Tag: design

August 13th – A brighter day when the morning got going and I found myself visiting Telford feeling better, even if my stomach was still uncomfortable.

The footbridge project is progressing well but there still seems to be an awful lot to do: No discernible structural assembly of the lifts yet, and the access point on the west side seems miles off completion yet, although in the way these things generally do, it’ll probably come together very quickly in the end.

Interesting to note the main span mainly constructed now, and it’ll be lifted in one piece onto the piers. I’d be interested to see if that ripples the roof skin.

At the station end – which this construction is already dwarfing – there are to large, green service cabinets in position by the steps. Perhaps it’s me, but they look really, really incongruous.

This gets more and more fascinating every time I visit.

August 8th – Unusually, I was in Redditch visiting a supplier and despite the (currently rare) overcast day, I was reminded of what gorgeous, surprising corners the new town has.

Redditch gets a lot of stick – much of it deserved – for dull planning and generally being a product of postwar urban design; but where it works – Lick the respectfully preserved Church Green or the gorgeous Arrow Valley Country Park, with the time hamlet of Ipsley preserved within – it’s rather wonderful.

I actually like this place a lot. There, I said it.

December 29th – Winter is a normalisation process for me. I enter it, kicking and screaming and resistant, headlong into the darkness; I fight my way through the suck, the suck that is the autumn commute, and by the time I emerge blinking and dazed from Christmas, I’m sort of used to it. 

I’ve got used to the absence of light – which is OK now as it’s returning; I’ve acclimatised to the cold; and I’ve learned once more to look for oddities and interesting images in low-light urbanity.

Silver Court in Brownhills does Architecture and Morality. Peter Saville has nothing to fear.

Meanwhile, I trundle towards new year still nursing a bad shoulder and dreaming of warmer days…

December 6th – Something today I noticed on a couple of bikes in a communal bike shed whilst locking mine up – what is it with quick release seat clamps?

For me, you find your ideal seat heat for a bike, and stick with it. Once you’ve dialled it in, there’s no need to fiddle. Unless you’re riding a folder, or a serious off road bike that requires a remote dropper that can be adjusted on the fly, I don’t understand why you’d use something so insecure, non tamperproof and pointlessly complicated on such a seldom adjusted clamp.

Can anyone enlighten me please?

November 21st – In a familiar bike shed at a client’s premises, a neat illustration that the common or garden bicycle, whilst being a marvel of engineering in many ways, is still riddled with design conflicts and the whiff of mechanical compromise.

Here, a well-used and muddy mountain bike, not a cheap one by any stretch. The lack of mud and water shielding means and mud and detritus carried on the back tyre ends up not just as a skunk-stripe on the rider’s back, but also on the front gear mechanism and transmission.

In areas of hard grit like the Peak District, this continual spray works like grinding paste, gradually eating your wearing surfaces.

All for the want of some shielding.

Still, if you were a designer today, and proposed the derailleur system of gears – relying on forcing a flimsy roller chain between gears using side play as a conformal drag factor – you’d be laughed out of industry.

Except there’s nothing much better.

November 15th – Late in the day, I popped into Birmingham to meet a prospective new cwork colleague, and came back as I often used to frequently, through a somnambulant, night-time Birmingham New Street Station.

The renovations here seem to have finished – although they don’t look it and the Stephenson street footbridge looks like the work stopped abruptly halfway through. But then, there’s only so much polishing and sprinkling with cheap glitter that can mask this huge architectural turd.

The place was charming though in it’s own night-time way, and once again, that late-night feelings vibe started to hit me.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see this post here. 

Why does that haunt me so?

March  7th – I had to nip to Telford, and as I came through the station I noted that the tree clearance now seems to have ended, and construction weens to have started in earnest on the western side of the bridge span.

I was also pleased to note that the daffodils on the station ramp side that bolted wonderfully when cleared of their shady tree-cover are coming into bloom as yet untroubled by the construction machines. it’s right they should bloom unfettered for a final time, I think.

This project has caught my attention and I’ll be interested to watch it progress – not least to see how they manage to built a new access way that will so clearly interfere with the old one, and yet still maintain public access.

June 1st – A grey morning crossing the still inexplicably closed Bentley Mill Way viewed from the aqueduct on the Walsall/Darlaston border. The roads has, over many months been lowered beneath the bridge to allow taller vehicles, and new signals added. In such a wet area, I hope the drainage pumps are capable and reliable, otherwise we could be in for fun. 

The road has been complete for about a month now, and remained closed as some brickwork was pointed on the bridge, but now seems closed with no activity ongoing. Considering this whole show was due to open ‘Autumn 2015′, it’s all a bit of a puzzle.

February 28th – Over the road at St. Anne’s Church, the architecture fascinates me. This is a building with a fantastic history, being the first church to be lit by electric light in the UK, powered by the coalmine down the hill, presumably in the interests of a mine owner’s place in heaven. But there is so much more to this industrial, engineering brick church, that looks so unassuming from the road.

Oh, the brickwork! I have never seen a church so obsessed with geometry in it’s design. Bright, bold, almost childlike… zigzags, mirror curves, crosses, diamonds, bands and profiles dance and decorate. It’s a constant delight and I spot something new every time I look.

If you can, please go see this wonderful building for yourself.