Kinaesthetic Learning

We have been leading a number of workshops with Primary School pupils as part of the Staffordshire Building Schools for the Future programme. Larry Priest has been appointed as Client Design Advisor and consulting with pupils is an integral part of the consultation process from the outset of the programme.

The main theme for the 3 days of workshops is Kinaesthesia: an awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body by means of sensory organs (proprioceptors) in the muscles and joints). Pupils considered the body shape as a footprint to explore ideas about learning spaces; social spaces; colour and outside spaces. Where on the body would formal learning take place? Or eating lunch? The body shape proved an effective way of expanding traditional thinking.

The consultation process has been shared online by Cantoo Design who specialise in interactive consultation processes.  They have created this video of the workshop sessions too:

Darwin Hall – Ground Source Heat Pump

Engineers have started work on the ground source heat pump (GSHP) for Darwin Hall in Lichfield. The first phase of work involves drilling 3 x 100m deep bore holes located in the southern area of the site. A closed U-tube filled with water and anti-freeze will be placed within the bore holes. The natural heat from the surrounding ground will heat up the water which is then pumped up to the surface. Via a heat exchange unit, the GSHP will provide the community centre with all its heating and hot water needs. The system will provide the building with an internal temperature of approximately 24ºC. The costs for running the GSHP will be around £1 per day. For every 1 unit of electricity used to run the GSHP, an equivalent of 4 units will be produced – giving an energy efficiency of approximately 400% (typical boilers operate at 70-95%).

Darwin Hall, Lichfield

Darwin Hall, Lichfield started on site in September 2009. This community centre is being funded through Section 106 contributions from the Darwin Park estate and will provide the local community with much needed facilities. So much so, that the week the slab was laid, Lichfield City Council received a telephone call from a member of the community wanting to book the hall for a new Judo Club.

Greswolde Construction are appointed as the main contractor and are making good progress on the project – using the mild weather we’ve been having to progress works on the shell.

Throughout the design stages, we were searching for a brick that combined variety of tone and texture with a ‘handmade’ quality. On a visit to Belgium with David Saddler of Wienerberger, we came across their Hectic range, which seemed to embody all of the elements we were looking for. To achieve the look, after the bricks have received the final firing, they are put into a container and set alight with petrol. Darwin Hall is the first project in the UK to use the Hectic Red brick.

Creative Partnerships In Construction

Dean Shaw, Associate at Bryant Priest Newman, will be Speaker at the forthcoming Forum for Tomorrow breakfast seminar to be held at the Radisson Hotel, Queensway, Birmingham.

This networking event takes place on Friday 20th November, and will be an opportunity to learn more about new ways of creative collaboration. Dean will consider traditional roles of the construction industry design team, and will be presenting schemes where creative partnerships in construction have ensured a project’s success.

Book your place here.

The Power of 140 Characters

So, Dean writes a tongue-in-cheek TO DO list before dashing off for a few days holiday and leaves it for us when we get into the office on Thursday morning.

I take a picture and share it with the world via Twitter.

The message and image is viewed numerous (98 on last count) times and re-tweeted – in other words it’s copied by other people on Twitter and sent on to their network.

Su Butcher, Practice Manager at Barefoot & Gilles, messages me back saying how much she likes the “get on the front page of the AJ” item.

I reply to Su copying in the Editor of the AJ: “Perhaps @kieranlong can help. Kieran, have I ever told you how much I admire and respect you? (Item 7: http://yfrog.com/iydx2j )”

Kieran replies immediately: “@lornaparsons @subutcher We’ll do our best to help you with that one! Got anything beautiful to put on there?”

I go to the AJ site to get Kieran’s email address. Whilst scrolling down the homepage I spot that we have already achieved number 7 on Dean’s list (though strictly speaking it’s not not fully adhering to his brief): http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/best-architects-to-do-list-ever/5210164.article

Nevertheless, I share the link to the AJ with Twitter and receive lots of lovely replies saying how much we’ve cheered people up, love the list, brilliant, priceless, etc. etc.

