of Foudland quarries have been examined and blocks of slate removed for analysis at the University of Paisley. Although everyone believes they know the colour of "slate", its full spectrum speaks of subtly different origins: Ballachulish slate is a deep blue-black; Snowdonian is dark purple; Westmorland slate is a shade of sea green; Easdale is gunmetal grey; Birnam slate is almost violet in colour… and Foudland slate is midnight blue with a crystalline sheen.
The Foudland quarries were opened up in 1754– local knowledge having unearthed a belt of slate running along the west border of Aberdeenshire from Auchterless towards the Tap o' Noth near Gartly. At their peak a century later, the quarries produced almost one million hand-split slates per year– which is an amazing total given the harsh conditions on the hill. The quarriers sat on the ground whilst cleaving the slate: but they did at least have small shelters– scathies– with slate walls and timber roofs to hold off the worst of the weather. At up to 1500 feet above sea level, and facing north, the quarries shut down each year with the onset of winter.
The slate industry here was never heavily mechanised and although quarrymen from Wales were drafted in to train the local workforce, Scottish quarriers were actually more efficient, recovering twice the amount of quarried material as usable slates. Due to its often poorly-defined cleavage, Scottish slate is not capable of being split into the smooth, regular slates which come from abroad: blocks were cut to whatever size could be produced.
Courtesy of Scottish Stone Liaison Group
Image courtesy of Scottish Stone Liaison Group
Foudland quarries supplied slate for buildings within a 50 mile radius– including Balmoral Castle– since this was the practical limit of horse-and-cart haulage. Paradoxically, the coming of the Great North of Scotland Railway from Aberdeen to Huntly should have allowed Foudland slate to be distributed further afield: in fact, it enabled cheaper slate to be imported. The turn of the 20th century saw a slump in the building industry– this recurs with monotonous regularity every few years– and the Foudland slate quarries closed 100 years ago, as depressed demand and competition robbed them of their market.
The early conclusion of the recent foray into the Foudlands is that major reserves of workable slate are certainly available, but the manner of working these old quarries has led to a collapse of their working faces. Quarrying started too high up the hill, and only the top of the strata were worked, all the time dumping spoil immediately below. Since the quarries at Foudland cover three square kilometres of hillside, we have literally only scratched the surface. In the largest of the old workings, the Gutter Quarry, all the faces have suffered erosion and weathering: the freeze-thaw action of a century of winters has created fantastic stratified patterns, and the waste tips are overgrown with heather. Another issue is that there is no water supply close to the most-promising of the old quarries– and water is essential for lubrication during drilling and cutting: ironically, water is in surfeit further down the hill, and dams were built to harness it to drive a mill which cut and polished the slate.
Gutter Quarry, Hill of Foudland
So, how to resolve Catch-22? A beginning may be "snatch" mining where useful slate is recovered from the waste tips– at Foudland, it is known that after the quarries closed officially, individual quarrymen continued to win slate at least until the Great War. Traxcavators would scrape back the overburden to expose a workable face– in the past, Foudland slate was quarried using a combination of timber wedges and iron pinches to lever blocks free, whereas black powder was used for blasting at Easdale and Ballachulish, to great destructive effect. Today, the advent of diamond wire saws and compressed air for drilling would reduce wastage.
There’s a strong economic case for re-opening, since the repair and refurbishment sector has high margins, and a Scottish slate producer would have a captive market. In addition, “architectural slate” for flooring and cladding are profitable areas, and a use has finally been found for the spoil: crushers can turn it into slate chips for hard landscaping. We should take pride in using materials whose subtle colour and tone is sympathetic to their context; which sustain our native industries– but most of all, which create buildings that look like they belong. The rebirth of Scottish slate may start here, in the lunar bleakness of Foudland.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The Teng house by SCDA architects, Singapore
Very interesting treatment of the ground floor plane (something I have been wighing up for months and still not resolved)
Friday, April 13, 2007
Housing for Varying Needs
is a document produced by Scottish Homes at the request of The Scottish Office. It applies to social housing in Scotland and is available online here
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
copyright
EXPLORING CREATIVE COMMONS: A SKEPTICAL VIEW OF A WORTHY PURSUIT
by Niva Elkin-Koren
(quoted here under "fair use" ha ha)
The notion of property is rather intuitive. When something is owned by someone else, we know we must ask for permission to use it. We normally do not think the same way of stories, images or music. Sometimes we might not even be aware that we were using them in creating our own work. When we use such creative works we usually do not have to cross any physical barriers. The barriers are abstract restrictions imposed by social norms. Social norms are therefore particularly significant with respect to informational works that lack physical boundaries. These norms turn songs and stories into commodities. The commodity metaphor creates an abstract ”fence” around (abstract) informational goods. While we may easily build a fence to keep others off our land, we cannot keep others from playing a musical composition hundreds of miles away. We must convince potential users that they should exercise self-restraint and respect the legal restrictions we placed on the use of our works.
Achieving compliance with copyright laws by the general public therefore relies upon internalizing the commodity metaphor. When creative works are treated simply as commodities, we may assume that the basic property intuitions would apply to them.
