Buildings & spaces – Coffee Table TV

Buildings, cities and Utopia by Bodys Isek Kingelez

Bodys Isek Kingelez designs and creates maquettes for fantastic buildings.

One point perspective

A Victorian ropery, Singing in the Rain and Stanley Kubrick.

(A short video of the) Jumps – Olympic Cross Country

A taste of what it was like to watch the cross country competition at Greenwich Park. Not all the jumps are recorded, but the ones that are are in the right order.

[portfolio_slideshow] Photos taken on a Thames walk the day before the Jubilee Flotilla. “A vast range of vessels also plied their trades upon the water. Barges and barks sailed beside chalk-boats; they were joined by small work boats, by pikers, rush-boats, oyster-boats and ferry boats, by whelk-boats and tide boats…. There were boatmen and chalkmen,Continue reading “Muster (River Thames)”

Aquatics centre

The Olympic site is looks like an unfinished airport today. There is a lot of tidying and simplifying to get to the aquatic centre and its surroundings to look like the space age park of the original artists’ impressions. [portfolio_slideshow]

Istanbul snaps

A set of photos taken in Istanbul in winter.

My NHS reforms, part two.

Here is an update on a previous post about my own NHS reforms. I visited the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition ‘Dirt’, a tour of our relationship with dirt, illustrated by different places and times. One of the places was the 1938 Finsbury Health Centre, a modern and pioneering design which helped to advance healthcare in Britain.Continue reading “My NHS reforms, part two.”

NHS reform? A small change

The coalition government are working on proposals for large scale reform of the NHS. Here is a policy suggestion from a designers’ point of view. A characteristic of waiting rooms of the NHS, and mainly the GP surgery, is the information poster. The posters – how to quit smoking, what to eat, opening times etcContinue reading “NHS reform? A small change”

Warmth in a cold snap

Britain is experiencing a cold snap and consequently there is talk of how to keep warm. This has made me look at old ways to keep out the cold. .This is a detail of a tapestry which hung in a hall in Medieval England. It was a barrier against the cold drafts which crept inContinue reading “Warmth in a cold snap”

Public art in Dartmoor villages

Dartmoor villages feel as if they have been built to withstand the harsh and changeable weather of the moor, even on a summer’s day. The buildings look thick walled and sturdy and the space in the streets is intimate. Here the buildings are decorated with bunting and, in a small public area, a sculpture showsContinue reading “Public art in Dartmoor villages”