Art and blobs

the advent of 3D printers elevates the possible shapes that can easily be manufactured. This has the potential to combine with the growing taste for organic architecture, the work of such architects and designers such as Future Systems [now sadly defunct], Asymptote, Ross Lovegrove etc. We have traditionally relied on rigid cartesian straight lines and right angles, because they are easiest to manufacture and to work with. As soon as you introduce a non-level surface or an angle other than 90 degrees any work rapidly becomes incredibly difficult. Not only do you need to custom fit every piece of material, it is no longer as simple as running a plane over a piece of wood to take a mil off of it.

This taste for straight lines and right angles is not born out of any innate compatibility with human kind. We are not inherently straight or right angled, our reach does not extent across the full limit of a rectangular desk. Where space and ergonomics are of pressing concern, for example in aeroplane cockpits or car interiors, things are moulded and crafted, curved and tactile. Our furniture is starting to become more akin to the seats in cars. And why should it not. What is so different about sitting in a car, from sitting on a sofa.

We are perhaps on the point of tipping over from a world of straight lines and right angles, where a material can easily cover a regular shape, to a world where furniture is shaped into organic blobs made from material that slowly evaporates, or degrades, the way the fresh aluminium will automatically anodise in air. A world where furniture melds into building into function into lifestyle. Where we are surrounded by multifunctional surfaces, kitchen worktops that can equally be screens or heating elements or lights, changing colour with a couple of gestures. A world where you can sit on anything, or pinch and pull to make it into a hard working surface.

in praise of iteration

I was listening to a podcast about urban planning, and one of the urban planners working with Jan Gehl spoke about their approach of 

envision 

test 

refine 

or an iterative test and trial type approach, rather than one that is driven by a masterplan. Personally I always feel that I have to be apologetic about adopting an iterative approach to things, making a start, tweaking a bit, doing a bit more, seeing how it is working. I always feel that I should be arriving with a perfect vision, then simply the dull labour of transforming transcendant vision into actuality. 

But an iterative approach has had a bad press. It is far more responsive and democratic. You are not going to go terribly far wrong with an iterative approach, you are not consulting on some masterplan that few can understand, you are seeking views on something as it unfolds, the omissions and improvements can be addressed. Just as we should design for adaptability, so we should plan for iteration. 

Project planning is too inflexible, demanding that we set out conforming to the initial materplan, rather than allowing us to evolve a solution that works.

Returning to the initial example, these Danes plan their pedestrian zones a street at a time, relying on a bucket of paint, and seeing what works. Can anyone honestly believe that some huge masterplan would offer a better solution. 

My latest obsession has been with door furniture. Door furniture is one of those things that you just don't notice, 99% of the time, but once you do start to notice it, it is a surprisingly rich and diverse area.

This has in large part been the result of recently moving to working in an 1930's office building, predominantly with original brass door fittings, and my regular lunchtime walk taking me past a slightly grand Georgian street with some rather fine door fittings.

I have therefore been scouring eBay, with moderate obsessiveness, to source a variety of period door fittings for my own house. Mixed success with bidding, I clearly have an eye for the popular, as the bidding on some of my favoured items has at times accelerated into the realms in unaffordability. But after a few weeks, I have now sourced a variety of door fittings. The old sixties fittings and modern mock gothic are going, to be replaced by an eclectic selection. An aluminium cinema door style handle in one room, arts and crafts style brass in another, an art deco semi circular shaped one, and a few that could just be hefty pub door handles. The exercise has also reaquainted me with the charms of brass. A hundred years ago brass was clearly the go to metal for all sorts of things. It is slightly softer than most other commonly used metals, has mild antiseptic properties, and with a little polish gives a good yellow metal shine. It also comes in a variety of different hues. Of the brass handles that I have got, some are almost silver, some slightly rose gold, though obviously the overall impression is of yellow metal.