Treating creative works as commodities protected by property rights strengthens the perception of informational works as commodities. Once we realize that everything we write, draw, or play could be licensed we may start conceiving our own self-expressions as commodities. Our email correspondence, a picture we took of a newsworthy event, and commentary we posted online are all subject to exclusive rights. They all may be viewed as separate, identifiable pieces which are subject to exclusion. We may think of our writings as economic assets, and view our own expression as chips to be traded, rather than ideas to be shared.
Reliance on property rights may weaken the dialogic virtue of information that is a key to individuals’ participation in the creation of culture. The creation process is a complex social phenomenon with conflicting features. Works of art are autonomous, on the one hand, but communal on the other. Creating works at a specific time and place, and using existing artistic language and skills, are part of our social dialogue and the process of socialization. It reflects a shared artistic language, an artistic canon.
It makes use of existing building blocks and state of the art technologies. When a work is created it becomes part of our cultural language. Communicating works contribute to their internalization by integrating them into our social code. Creative expression is shaped by the various audiences46 and the different generations of creators.47 For creativity to thrive, creative works must be shared and individuals must be able to freely engage with them, to create new meanings. Those are the dialogic virtues of information. Engaging with creative works does not consume them. Exchanging ideas is not a transaction. The conceptual framework of property does not capture this complexity. Property rules do not merely define rights and duties. They further carry a normative message, announcing which values deserve protection and how. Therefore, reliance on property rights in creative works is likely to reinforce the belief that sharing these works is always prohibited unless authorized. To the extent this normative framework affects our behavior, it may distort our natural practices related to information.
by Niva Elkin-Koren
(quoted here under "fair use" ha ha)
The notion of property is rather intuitive. When something is owned by someone else, we know we must ask for permission to use it. We normally do not think the same way of stories, images or music. Sometimes we might not even be aware that we were using them in creating our own work. When we use such creative works we usually do not have to cross any physical barriers. The barriers are abstract restrictions imposed by social norms. Social norms are therefore particularly significant with respect to informational works that lack physical boundaries. These norms turn songs and stories into commodities. The commodity metaphor creates an abstract ”fence” around (abstract) informational goods. While we may easily build a fence to keep others off our land, we cannot keep others from playing a musical composition hundreds of miles away. We must convince potential users that they should exercise self-restraint and respect the legal restrictions we placed on the use of our works.
Achieving compliance with copyright laws by the general public therefore relies upon internalizing the commodity metaphor. When creative works are treated simply as commodities, we may assume that the basic property intuitions would apply to them.
Treating creative works as commodities protected by property rights strengthens the perception of informational works as commodities. Once we realize that everything we write, draw, or play could be licensed we may start conceiving our own self-expressions as commodities. Our email correspondence, a picture we took of a newsworthy event, and commentary we posted online are all subject to exclusive rights. They all may be viewed as separate, identifiable pieces which are subject to exclusion. We may think of our writings as economic assets, and view our own expression as chips to be traded, rather than ideas to be shared.
Reliance on property rights may weaken the dialogic virtue of information that is a key to individuals’ participation in the creation of culture. The creation process is a complex social phenomenon with conflicting features. Works of art are autonomous, on the one hand, but communal on the other. Creating works at a specific time and place, and using existing artistic language and skills, are part of our social dialogue and the process of socialization. It reflects a shared artistic language, an artistic canon.
It makes use of existing building blocks and state of the art technologies. When a work is created it becomes part of our cultural language. Communicating works contribute to their internalization by integrating them into our social code. Creative expression is shaped by the various audiences46 and the different generations of creators.47 For creativity to thrive, creative works must be shared and individuals must be able to freely engage with them, to create new meanings. Those are the dialogic virtues of information. Engaging with creative works does not consume them. Exchanging ideas is not a transaction. The conceptual framework of property does not capture this complexity. Property rules do not merely define rights and duties. They further carry a normative message, announcing which values deserve protection and how. Therefore, reliance on property rights in creative works is likely to reinforce the belief that sharing these works is always prohibited unless authorized. To the extent this normative framework affects our behavior, it may distort our natural practices related to information.
CDM 2007 Regulations
CDM 2007 replaces the 1994 regulations (1995 addopted) on 6th April 2007. The new regs look much improved in their focus on actually reducing the risks rather than just producing the paper work that says you reduced the risks...
4
The effort devoted to planning and managing health and safety should be in proportion to the risks and complexity associated with the project. When deciding what you need to do to comply with these Regulations, your focus should always be on action necessary to reduce and manage risks. Any paperwork produced should help with communication and risk management. Paperwork which adds little to the management of risk is a waste of effort, and can be a dangerous distraction from the real business of risk reduction and management.
Reading the document, my house is not notifiable as I am a domestic client:
31
Domestic clients have no client duties under CDM2007, which means that there is no legal requirement for appointment of a CDM co-ordinator or principal contractor when such projects reach the notification threshold. Similarly, there is no need to notify HSE where projects for domestic clients reach the notification threshold. However, designers and contractors still have their normal duties as set out in Parts 2 and 4 of the Regulations, and domestic clients will have duties under Part 4 of the Regulations if they control the way in which construction work is carried out (see paragraph 9).
