Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Roof space motif
with a large learning space, etc. And these big spaces lend themselves
to "installation" size objects that also do a remarkable job in
deadening noise. Most recently I was suggesting to teachers from
Knowsley's new learning spaces (where technology ans science together
need some careful sound engineering) that a pterodactyl in the roof
would be a useful sound control device and an enjoyable science /
technology project. Anyway, here up a mountain in France skiing and I
find the same solution - and the same powerful sense of motif. Not
sure what our Health and Safety folk would make of the rusty chains
holding it up though...
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Westminster Hall
This huge hall was built in 1097, which is going back a fair bit! The famous hammerbeam roof was put up in Richard II's reign. It is the largest clearspan medieval roof in England - no pillars, huge floor. It has housed a few important trials to say the least: Charles I at the end of the English Civil War, Sir William Wallace, Sir Thomas More, Guy Fawkes...
And it has housed coronation banquest - last one was for George !V in 1821.
So, you don't really need me to spell this out do you?: large open multifacted, agile building, still valuable almost 1,000 years on...
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Big fulcrum
The Summit was very helpful - so many useful conversations and Twittchats! It also provided a fascinating contrast between the World Economic Forum typeview - "let's build system on systems, make big admin even bigger..."; and my (+others') view that this is a bottom up people's century / self organising communities / mutuality kind of time.
My favourite question from floor to illustrate the gap was "how do you systematise bottom up change"; lol. Favourite moment was a four-on-stage panel. One speaker, a nice chap from the WEF was chatting on about the need for systems and big gov and other last century stuff; also on stage - looking very bored indeed - was Biz Stone (of Twitter) and Professor Mitra (of Hole in the Wall, and other projects). Aftwer a while Biz and the prof started chatting in a whisper, then business cards were exchanged and rather nicely, as the WEF speaker embraced Systems, these other two were illustrating the 21st century's core process of "helping people to help each other" right there - hopefully with Twitter throwing a bit of support to Prof Mitra's fab projects. Fun to see real change happen in front of our eyes...
WISE is going to be a significant annual event - not the least because Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al Missned opened with a real call to action to everyone - get on with it!
...and that is what is needed, isn't it?
Monday, 16 November 2009
Museum of Islamic Art
It's only when you look close up at Islamic texts - I was enjoying the blue Qur'an from the 9th century - that you see how important the rhythm of the caligraphy is - a little like looking at Labanotation describing dance (is that Kinetography? I think so).
Inside, the Museum does a remarkable job of displaying the collected works. Since I am now excitedly involved in building a new school from stone in the Portland Stone quarry in Dorset i was very interested in the use of stone everywhere inside - and to see the British Museum's relationship with MIA - Brit Mus is built from Portland stone too. Small world.
Barrow transport
In the heart of old Dohar, the Souk Waqif boasts a mass of tiny shops with hand blended perfumes, tailors and much, much more. The passageways between these shops are so narrow that deliveries of goods will always be problematic - or rather would be if it wasn't for the small army of bespokely quilted wheelbarrows that provide that service.
A "barrow rank" so to speak is seen here - and you can see one of the many narrow passage ways beyond. Each barrow is carefully owner-secured by a padlock and chain by the way, although Dohar is one of the safest places I've ever been. You can see from the flat worn on each tyre (solid rather than pneumatic, by the way) that these barrows to a fair old mileage!
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Space to think
We took them to see Hellerup School in Denmark, connected them to Sheree Vertigan in Reece High School in Tasmania - pioneers of Home Base learning, showed them ideas and designs from all over. A wonderful local authority were ambitious enough for their children that they sought to replace some 11 comprehensives with 7 Learning Centres, against much controversy and, what was in my view, a backward looking, "alternative" plan by the then existing headteachers.
Fast forward, and it was a joy to be there today and see how well the new designs - this one is the Halewood Centre for Learning - are working: chatting to students they reported the remarkable changes in behaviour and motivation, the open, agile home base spaces were being used exactly as intended, the huge "amphitheatre" in the heart that doubles as a staircase (shown here) is now the premier cultural performance facility in the area, with the Liverpool Philharmonic playing there shortly. This has been the experience in Knowsley, where the council has taken the bold move of closing all of its 11 secondary schools, transferring them to 7 new Centres for Learning, using £150 million of government money.