With a tin of brasso, it is possible to polish up the most unprepossing item to its former glories. From a collector's point of view they prefer to leave material unpolished, but for working items, I think it is appropriate that they follow the original intent, and are used in a polished state. Polishing is actually surprisingly gratifying. A little brasso, a good polish, and the formerly white cloth has a dirty black patch on it, you really feel like you are taking off the dirt. A burnish up with a clean cloth and the item really starts to glow. I suspect that the original intent was that raised areas would shine up more, further accentuating any mouldings or accents.

Anyway, I've supported this blog article with a before and after photo to demonstrate the reviving effects of brasso. More door furniture obsessiveness likely in future blog postings.

public space

There was a recent exhibition at the Glasgow Lighthouse on Cedric Price, and part of this was a handout newspaper on a number of student projects looking at public space in Glasgow. The teams each took a segment of Glasgow, starting from the centre and heading out, to consider public space available, and make interventions.

Cedric Price was a somewhat whimsical theorist, and the interventions were often whimsical.

Nevertheless the point remains, it is public space that makes our modern environment work, or frustrate. And looking at public space it is very often dismal. It is not intentionally bad, it was not designed by some Bond villain to drive us to despair, but it is uninspiring, unambitious, unnoticed, unloved, lacking in ability.

Public space is the space that falls between the bits that anyone cares about. Public space is the bits that we all own, but no one individual owns. Public space is that stuff that no one is proud of. Public space is the bits where we leave the litter to accumulate unless the council come to take it away.

But public space is, it is the space that defines our spaces. The tourists see public space, the visitors see public space, we see public space. It is the public space that creates the image of the city, the town, the village. We expect the bank to look impressive, we expect the expensive houses to look expensive, and run down ones to look run down. But it is the public space that sets the bar.

We should be more ambitious with public space, we should demand more from it. We should take more ownership of it. We should quietly clear away some of the junk and smarten it up.

We should celebrate the public space that works, and complain about the public space that does not.

You can tell when public space works. People walk, or drive slowly, they cycle, they sit. For really good public space people will walk dogs, or play, or sit outdoors eating or stop and talk. Public space can be designed, but it only works when people think it works. Too often it is designed to look good, without actually working. That peculiar branch of ergonomics where street furniture is designed to deter people from sitting too long, or even relaxing. Hence metal seats and stone benches.

It is people that make public space work, and we deserve better, and we should make it better.

trouble sleeping

Christmas is always good for catching up with all your friends.

I was hearing from an old friend, Brian. He is having a lot of nightmares and is finding it really difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

He keeps on dreaming that he is getting chased by dyslexic zombies!

economics lecture

I was out at an economics lecture last week, by Erik Britton and Dannay Gabay of Fathom Consulting. They are both former Bank of England economists and bright chaps.

http://www.fathom-consulting.com/about-us/directors/

I am interested in economics, but I've only really studied it at an introductory level, so much of the technical content was going over my head so rapidly that I didn't notice what I was missing. However I do rather take the view that economics is one area where people are arriving at explanations of the past, or predictions of the future, based solely on a handlful of prominent variables. So if they have picked the wrong variables then it does not matter how convincing they are, there is something out there to derail their theories.

I came away broadly convinced that we are looking at a fairly stagnant economy for the next few years. Japan has had a stagnant economy for decades, and there is nothing to say that Europe is exempt from such a malaise. The structural imbalances whereby China is perpetually short of domestic consumption, while the West overconsumes, all the while getting deeper in debt, were bound to end in tears.

The standard economic view is that savings are bad for the economy, while debt is actually good and creates activity. To me this seems counterintuitive. I suppose that it might work if the people taking on the debt were rational operators, if they are not, then it might work if they had a way to cope with the debt burden. In the past increasing GDP, inflation and devaluation were relatively pain free fixes.

This scenario is being unpicked now, we cannot argue that governments are rational, recent events show them to be short term, unpredictable and erratic, unwilling to make decisions, and unwilling to face the consequences of their actions. GDP is increasingly stagnant, inflation at hyper inflation levels is unlikely and unpalatable, while devaluation would be difficult within the Euro, and is only an option until your trading partners attempt it too.

