no2self.net

I’m spending this coming weekend in Dublin. Anybody have any good suggestions for places/spaces/buildings/restaurants to visit?

Opening (I’m told) in March 2007, here’s a preview of the nearly completed extension to my local gallery.

I’m looking forward to reviewing it next year, as the original proposal was the subject of one of my first blog entries in 2004:

Triangular in plan, the new building sits in an existing courtyard space with one side parallel to the existing buildinq – the other two travelling towards the street and colliding just past the building line of adjacent properties. The wedges of remaining space will provide an interesting tension between old and new. You might describe it as being one third respectful, two thirds cheeky. Which seems like a fitting recipe for a building to house pop-art.

You’ll note that back then I believed this journal would be all about words with the occasional carefully placed image. Could I have been more wrong?

In respectful silence we shuffle around the room. Lips tightly sealed, chins being stroked pensively; nobody daring to appear unaware of the importance of the artefacts on the walls and floor. We’re monks in a monastery of modernism. Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch.

Chattering as she goes, my three year old daughter rattles across the floor with her toy buggy and parks herself over the sign that says please do not touch on the plinth carrying a Rietveld chair. Disapproving looks ensue and a stoney faced guard starts to stride towards us. The games commence.

The modernism exhibition at the V&A has only a few days left to run. I can’t report on the contents in much detail (too busy stopping my daughter sitting on iconic furniture) but I can tell you that the compact layout and the hushed atmosphere that everyone seems to fall into doesn’t make it easy to take kids. You win some, you lose some. It’s important though, for both us and them, to keep in the habit of going to galleries and exhibitions.

In the courtyard outside, free from the clutches of the gallery police, I’m feeling quintessentially British with my trousers rolled up to my knees paddling in the blessed relief of ten inches of cool water. Matt Webb – trousers in a similar state – confesses that he would never have thought to paddle in the V&A courtyard pool had he not seen the kids do it first. You win some, you lose some.

We talk about rabbits, neo-cons and perturbations.

Perturbation theory comprises mathematical methods that are used to find an approximate solution to a problem which cannot be solved exactly, by starting from the exact solution of a related problem. Perturbation theory is applicable if the problem at hand can be formulated by adding a ’small’ term to the mathematical description of the exactly solvable problem.

Next stop: Hyde Park and the Serpentine Pavilion. As I’m taking some photos of the outside a passer-by notices the golden cover of the Zumbotel photography competition disposable camera in my son Josh’s hand and stops to talk for a moment.

He asks about the building and I explain that it’s a temporary structure by Rem Koolhaas constructed as one of a series of pavilions that have been erected each summer over recent years. Going for bonus points, I repeat something I’d half read in the press earlier that week about how the up-lift of the inflated roof is roughly equivalent to the weight of the lower section, therefore cancelling each other out.

“So it’s a neutral building then?”

Well, yes, I say. I suppose it is. Neutral. Oh dear, this doesn’t feel like a good start. We step inside and I deploy my ’small’ term to find an approximate solution to a problem which cannot be solved exactly.

Reconfigurable, adaptable, democratic space? Building blocks. Like any other five year old would, he’s built an island in the time it takes most adults to realise the foam chunks can even be moved.

Great stuff. Meanwhile, Tom and I wander and take some more pictures. Some nice detailing, shimmering translucent surfaces everywhere and an unexpected form to the underbelly of the balloon. Having completed perturbing the space, Josh is now leaping between foam stepping stones, zig-zagging between visitors.

Neutral. The idea won’t budge. If the actions that define its position are cancelled out to zero, what do you have left? Nothing. I’m feeling nothing.

Josh takes a tumble and lands in a heap on the sharp holes punched through the stainless steel floor. As I step forward to pick him up a staff member chooses that moment to move in front of me, preventing my progress, and points out that jumping on the blocks is unsafe and the floor is sharp. I thank him for the timely advice. Bloody exhibition police. Can’t we create any space today that doesn’t need policing?

An approximate solution to a problem which cannot be solved exactly … If we accept that the quest for the perfect architectural solution is a problem which cannot be solved exactly … the model or diagram or sketch is the utopian exact solution of a related problem … so perhaps the final, constructed problem at hand can be formulated by adding a ’small’ term to the mathematical description of the exactly solvable problem or diagram … meaning that we need to admit perturbations by ’small’ terms are necessary to move from the idealistic exact solution of a related problem to find an approximate solution to the architectural problem we wisely recognise cannot be solved exactly.

Meaning that a system which denies the possibillity for perturbation by ’small’ terms is still just mucking about with the related problem, not the problem. The pavilion feels like the exact solution to a related problem because I can’t perturb it with a personal, subjective viewpoint given it’s neutrality.

Perturbing the foam cubes is fun though.

24 hours later I realise that the emptiness is also to do with the way I feel about actions defining character.

