no2self.net

Disclaimer: Whilst the following post may result in a return favour for me from Graphisoft (see update), I’m more than happy to pass on the news that ArchiCAD is now available for free to students. Back in the days of my undergraduate education I bought a student license of version 5 (which cost about £150 [...]

Once again I am but the outlet for the work of others. Here’s another installation in the series of lecture notes belonging to my colleagues at the office (we’re architects in birmingham, in case you hadn’t already heard*).

I can announce today that I may have finally persuaded aforementioned colleague to officially release further work as [...]

I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of doing competitions. Here’s our* entry to the first brief for the Line of Site competiton.

If you’re interested in the McLarenesque ‘how we work’ story you can see the project notes and evolution on the Backpack page I used: Everest Base Camp. There’s a Sketchup model [...]

Carbon Copies by Nadine Jarvis:

Pencils made from the carbon produced during cremation, A lifetime supply of pencils can be made from one body of ash.

The sharpenings create a secondary ash, and displace the pencils as they are used transforming the pencil case over time, into an urn.

(via Matt Ward)

Toronto’s Mayor, David Miller:

Jane was a champion of diversity, a diversity of buildings, residence, businesses and other nonresidential uses and different people of different ages in an area at different times of every day. She gave us eyes on the street.

Her philosophy was a neighbourhood’s safe, active, vibrant and economically successful when there are people [...]

‘Design software weakens classic drawing skills’ says Jim Christie in the Washington Post (via ArchNewsNow).

Abso-bloody-lutely says I. Agree with the article whole heartedly, however, this section championing the role of CAD, actually does the opposite.

Computer graphics allow artists to move briskly. By contrast, drawing on paper can be frustrating, forcing concentration, introspection and revision as [...]

More on Gordon Cullen’s Townscape:

My 4 year old son has three modes of operation: drawing, climbing and watching TV.

That’s it. There are no others. The first two are easily explained by the science of genetics, the third less so, but I write that having spent the last 4 hours mesmerised by my PC monitor, so [...]

More letters and a suggestion for your (my) Christmas wish list.

It was my boss’s birthday last week. Here at the office we usually end up spending a considerable amount of time trying to decide what gift to get when birthdays come around. This time the solution came to me in a flash and I was [...]

My visit to the London a couple of weeks ago was poorly timed and I missed the Open House event last weekend. Don’t panic, I can still deliver the goods – I dispatched my colleague Yumiko to bring back news and photos.

Actually that’s not strictly true, I didn’t dispatch anybody, she went of her own [...]

The Edge:

“Touring will always be a very important aspect of what we do. When we’re in the studio, getting close to finishing a song, you inevitably start thinking about how it’s going to be performed. A song you don’t think you’d play live, that’s not a good song.”

Interesting. That’s exactly what I was thinking about [...]