The challenge going forward for government is to rebalance the economy and their role within it. For an individual it is always easier to budget when you know you will get a pay rise next year. It is when you move onto a fixed income that things really start to get difficult. It is impossible to be on a fixed income without some element of austerity creeping in.

As a country we are going to have to get used to living on a fixed income. We are going to have to make real decisions on what priorities are. The debt burden now is equivalent to the burden at the end of the second world war. Back in those days austerity meant rationing!

For the long term it seems likely that developed countries will face a low level of GDP growth. We are not going to be poor, but you cannot keep growing forever.

Perhaps what we need is dull managerialism, government that is increasingly competent, rational, capable of making decisions and learning lessons. A government that has a firm grasp on the back office costs, that is crisp and effective in making decisions. Government that manages its money like a canny pensioner, rather than some highflyer waiting his next bonus.

an irrational fondness for outdated technology

I must confess to an irrational fondness for outdated technology.

I was recently in the market for a new alarm clock. So I went to John Lewis, which sells slightly more attractive, considerably more expensive versions of things that everyone uses. The cutest alarm clock by a long margin was the Karlsson Mini Binky, so I got a little black one. It was clockwork, and had the cutest wee face you have ever seen. This thing was cuter than a day old puppy. It fitted perfectly into the hand, with the heft of a cricket ball. It ticked away reassuringly all night long. A fine tick that you could fall asleep to.

But on fully winding it, it would only run for about twelve hours. After twelve hours it would either stop altogether or stop for a wee while. On checking the Amazon reviews here, and in the USA (who knew that there was no Amazon in Australia or New Zealand?) these problems seem common. So regretfully I had to take the clock back, inordinately fond as I was, of this day old puppy that was starting to crap on my carpet.

The clock was made in China, and browsing the other clockwork clocks you can still buy, they equally seem to be made in China these days and are equally prone to similarly mixed reviews.

How is it that China can make an iPhone knock off in about twelve minutes, but when it comes to replicating technology that is centuries old, they fall down miserably. It is not as if these Chinese clockwork clocks are cheap, or as if clockwork technology is impossibly difficult.

When I grew up there were big factories in Scotland making clockwork alarm clocks, the hideous Westclocks {?}. But now, no one apart from the Chinese makes clockwork clocks.

In my lifetime it is a technology that has gone from ubiquity to a historic curio. It is a pet peeve of my to go somewhere, and see a fine old clockwork clock, that is not ticking. I love to be surrounded by the ticking of clocks. I like their slightly impressionistic approach to timekeeping. I like that you come home to an empty house after a week and all the clocks have stopped ticking, so you take five minutes to wind them all. I like that each week I take the brass key and wind up the hanging clock on my wall.

I was going to call this blog posting, "why don't Chinese people get clockwork".

But there are a lot of Chinese, you would be foolish to bet against them. For now they are producing things to our specifications. But while English uses an alphabet of 26 characters, Chinese uses an alphabet of over three hundred. A computer key board makes sense with 26 characters, in effect you have almost that many fingers, a piano keyboard has that sort of number of keys. There is an inherent ease to keyboard input for that sort of level of differentiation.

But Chinese has over 300 characters. If the Chinese had invented the computer, they certainly would not have invented the keyboard as we know it. You can certainly use a computer in Chinese, scrolling through to select the correct character. But starting from scratch that is now how you would input to a computer if you were designing a method of input for over three hundred characters.

Similarly the paradigm with a computer is that one you have entered a character, you move on from the space never to return. You cannot overlay one character upon another. You could with an old manual type writer, you probably would want to for transcribing Chinese.

And Chinese is a tonal language, unlike ours. Chinese medicine operates to different paradigms. For the moment the Chinese are building things to our specifications.

But all those factories in Scotland that made alarm clocks in my youth, are gone now, what else is going to be different forty years from now. You should never bet against the Chinese, and you should never bet against change.