We head for the Diana Memorial. An Aussie in a lifeguard t-shirt gets perturbed, waves a walkie-talkie at us and tells us to stop paddling in it. Strewth.

Related entries: Tyred, Fantasy Architecture, Fantastic Architecture, Hands that do fountains.

If nothing else I can at least say that I now know how to spell pavillion pavilion correctly.

Full flickr set of photos: Serpentine 2006

Elsewhere: Dan Hill, Rod McLaren.

A local post for local people.

This is the height of laziness, but I’m going to let Matthew announce a new project I’m involved in since he’s already done such a good job on his own blog…

Wolverhampton Freeycle has quietly been building up over the past few months.

With virtually no promotion, there are now 601 of us giving away useful items and benefitting from the things that other members no longer need. It’s great to get rid of something and know that someone else can make use of it, when it would otherwise go in the dump.

Rob and I have been thinking, for a while, that we’d like to build something more out of the community that has developed around Wolves Freecycle. The Freecycle group itself works best when dedicated to messages offering or requesting items. Also, the original American Freecycle group is very specific about how its trademark should be used.

Freecycle groups are run using the Yahoo Groups system, which is a mailing-list/forum hybrid. Several other Freecycle groups have created what they call their cafe group, also using the Yahoo system. We felt that was too limiting: not only are you bound to accept Yahoo’s advertising but you have no room for future growth, when people have good ideas for new features.

A couple of weeks ago, we set up panoplee.com and began looking for suitable forum software. It’s frustrating that almost all forum software is virtually identical, in terms of clunky user experience, despite their authors’ protestations to the contrary. Vanilla, however, is clean, fast and user-friendly.

We’re now telling people about panoplee.com. I’m surprised that a city the size of Wolverhampton doesn’t already have something similar.

Wolverhampton community website.

Local or not, we’d welcome your thoughts/links.

More Skyspace details from Neil:

A couple of extra observations:

I was in there on Sunday. We had a really grim weekend with stacks of
rain, and the floor was all grimed up, plenty of mud and water in the
drainage channels. The roofhole /is/ open to the elements, and it’s
actually quite nice when it’s drizzling.

I hadn’t noticed them before, but there are lights installed on top
of the side-bench things. Significantly less ambient light on Sunday,
so they were visible although it’s only a slight glow. Can’t see
them, but I’d guess they’re fluorescent tubes and the light they give
off is slightly peachy. Maybe that’s just in contrast to the very-
white walls, though.

Friday. A long day of CAD drafting ahead of me. My spirits are lifted briefly by the latest article by Hugh Pearman about James Turrell’s installation, Skyspace. I get to the links at the bottom and realise that it’s at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Hooray for the interweb! I know someone nearby…

From: Rob
To: Neil
Date: 28-Apr-2006 09:54
Subject: in the name of art

Dear Neil,

Need a big favour. Please could you fix it for me to see some photos of this:

www.hughpearman.com/2006/13.html

I know you’ve got the skills to nail it.

All the best,

Rob

A couple of e-mail exchanges later…

From: Neil
To: Rob
Date: 30-Apr-2006 14:44
Subject: Re: in the name of art

Rob,

Mission accomplished! Here’s all the pics I took today, smallenised down for easy emailage: let me know if you want particular ones biggerified.

I picked a busy time, Sunday afternoon, so that The Art Guards would have more people to bother with, and I was all hoodied-up for some sneaky phonecam action. Rather disappointed, then, that there isn’t a member of staff /in there/, just one on the door. And I knew him. People were taking photos in there with normal cameras quite openly – in flagrant disregard of the rules – so I joined in.

Don’t get me started on the two incredibly loud women…

Then there was a lull in the traffic and it was just me in there for a while, so I got some architecturally bits and pieces that I thought you might be interested in: since the roof is open to the sky it seems to be designed a little bit like a wetroom, with channels in the concrete sides and a sort of drainage ditch running around the
edge of the floor.

It’s very calm in there, provided there aren’t any talking people (quite an echo). It’s a perfect square in plan, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if the height of the room was the same, too. The sky-window seems to have almost no lip to it – it’s a frame, not a shaft. Quite cloudy but bright today, so the sky was a big glow of white rather than blue. The walls and the ceiling around the frame are white, the sides/benches are that sort of smooth concrete stuff they seem to like using in modern builds these days and the floor is a rougher concrete-eqsue stuff. The sides and particularly the door frame with its slab of lintel lend the place a tomblike feel. The sides are sloped back at just the right angle to gaze upwards.

Apparently they’re going to open it at night sometime, which will be /so/ cool.

I’ll probably sneak back in during the week when there are less tourists about, and get some realcam pictures.

Enjoy!

Neil

Like I said, hooray for the interweb. And hooray for folks like Neil. I was a little skeptical when I first started reading the Hugh Pearman piece, much less so by the time I finished it. Now I’m entirely sold on the idea. It looks like an absolute delight for eyes and fingers. Anyone for a trip to the YSP?