A big 1,000+ school would be impersonal - too easy to coast or be lost. Like so many schools I'm associated with this one is designed around several ‘homebases’, with unique-colour carpeting, and their own designated toilets, study rooms, and a Commons for meeting friends and tutors.
I asked the articulate and thoughtful students who showed me round what was best about the places: the community sharing the space? the sense of intimacy in the home bases? the teachers' open areas adjacent to the home bases? the cathedral like hugely high ceiling?. "No", he said, "it is just that here, you have space to think".
Perfect.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Learnover
To take one example converstion: Swedish children: "how do you organise your learning days?" UK children were puzzled "we have a timetable, someone else organises it". Swedish children surprised.
UK children "how many exams do you do?" Swedish children - we do four at 16, but mostly we have teacher assessment. UK children "How do you get a job with only 4 exams?!!" and so on.
On the other hand, the overseas children were much taken by the collegiality of the Harris Children's Commission and the sense of "belonging" that they all shared although they came from multiple academies. So much to learn from each other, but we need to really break this sense that this only one way to do learning - it is so unfair on our learners.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Rites of passage...
But also (3) the Christmas lights (turned on this week) set me thinking about cues and clues and signification again. There are very few markers left in our lives of the passage from childhood to adulthood. They really matter, but we seem to be left with only these two: (a) you get a phone at about 9 or 10 ready for "big" school, and (b) you get a High School prom at the end of compulsory exit exams.
Somehow that doesn't seem like enough - cue frantic reading on anthropological texts. Folk in Oxford Street tonight (as they watched the diagonal crossers collide) were remembering being old enough to come up to see the lights etc., and I have reflected elsewhere on how education should be central in devising these markers in the newly secular world that we now inhabit. In UK schools, where uniform is prevalent, the "moving out of uniform into "work standard' clothes might be one such marker...
Fresh ideas for what learning related rites of passage to adulthood might be effective are welcome...
User generated?
But the Millbank studio was not where the interviewer was - so i sat facing this camera, noone else around, no technicians (huge contrast with the 28 folk in the room when I did Newsnight live!) - and the monitor on the camera was off (broken?). So staring at a disembodied voice of the interviewer, chatting to a lens alone (through a glass darkly?)... and yet it all felt so straightforward after all those podcasts, twitcams and other USG stuff.
For a sense of audience you only need an imagination....
Sunday, 25 October 2009
As time goes by
So there's a winter project - I'd better make it a case.
When we started exploring Nano Nagel's convent in Cork (the Presentation Sisters were exploring making it into a community learning resource - a great project), I couldn't resist winding and starting the old grandfather clock on the landing. It ws a mesmeric moment, as though the whole building's heart had been restarted. Clockwork clocks can do that, not everything digital is perfect!
Friday, 23 October 2009
Lansgøskolen
The evening that I arrived I visited Hans-Jørn Riis' lovely house and was captivated by his complex, brick, traditional fire and stove right at the centre of his family home (not the least because of the tasty pizza which came out of the oven bit!). It has a complex flue which powers the oven too, and gives the home a warm heart. Hans-Jørn mentioned that their new primary school Lansgøskolen also had an oven of this traditional brick design, and here it is - it gives the school community a warm heart, but also serves as a focal point - you can imagine on a cold morning the youngsters gravitating to the centre, and to the embracing warmth.
Great idea...
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Any degrees but 90
so many of the 21st century schools that I have seen leaping forwards in ambition and performance have a certain "wow factor" when you walk in - it is part of the self esteem growth that you always see in the students. A big part of that "wow factor" comes from an absence of what the US calls "cells and bells" - the old boxes and corridoors of the factory school era.
However, not only are the tiny boxes missing (Leigh Technology Academy teaches a lot of classes in groups of 60 in big spaces, but with three or sometimes four adults present) but one design feature that stands out is the complete lack of right angles! It seems like a small thing in design terms but the impression it gives is of a series of interlinking agile spaces that are a very long way from boxes.