I have cheekily emailed Kieran (subject line: “…and did I say how much I like your glasses?”). Even if the AJ don’t put Electric Wharf on the front cover (even though it’s a very worthy contender!), we are definitely under their radar.

Anyone who is still having doubts about the power of Twitter, please see me after class.

Lorna Parsons
Practice Manager

PS. Kieran Long really does have very cool glasses.

Web2.0 and Architecture

Hello Digital is the annual Midlands Media festival and I was lucky enough to get a place at the main industry event on Wednesday 21 October. This international and interactive conference at Millennium Point, Birmingham was aimed at SMEs (and yes, that was me in The Birmingham Post last week – one for the clippings scrapbook!).

Among the speakers was local MP Sion Simon who was keen to encourage the region to recognise and share its digital strengths. His speech was uplifting, inspiring and informative. There is a concentration of Social Media talent in Birmingham – Architects, Engineers and Surveyors in the region are gradually embracing Social Media / Web2.0 and using the tools to improve communications, ultimately improving the quality of the end result of their projects. The success of Be2Camp Brum in August is a testament to the region’s strengths.

At the RIBA Practice Stakeholders Forum, which takes place tomorrow, I’m thrilled to see that the RIBA have invited Paul Wilkinson (co-founder of Be2Camp) to live stream the event via the Be2Camp site. Additionally, there is a section of the afternoon dedicated to social media: ‘Tweets, blogs and other useful things’ with the speakers sharing ideas about how they use these tools, how they save time and communicate more effectively. But it’s important to remind Architects that there is more to Web2.0 than Twitter. Back in July, Hugh Davies wrote an article in Building Design about Web2.0 and asked if Architects are ready to tweet. I couldn’t resist commenting:

Web2.0 isn’t just about a practice’s website or using Twitter. There are numerous tools out there that give us the opportunity to share information, collaborate with other consultants, involve communities who might not normally have a hands-on role with a project…….the ultimate result is better buildings. As a Practice Manager, the benefits that I see in terms of improving efficiency and communication by using online tools are the most important aspect because of their green credentials. Better Buildings and Sustainability; surely these are at the top of every Architect’s agenda?

Lorna Parsons
Practice Manager

Where Have All The Public Gone?

Walking round the newly opened Art gallery in the middle of West Bromwich on a cloudy September Sunday afternoon, I would have been forgiven for thinking we had managed to slip in to one of the pre launch tours with lots of staff busying around and maintenance guys fettling and tweaking lighting and services.  The building didn’t have nearly enough visitors to allow it to feel like a real public building, but why?  If you can put aside the preconceptions such as the look of the building, the cost, the location and the massive political issue that his building has endured, it is actually an interesting place to go and have a look at.

The absence of people was a bonus for our two small boys who treated it like a play warehouse and got as much access to the tech as they wanted, but it didn’t have enough going on to sustain a long visit.   The building needs some good publicity to change peoples perception, increase awareness, stimulate activity and ensure its future use in an area which could ultimately really benefit from it being there . Otherwise we might soon be calling it the Private.

Dean Shaw
Associate

‘Smart Roads for Birmingham’

This recent headline in Autocar Magazine, describes an ingenious new traffic system that predicts problems and helps motorists avoid them.

However, if other stories are to be believed, the Sat-Nav satellites are antiquated and falling out of orbit, and not being replaced, then this innovation may be futile.

The Transport and Streets page of Birmingham City Council’s website has a link to help2travel. This offers travel information direct to internet-enabled mobile phones. The phone can read bar codes and get real-time information regarding buses, trains, car parks and traffic disruption. As some of the information already exists, the real innovation with “Smart Roads” is the accessibility and interconnection of the system. Being linked to the system, and being tracked, helps to improve the accuracy of the data for all users.

As a land-locked city with no navigable river, Birmingham has a history of embracing the latest transport solution. Birmingham built canals quickly and expanded accordingly. Two hundred years later and Birmingham built roads ruthlessly.

As someone who believes in a vibrant city, where the interaction between people doing various activities is interesting and stimulating, any innovation that keeps the city relevant and efficient is good.

