no2self.net
the journal of an architect
Browse: Home / Rob

Rob

Rob

My name is Rob Annable. I'm an architect, a father, a husband, a rock climber, a blogger and wannabe geek. Although not necessarily in that order. I'm a director at Axis Design Architects. We're architects and urban designers in Birmingham, UK. We mostly make housing  and we are leaders in the field of online methods of public consultation. You can also find me at all the usual outlets such as twitter, flickr and tumblr. Over at home4self.tumblr.com I'm busy trying to design and build my family a home. I've been writing this blog since 2004 and you can search the contents here.

Notes from ‘Structural Fabulation: An essay on fiction of the future’

Notes from ‘Structural Fabulation: An essay on fiction of the future’

By Rob on August 27, 2014

It would be great to find more examples of keynote speeches given in my profession that even came close to the care, rigour, sense of shared responsibility and warmth for fellow thinkers and practitioners as that found in Bethany Nowviskie’s talk on Digital Humanities in the Anthropocene. I suspect I’ll be digging around at the […]

Posted in books, environment, ideas, scifi, theory | Tagged anthropocene, books, teaching, writing | 2 Responses

Plastic Praxis: MArch teaching at BCU

Plastic Praxis: MArch teaching at BCU

By Rob on October 8, 2013

I’m collaborating with Mike Dring, the MArch Course Director at Birmingham School of Architecture this academic year to help run a studio for years 5 & 6. Over the last few weeks we’ve been crafting a studio agenda which is less about the question of how we should build and more about questioning why. We’re […]

Posted in architecture, books, housing, practice, theory | Tagged teaching | 1 Response

the making of a home4self

the making of a home4self

By Rob on August 28, 2013

Outside the window a machine scrapes the ground flat in preparation for the arrival of a crane. An engineer is marking the ground with laser-guided accuracy and tomorrow the timber frame structure will be lifted into place then bolted to the cross-hairs of yellow paint marked on the 12 cubes of concrete we’ve poured into […]

Posted in architecture, design, home4self, housing | Tagged self-build | 3 Responses

Pacific BIM: a mutually interruptible neural bridge

By Rob on July 4, 2013

I’m hoping to do some teaching next year at Birmingham School of Architecture. Of the many topics that I’d like to include in any brief set for the students, I think it will be important to include a discussion about Building Information Modeling. I like a pencil as much as the next guy, but BIM […]

Posted in CAD, cinema, drawing, scifi, theory, video | Tagged bim, film, glass

metamatter that matters

metamatter that matters

By Rob on June 29, 2013

This week I was invited by Birmingham City Council to talk at their Sustainability Forum meeting about our experience of environmental design challenges and the 2016 zero carbon goal. Sadly, the idea that the sector might be in a position to deliver zero carbon buildings consistently 3 years from now is laughable, but the drive […]

Posted in environment, housing, ideas, passivhaus | Tagged pechakucha, strategy, sustainability

The avoidance of doing architecture

By Rob on June 4, 2013

The Philosophers Magazine interviewing Nigel Warburton of Philosophy Bites podcast – with a minor adjustment in bold by me: “A lot of professional philosophers architects lack the imagination required to think about what it’s like not to understand something. Some have got into a complacent habit of speaking to each other in a kind of […]

Posted in architecture, podcast, theory | Tagged philosophy, quote

Institutionalised in the Black Maria

Institutionalised in the Black Maria

By Rob on March 15, 2013

Notes made on the 22:30 from Euston to Birmingham, whilst returning home to the provinces after treating myself to an evening of presentations and discussion with Dan Hill, Jeremy Till and Wouter Vanstiphout under the title Institutionalised… Housed in the Black Maria installation at St Martin’s by Richard Wentworth/GRUPPE we were split into eager registrants […]

Posted in architecture, notes, theory | Tagged art, lecture, theory | 5 Responses

100 stick house

By Rob on January 22, 2013

The beginnings of an idea for a structure built within the rules of UK domestic permitted development, consisting of exactly the same size timber section/length throughout and well suited to standard timber sheet sizes for cladding. Shown here in 3 repeating bays and resulting in 100 x 4.2m long sticks. Well, 99 in fact but […]

Posted in architecture, design, drawing, ideas | Tagged creativecommons, home4self, structure

Forms that add distance

By Rob on January 17, 2013

Blogging dogged eared thoughts – some loose, coincidental noticings that deserve recording… I’m looking forward to seeing some of Hadid’s work further iterated in the future by the algorithms delivering Google Earth’s Universal Texture. It’ll feel like an event horizon in which Parametricism Will Eat Itself. Better yet, if the pirate copy in China gets […]

Posted in architecture, ideas, notes, theory | Tagged theory

home4self

home4self

By Rob on December 8, 2012

I’m nearing the end of the design process for home4self – always a good time to revisit the original sketches.

Posted in design, drawing, home4self, housing | Tagged home4self, housing, self-build

Next »