And watching the teaching and learning that results, reading the research too, it clearly works.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Agility
But wandering through Brightlingsea at the start of Autumn I walked past pal Gary Constable's boatyard and reflected on the way that boatyards re-configure themselves seasonally. At this time space is at a premium as boats start to appear for winter refits and work, prior to formally laying up - by Spring it is all pre-season preparation and of course summer is space and time. Not only do each of these functions require a different space layout - for which the yard needs genuine agility, but each offers a different social environment too - folk this week were positively relishing the social chit chat of Autumn in the shed. No doubt many other physical spaces have traditionally been comfortably agile - it makes you wonder even more why we seem to have locked so many schools down into the constancy of cells and bells...
..and then seem surprised by the boredom and disengagement that results.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Us-ness
I've been involved in designing prisons from time to time and the old "open centre" design has rather given way to complete floors - with of course a significant additional cost in security as each floor is then a unique sealed entity - it just seems wrong to me. Designing spaces that have on the one hand a sense of what I like to call us-ness, but on the other hand offer some character and intimacy - without opening a door to the bullying and boorishness that often accompany intimacy is a huge design task - and a task for schools too.
But as we try to get that right, sometimes it's just a joy to sit back and bask in the spactacle of the Pitt Street Mall. Now, perhaps I should try the lemon meringue pie next...
Staff rooms...
Of course resources are tight and because ideas come n go you're never sure what to keep, but even so...
In education, everything is escaping from its boxes: subjects, timetables, classes... Surely we should let the staff out too?
Monday, 21 September 2009
Making notes...
I could write tons about this, but Alan Cameron - who has made all this extraordinary work happen - recorded a conversation we had together, reflecting on the whole experience a little later that same day. It covers a lot more detail...
Friday, 4 September 2009
Seat of learning
Today, working with the excellent staff of schools in the Upper Shirley area (outside Southampton) who are really going somewhere together, there was a a moment where over lunch everyone tried to get the 'standard' chairs to work for their informal chats and discussions. As you see in this picture people there were twisted on chairs, moving chairs, half on chairs... and you get to see just how bad the standard school chair is for collaboration and indeed for learning.
As schools move into and through BSF or other rebuilds we seem to keep on coming back to the whole issue of furniture and its design. This is a HUGE opportunity for a business somewhere. Where are they?
Monday, 31 August 2009
Jolly jellyfish
Here passing through a marina in our annual August of racing the little 4 ringed common Moon Jellyfish (aurelia aurita) is in evidence everywhere - a denser population in the marina than I can ever remember. Not good....
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Mount Gay party, Cowes Week 09
inside seems to beat the rain outside in this hectic week of sailing
on the Solent.
And a great band; cue debate about live music matters.. And how
education doesn't really make enough of it's huge number of live events.
Now, where's my rum...
Sunday, 19 July 2009
70 years young
Ours, Aina, was built in 1939 and promptly garaged for the duration of the war and she is thus 70 years old this year - cue party later this summer. As you see, she is in pretty fine condition although when we bought her she'd been in a greenhouse for seven years and had her decks chain-sawed off...
She's a bit late being launched this year, but then she is most years (!). I think at that age you are allowed to be out and about a little later than most. She's pretty quick though, and wins things from time to time. Hope I do too at 70!
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Community community community
The school is almost entirely corridor free. And with the colossal saving this brings they have created a HUGE build which is subdivided into three Communities - very much a cross between the proven schools within schools and Home Base models. There is joyfully specified specialist space - gym, dance studio, media centre (ceiling height raised to allow trampolining outside of the gym!) etc but science, maths and more are all taught within the Communities, which are all age, with vertical pastoral structures. The building is open, multifaceted, and has acres of glass but very few internal walls. As the levels drop rows of steps provide little natural amphitheatres and seating for each community. It looks very much like our Caribbean schools in the Cayman Isles - even to the "Nair-esque" Da Vinci studios that mix subjects - science with other explorations. natural llight is everywhere.
All this begs a question: why on earth are schools being allowed to be built with a third of their budget wasted on corridors? How can this waste of money be tolerated? How can architects be allowed anywhere near these designs if they just do cells and bells? Part of the answer is that the wretched Building Bulletins can be seen as encouraging this specialist circulation space. Time for a re-write and clarification surely...? One improvement for St John's? Like many others, they will find they probably haven't got enough mains sockets... The front face of the steps would have been a good place to put them maybe.