Usually ideas that address this issue, see a future of better public transport and home working, with people only interacting with their colleagues via electronic media. I believe in a good public transport system, but find the idea of having to work from home depressing. All the chance meetings in the city, that help you grow intellectually, and give ideas will be gone. It will be like working in a vacuum. Birmingham used to be: “A city of a thousand trades.” In that environment, ideas developed by coexisting “cheek by jowl”.

I’m sure there will soon be much more efficient / greener public transport that will probably be electrically powered. Likewise, cars will need to be more efficient / smaller / lighter and electrically powered. Development of electric vehicles (EV’s) is currently huge. Battery technology is improving rapidly, with quicker charging and greater range. Other technologies will assist EV’s, including regenerative braking, solar panels on cars, stop start systems etc.

However, if this future does happen then we need to generate much more electricity and it of course it needs to be sustainable / green. If just 25% of all the cars on the road currently were EV’s and were recharging overnight on an 8 hour charge, then the National Grid would collapse overnight.

So a much more radical view of energy production is required, that almost certainly necessitates the use of nuclear power. If we want to maintain our living standards, unpalatable truths need to be addressed quickly.

It takes TIME to plan and develop new, safe, greener power.

Mark Bryant
Director

Latest Pictures of Residential Project

Remember that post about the solid oak stair a few weeks back? Well this is the house in which the staircase has been installed. No pictures of the staircase in situ just yet, but here are the latest pictures showing the new extension.

What Is Innovation?

A couple of things have sparked of a train of thought recently.  David Rogers of NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) recently suggested “To steer a business through a recession you need to tackle financial management, sales and marketing and innovation.”

Then there was the Innovation In Business Survey from the National Office for Statistics that landed on my desk a while ago.  According to that, innovation means: “major changes aimed at enhancing a company’s position in the marketplace leading to improved services / processes (including investment in equipment, training & marketing)”.

I dutifully muddled my way through the survey wracking my brains to come up with something constructive in response to ” in the last 3 years, did your enterprise introduce new or significantly improved services”… er, no….  should we have done?  Panic was setting in and I jumped through the rest of it frantically ticking “N/A” like a coward.

Finding myself at the end of the questionnaire so quickly was worrying.  What have we been doing with ourselves for the last 3 years not to be able to consider anything we’ve done as innovative?   Do they mean innovation in delivery of service to client, or do they mean innovation in design?  What about keeping abreast of innovation in technology.  What about innovative changes to regulations?

Looking at technological innovation for Architects, I find that the architectural press, particularly Building Design, are a fairly good way of keeping on top of the latest in software and hardware innovation, though they don’t usually tell me anything that I haven’t already heard about from the younger (hipper, cooler) members of our team.

Innovation in building regulations? Well Rob Smith, our Associate and font-of-all-building-regs-knowledge seems to have a good handle on things and uses the Planning Portal to ensure we are kept fully up to date.

In the hope of shedding some light on what innovation means in terms of our working methods, I had a look at the members area of the RIBA website.  I wasn’t really sure what I was after – would I stumble across The RIBA Guide to Being Innovative?  Strangely enough, such a publication doesn’t exist, and the nagging voice in my head was getting louder. How can we be innovative when the RIBA Plan of Work has to be so rigidly defined, we have to follow regulations set by the government and our Professional Indemnity Insurers are forever watching over us to ensure that we are minimising risk?

Innovation in design?  Innovation in construction?  Where does this end?!

I stopped panicking and looked at our working methods. I realised that the things that we consider to be everyday good practice could be considered radical and fresh.

• We don’t stick to a rigid way of working (except when we have to in order to satisfy legal and professional regulations).
• We understand the importance of sustainability and encourage our clients to take a green approach wherever possible.
• We are highly skilled at working in collaboration with artists, communities and user groups.
• We have won awards for our buildings, including awards for innovation.
• We use the latest software and hardware where commercially viable.
• As a practice we talk to each another, we talk to other practices, we’re interested in news and opinion, we learn something new every day.
• We have embraced Web 2.0 and social media and use online tools as a method of communication.

Need I go on?

OK, so you won’t see us on Dragon’s Den flogging something that one of the Directors invented in his garden shed, but innovation?  Check!

Lorna Parsons, Practice Manager