But of course we still have obligations:
7
Part 2 covers general management duties which apply to all construction
projects, including those which are non-notifiable.
9
Part 4 of the Regulations applies to all construction work carried out on construction sites, and covers physical safeguards which need to be provided to prevent danger. Duties to achieve these standards are held by contractors who actually carry out the work, irrespective of whether they are employers or are selfemployed. Duties are also held by those who do not do construction work themselves, but control the way in which the work is done. In each case, the extent of the duty is in proportion to the degree of control which the individual or organisation has over the work in question.
The key issue will be the demolition part, the doc says this:
20
Although there is no requirement for the formal appointment of a CDM coordinator or principal contractor and for a construction phase plan for non notifiable projects, regulations 5 and 6 do require co-operation and co-ordination between all members of the project team. For low risk projects, a low-key approach will be sufficient. In higher risk projects, for example those involving demolition, a more rigorous approach to co-ordination, co-operation and planning will be needed. Guidance given to CDM co-ordinators and principal contractors in this document gives an indication as to what is needed, but any action taken should be in proportion to the risk which the work creates. The architect, lead designer or contractor who is carrying out the bulk of the design work should normally co-ordinate the health and safety aspects of the design work; the builder or main contractor, if there is one, should normally co-ordinate construction work.
21
It is vital that those doing the work understand the risks involved and what to do about them. If the risks are low and the precautions well understood by those carrying out the work, then there will be no need for a written plan. In other simple cases a brief summary that clearly sets out who does what and in what order will be enough. Where the risks are higher, for example where the work involves:
(a) structural alterations;
(b) deep excavations, and those in unstable or contaminated ground;
(c) unusual working methods or safeguards;
(d) ionising radiation or other significant health hazards;
(e) nearby high voltage powerlines;
(f) a risk of falling into water which is, or may become, fast flowing;
(g) diving;
(h) explosives;
(i) heavy or complex lifting operations;
then something closer to the construction phase plan will be needed.
When carrying out demolition, regulation 29 requires those in control of the work to produce a written plan showing how danger will be prevented.
i.e. so long as we appoint a decent demolitions contractor this whould be their remit.
4
The effort devoted to planning and managing health and safety should be in proportion to the risks and complexity associated with the project. When deciding what you need to do to comply with these Regulations, your focus should always be on action necessary to reduce and manage risks. Any paperwork produced should help with communication and risk management. Paperwork which adds little to the management of risk is a waste of effort, and can be a dangerous distraction from the real business of risk reduction and management.
Reading the document, my house is not notifiable as I am a domestic client:
31
Domestic clients have no client duties under CDM2007, which means that there is no legal requirement for appointment of a CDM co-ordinator or principal contractor when such projects reach the notification threshold. Similarly, there is no need to notify HSE where projects for domestic clients reach the notification threshold. However, designers and contractors still have their normal duties as set out in Parts 2 and 4 of the Regulations, and domestic clients will have duties under Part 4 of the Regulations if they control the way in which construction work is carried out (see paragraph 9).
But of course we still have obligations:
7
Part 2 covers general management duties which apply to all construction
projects, including those which are non-notifiable.
9
Part 4 of the Regulations applies to all construction work carried out on construction sites, and covers physical safeguards which need to be provided to prevent danger. Duties to achieve these standards are held by contractors who actually carry out the work, irrespective of whether they are employers or are selfemployed. Duties are also held by those who do not do construction work themselves, but control the way in which the work is done. In each case, the extent of the duty is in proportion to the degree of control which the individual or organisation has over the work in question.
The key issue will be the demolition part, the doc says this:
20
Although there is no requirement for the formal appointment of a CDM coordinator or principal contractor and for a construction phase plan for non notifiable projects, regulations 5 and 6 do require co-operation and co-ordination between all members of the project team. For low risk projects, a low-key approach will be sufficient. In higher risk projects, for example those involving demolition, a more rigorous approach to co-ordination, co-operation and planning will be needed. Guidance given to CDM co-ordinators and principal contractors in this document gives an indication as to what is needed, but any action taken should be in proportion to the risk which the work creates. The architect, lead designer or contractor who is carrying out the bulk of the design work should normally co-ordinate the health and safety aspects of the design work; the builder or main contractor, if there is one, should normally co-ordinate construction work.
21
It is vital that those doing the work understand the risks involved and what to do about them. If the risks are low and the precautions well understood by those carrying out the work, then there will be no need for a written plan. In other simple cases a brief summary that clearly sets out who does what and in what order will be enough. Where the risks are higher, for example where the work involves:
(a) structural alterations;
(b) deep excavations, and those in unstable or contaminated ground;
(c) unusual working methods or safeguards;
(d) ionising radiation or other significant health hazards;
(e) nearby high voltage powerlines;
(f) a risk of falling into water which is, or may become, fast flowing;
(g) diving;
(h) explosives;
(i) heavy or complex lifting operations;
then something closer to the construction phase plan will be needed.
When carrying out demolition, regulation 29 requires those in control of the work to produce a written plan showing how danger will be prevented.
i.e. so long as we appoint a decent demolitions contractor this whould be their remit.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
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