Meanwhile St John's has one more year to explore new pedagogies, new structures and new ambitions... having spoken to the staff and exceptional Head I'd simply say "safe in their hands".
Wonderful. Watch their space...
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Henry VIII's blockhouse
place. This is one of 4 blockhouses built around 1539/40 by Henry VIII
to defend the Thames and London against Spanish warships. There also
guard the ferry crossing to Tilbury, still running today.
But Bawleys were salied to catch brown shrimps and we still see plenty
of them racing on the East Coast.
The blockhouse (with walls added in the late 17th century to make a
living space, and the now racing Bawleys remind me of how well our
ancestors repurposed things - makes our retail-space-into-schools
project even more interesting.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Time and relative dimensions...
Here's why I love Bournemouth University. Its media rich, creative heart just makes mine sing. Andrew Ireland - seen here - has a PhD focussed around re-shooting Doctor Who - using a contemporary script but with a retro-tiny 60s studio, all analog processes. It is hugely interesting work and there is much to learn from it.
Here he is engaging in his research (!).
But it set me thinking about these agile, simply reconfigureable spaces we are building at the heart of new 21st century schools. Tardis like springs to mind... Hmmm, maybe if I put Andrew in touch with PfS...
(see also Dalek)
Saturday, 4 July 2009
A lot of sanding...
It's curious how relaxing hard manual work can be. And how satisfying looking at the result. Interestingly, Unskilled Manual and Skilled Manual jobs are surving well, as are Skilled Clerical. But unskilled clerical jobs are the ones that have vanished - sadly the school curriculum forces children to become really good at this now useless unskilled clerical work: copying, taking dictation...
Clearly the curriculum should have more sailing in it!
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Underwater learning
...so pictures like these have become less exceptional. But it still impresses the heck out of me!. This is granddaughter Amelie, under water and completely as ease - she's been swimming underwater from 6 months and is nearly two now. Unthinkable 15 years ago, every-day-normal now. Science + learning = remarkable progress for so many.
Sorry about the photo quality - being under water blurs things a bit.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Round the Island, again
Here we all are at sunset the night before, all ready to be up-at-dawn for a tense start with all computers blazing! So many boats ready here gunwhale to gunwhale that you can walk right across the haven. We had a very good race, but hitting the rusting boiler of the Varvassi wreck at the Needles was a bit scary (and very loud below decks our navigator Carole assures me), although it puts us in a very exclusive club.
For those of you who don't race these things it is interesting to reflect on how little weight there is on board: a very little diesel, water, enough food, but jars through sleeping bags to cutlery are all gone. Our rig - mast, boom, sails even - is largely carbon - the "pitching" inertia at the mast tip is the square of the distance from the axis of pivot (ie the hull) so weight aloft with a big rig really does slow a boat. As my son at 10 once memorably said in a TV interview sailing has a lot of physics, meteorology, chess-like-tactics, engineering, computing and more. Plus it is flippin hard athletic work with scary bits too.
Nice though...
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Boldly go
Having just worked here with a very engaged, thoughtful, group of school students and their staff it is a reminder of how important play will always be in learning.
We had great fun too.
Junk
Cruising down the creek in Dubai on a splendid 68' motor yacht (!) it is hard not to be struck by the constant contrast between old and new, wealthy and not so. So much trade in the region is still plied by traditional sampans and junks like these and close up to them you realize what HUGE loads they are capable of shifting, as well as providing a home for a family.
About 75% of building here in Dubai is currently paused, although as you see in the background of this photo there are still lots in cranes about. Other than a slowdown in building and quite a lot of overseas workers going home for a while, the economy seems to be booming still.
Fascinating, and captivating, place.
Monday, 8 June 2009
Global Classroom
Project. Children here from AUS NZ Japan Sweden, USA, Shetland, and
all debating the future of learning whilst immersed in Island culture
for 10 days.
Fab.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Sky's the limit?
coincedentally the mornings papers today were full of a story of a pick-your-own fruit farm being closed by safety inspectors who wanted to see safety railings installed!!
I do wonder how long this wonderfully patient generation of children will tolerate this nonsense of being banned from everything - from YouTube to gooseberries? How can we put self reliance, confidence and a bit of scary excitement too back into learning?
Looking up again at the floodlight towers I was also reminded of how fit I was back then too. Time for a change of life style...