“How nice he is! How gallant! Why the boy’s a bit of a ladies’ man already: he takes after his uncle. He’ll be a perfect gentleman,”, she added, clenching her teeth to give the phrase a slightly British accent. “Couldn’t he come have a cup of tea with me sometime, as our neighbours the English say? He need only send me a ‘blue’ in the morning.”

Travelled to Paris. Sent you some pictures. Visited the Shakespeare and Company book shop.

Bought some Proust. Seemed like I had little choice.

Learnt, on the tram home today, via the footnotes to the above quote, that a ‘blue’ was an express letter transmitted by pneumatic tube within Paris.

Learnt, later, at my desk thirty minutes ago, via bloglines.com, that Matt Webb’s latest post – a wonderful collection of slides from some recent teaching he did – covers the very same topic.

See slide 26 of Fictional Futures. Better yet, read the whole thing, it’s a rich seam of ideas.

There’ll be more on Paris. Probably more Proust. In the meantime you’re welcome to peruse some of the other pictures I took: Paris, April 2006.

18 KIs
National
Museum,
1977, cou

Tidying the office, looking for a missing drawing, found this photocopy of a book with the annotation just off the edge of the page…my boss can’t remember the name of the architect, any takers?

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Chris Heathcote over at anti-mega.com has put together a neat little hack between Google maps and Flickr. Photos tagged with gps info are located and previewed over a map or satellite image.

He’s published the perl so I couldn’t resist the temptation to try a page for myself. Here’s the city where I work and (occasionally) play:

http://rob.annable.co.uk/flickrcity/birmingham.html

I’m an architect first and a geek much later, so there are still plenty of teething problems with it. I haven’t really worked out how to do a proper job yet but I’ve sent Chris a message so I’m hoping he’ll be able to help. It’s a static page at the moment that I’ve manually renamed as I haven’t managed to get it to spit out the file with a suffix that a browser will render. I think it’s supposed to work on the fly rather than with a cron job. I’m also short of a way to distinguish Birmingham in the UK with other Birminghams around the world; some of the links take you off around the planet.

The other teething problem is the rather frustrating discovery that the satellite imagery for the UK’s second city isn’t up to scratch yet. The higher res stuff ends just at the edge of the city centre. Perhaps by the time I’ve worked it out there will have been time for the satellite to make a few more passes…

We’d journey, seemingly forever, from the town to the country. Darkness would fall, the headlights of the car only just winning the battle against the rural pitch black. Sleep. Breakfast in a farmhouse kitchen. Tea towels draped over the handles of the range. Spot, the farmhouse dog whose name is all that’s necessary to describe his appearance, darts frantically around at your feet. A Jack Russell’s demeanour never seems to change.

Out to the yard to fetch the sheepdog, between the barns there’s a mist trying hard to be fog. In the back of a Land Rover dog and I climb, I perch on the wheel arch, this is his space not mine. He eyes me suspiciously, I’m not his master; he suspects I am quick but he knows he is faster. The four by four vehicle forces dirt tracks to yield. Supermarket? School run? No. Sheep in a field. He’s given the order and carefully slinks. Slowly at first then a whistle says FLY! Surgical precision. Away. COME BY! I fill pockets with stones that I find on the field. There are millions, they’re worthless, I’m told it’s called flint. They can make sparks and fires – now that’s worth a mint.

My memory grows hazy, it’s a new time of year. I climb on a tractor – a Ford? A John Deere? Lambs I would later be able to eat – so cute, so cuddly – now my favourite meat. Some fed on bottles, I feel no remorse, knowing little of gravy, spuds or mint sauce.

Here comes the harvest, a barn full of grain, protected from splashes of autumnal rain. I ride on the trailer towed by the tractor; it’s bumpy, hilarious, dangerous even – but all thoughts of accidents don’t seem to factor. Marks from the tractor scribed on the mud, straight lines and arcs, circles round trees, I’d repeat their perfection with a pen if I could.

Back at the farmhouse a pheasant’s our feed. Shot by the farmer, he carves it in tweed.

A pipe. Pipe cleaners. The smell of tobacco.

Spot jumps. We go home.

I learnt last night that my Mother’s best friend – whose husband was my Father’s best man at their wedding and whose daughter was born on the same day as me – died this week of a heart attack. As a child I would visit their farm and, unsurprisingly, images of the place began to return when I heard the news. Tainted by the passing of time, some may be idealised fabrications; most are as vivid as if they were only days old. The slightly bouncy rhythm I’m going to blame on the fact that I was recalling a time when everything was a form of play.

Every child deserves to have the opportunity to see the life blood of all of us – the products of working the earth – nutured and harvested. Yet I doubt I’ll even be able to provide that experience for my own kids today. How many of you know someone who works with the land?

Not many of you I’ll wager.