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Unexpected treasure!
This robust 19th century clock mechanism drives the clock face (just being restored) by way of a long cable and has not-quite-as-long pendulums and a wind twice a week escapement. Interestingly almost noone I spoke to at the school had ever seen it (it is the "other side" of the caretaker Steve's room) but cue long debate about what an asset for the school and could / should the children have a chance to climb the Tower, supervised and harnessed of course.
Maybe the webcam should justwatch the mechanism ticking...
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Sometimes it's the simplest things
Play is so important isn't it? I'm looking very hard at the moment for fresh and further ways to make school buildings, new or refurbed, more playful too. Watch this space...
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Some things never change
Sailing today with friends in the annual Wivenhoe Regatta we raced up river to Wivenhoe to find, as we do each year, crowds, blindfold tender rowing, raffles for good causes, free beer (for sailors), Punch
and Judy, home made cakes, a barBQ in every balcony, smiles, friends - and this year even a Viking longboat...
Sun and wind were perfect, and so of course was the regatta. Again. You had to be there - and how many times have we heard that already this century? "Live, social and "community" are all back!!! But in some places they never went away.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Car factory
The conference was set in a remarkable conversion of an old car factory - which had been reconfigured as an exciting and agile space, but keeping the functional features of manufacture. I liked the "catwalk" shown here, that encouraged presenters to walk away from the screen into the audience. i also liked thw scrapwood trees two of which cn be seen further down the walkway, at the end
The conference also enjoyed a remarkable debate between children and politicians...
Monday, 4 May 2009
Corridors of Dour
I was talking to an HE conference, by video link, just recently and mentioned that HE buildings are too often the analog product of a room allocation spreadsheet, so that the cells of the spreadsheet become the cells into which students are decanted, linked by ghastly productivity-corridors. All the emphasis is on moving people and knowing who is in (and thus should be paying for) each space - no sense of what might be effective for learning at all. I added that architects find designing these cells mind numbingly boring, so they usually add a flourish - typically a grand atrium. And often a sponsor kindly gave the money for all this, so a "statement" entrance, with sponsors name prominently displayed, is a final touch. The conference folk laughed a lot and for an unpextedly long time. I was puzzled but an email later explained: they had just had a presentation of the drawings of a proposed new building... with cells, corridors, atrium and grand entrance. Oh dear.
If UK HE is to survive in a global world, the design of our learning spaces will be a major contributor to that survival...
Friday, 1 May 2009
Ready Steady, slightly late
But tall. Of course one problem with having 9 foot of keel plus a very-large-lump-of-lead hanging underneath and a berth on the really-jolly-shallow UK's East Coast is that you spend a lot of time avoiding the jolly- shallow bits!
But it's worth it though eh?, I mean LOOK at her... sigh.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Trim Tram
Best thing about the trams is simply how skinny they are as you can see here. They get through the tiniest of gaps and their narrow railtracks look almost like a model train line.
There is no one size fits all and the diversity of provision really works. On their underground network, at one point if you get out and walk around a very busy junction / station, you can swipe your fare card as you walk and it credits you (!) to say thanks for reducing the pressure at a busy time...
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Light and scents
Wonderful impact olfactory, which raises some interesting thoughts about what smells are good for learning (I mean, if pumping fresh bread and coffee smells around supermarkets is effective, what works for learning?...)
Monday, 20 April 2009
No place like Dome
Looking back it seems curious that so much of the Dome focussed - rather as the Festival of Britain had apparently done years before in 1951 with its Skylon - on what had gone before, when in fact we were about to begin a decade of unprecedented change and surprise.
In fact, I liked the Dome so much I tried to buy it - we made the last 5 (in fact the last 3 I think), but our bid wasn't finally chosen. With hindsight, perhaps it was probably as well!
Friday, 17 April 2009
Piece-a-pizza
I really like the idea of presenting universities with research about learning - and exploring their responses - don't you?
Anyway, since we were meeting on the boat when we broke for lunch we headed for the Pizza Dock (2nd floor on the Dickens Inn at the St Katherine Docks) where as you can see in this picture the researchers were really quite hungry! All the pizza went...
Friday, 3 April 2009
Noise
I like to use it to explore the ambient sound in various new classrooms - they vary amazingly. Since decibels double every ten (ie 60 is twice as loud as 50) it is perhaps a surprise that a well designed room with sound baffling and a design that reflects multiple learning styles, even when it is a "home base" type space with 100 or so students in it and three teachers, can be comfortably in the mid 60s, while a similar sized space, with some of the pedagogy less well thought through (so that for example the teachers need to use microphones and their undirectional voices make it very hard to students to pause, focus and reflect), can be in the 80s, a huge difference.
These big, agile, multifaceted spaces can be very tranquil and calm places to learn. But only through good design and thoughtful attention to detail. I was in a school just recently where a huge screen; opposite a large window, offered a way for sound to bounce and reflect in a way that made it really quite unpleasant, while nearby another big three-classrooms-into-one new learning space development was tranquil and a joy to teach in.
As schools try out 21st century spaces, often in preparation for their new builds, this kind of evidence based action research really matters.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Goodbye London
The Ivory House behind her by the way, where she is moored at the St Katherine Docks, used to be FILLED with ivory tusks. Such reckless slaughter...
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Animal Magic
Isn't learning a marvel. This is granddaughter Amelie...
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Chair in Learning
These are in the library of the Dubai GEMS World Academy - filled with everything from a professional music technology studios to a skate park.
Foyer...
So I was more than a little delighted to be visiting the GEMS World Academy in Dubai - which has this wonderful entrance of spiral ramp and water feature - to find a fresh look in architecture throughout the building. The building is a mass of curves and textures, with ceiling feature delineating social areas rather than walls and very large, really quite agile, spaces. It is also designed to support the learners' esteem, as this grand image shows..
This is an international school, with a real mission to be global. I'll be doing some work in there tomorrow and am really looking forward to it.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Oo what a whopper!
I'm staying in a charming and photogenic olde cottage, even if I am armed only with the iPhone's camera. However, popping out for a meal I was a bit amazed (= gobsmacked) to see this planet guzzling beastie parked in town, with a stretched Hummer parked behind and fully dwarfed by it. I suppose it shows that some things change quickly, others take a bit more time. The ghost of George Bush's USA is not completely erased, quite yet.
On the other hand the folk here are wonderfully keen to make their school make a real difference. Many of you will know that I argue only that people should be properly ambitious for their learners. Here, folk ARE ambitious; the ones I am with are pretty embarrased about the monster limo-truck too.
Monday, 23 February 2009
21st century schools (2)
It is also pretty hard to be collaborative or sociable on the standard school chair isn't it? It isn't built for conversation to the left or the right. And the secondary children also spoke of how they missed the playfulness of their primary school lives.
Well, goodness knows I've said all this often enough and in this picture here we are again at the blessed St Aloysius in Tasmania where they have playful and comfy and social all in one go with these sofas which they found, affordably, in a library catalogue. You could read, learn, collaborate in this school, couldn't you?
21st century schools: here's a really good one
And here's a wonderful school, in Tasmania, that's done it all and done it SO well. Staff and students love it, parents are reaping the dividend of commiting their children to a new design. It came in under budget, it really shows the thought, leadership and debate by all involved and it is quite, quite lovely.
Why do people STILL build cells n bells factory schools when for less money they can do this and then see substantially better learning as a result? And why don't inspection systems criticise schools whose lack of ambition fails their students by continuing to embrace a model of factory learning with a dull incrementl targets?
St Aloysius, I salute you - what a wonderful and ambitious place to be learning - I'll post a lot more images soon and then link them from here.
Meanwhile, these are the toilets: doors that fit the frame top and bottom, glass means no place for bullies, the toilets are small scale and everywhere. These folk LISTENED and reflected and it shows, everywhere.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Brave
The ship docked in Hobart this afternoon after pursuing Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean for several weeks and the bow bears testament to just how tough that pursuit has been. Plenty of video footage on youTube. Anyone who knows the sea will know just how tough this kind of action must be. Just like the late Steve Irwin, these are brave folk.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Us-ness
In building schools around the world we have used local culture groups and children with cameras / phones to capture the feature that say "us' most strongly and then try to capture the angles, shiplap, details, textures, colours, heights etc., in the new school designs. It really works, of course, but how could anyone ever imagined that one size might fit all?