SOUTHAMPTON SLUGS

 I've been quiet since I got back from UK. A combination of factors. Disrupted sleep patterns, some routine medical stuff, and I'm kind of bogged down on the Hampshire Churches project.

Well not exactly bogged down, but definitely facing a long hard slog. It's easy enough to collect 20% of the data and set up sheets that look quite impressive. Collecting the rest, chasing down errors and conflicts, then tidying everything up... That takes much more time and the effect on the sheets seems minimal compared to the extra effort.

So I've just been putting in a few hours each day, as energy permits, thinking about a post from time to time, but in the end deciding to just buckle down to the routine effort. Gathering data on 400+ churches, a few at a time. Gradually filling out the map and the schedules.

Am I past half way? I certainly hope so because the mapping stage is just the beginning. I need to select at least 10% of the data set and do some modeling. Did I bite off too much? I don't think so. At least I have no regrets. This is a terrific way to learn.

 

 

Southampton. I can't remember whether I ever visited as a child. Looking forward to two or three day-trips down there by train and bus probably. Explore a few churches, get a feel for the place. That will be over the next year or so, hopefully.

I have two main sheets to define my area of study. For the most part there is space to tag the "pin" that marks the position of each church along with an image. But in a dense urban area like Southampton the churches are too close together, so I'm setting up third sheet for these.

The map begins as a highly abstracted set of shapes, a bit like the underground map for London. As the work proceeds I am adding more detail wherever it seems important to give context to the church locations. Step by step. Learning as I go. History and geography. Fascinating stories.  Sharing this work with a small audience keeps me motivated, provides essential feedback and opens up the possibility of others building on my efforts in the future.

 

 

These pics are from before I went to UK. Exercises in curtain-paneling-by-pattern that I upgraded and uploaded to ACC. I called this “the slug” and it was inspired by Zach Kron. If you divide a torus with rectangular panels, each ring around the donut contains identical components. You can then slice that torus in a way that makes it look more “nurbsy” than it really is. There will be a bunch of on-offs at the cuts of course but still a substantial amount of repetition, giving a nod towards affordability.

 

Of course I then went ahead and introduced pyramids of different heights, once again reducing the repetition factor. I was exploring Revit schedule to Excel workflows in those days to automate the randomizing. You can control it so there are only 3 or 4 different heights. Anyway, that was a brief interlude in my overall history and I haven’t done this kind of thing for a long time. I’m sure the younger guys are using a completely different approach to achieve these whacky concepts now.

 

My hope is that by packaging up 15 years of blog explorations into the cloud, Daniel and perhaps a few other close friends, can help me to pass this work on to future generations. I know that a few students have been inspired by my blog over the years, so it would be nice to keep that going. Not necessarily the most amazing work Revit/BIM work out there, but I think I have followed an unusual path. What did Frank say?

"I did it my way."

 

 

 

 

BONDING FOR HEALTH

 This is a section of brickwork from the village of Buckler's Hard. Soft red bricks laid in Flemish Bond result in a very warm and attractive wall surface.

As a former bricklayer (of sorts) my eye immediately scans a wall like this looking for anomalies. It's pretty much a subconscious process by now, with conscious reflection on whatever I find.

 

 

The blue cross marks a typical example. The bond has been lost resulting in a space too big for a header where the two bricklayers working from either end meet up. You could remove part of that course and redo it with slightly larger joints, but the solution used here is to substitute small three-quarter bricks for the expected header.

You could see this as a mistake or you could embrace it as part of the informal "hand-made" look of a rustic cottage. Take your pick. 🤔

 

Two brick pier in English Bond, that classic of strength and stability. It just happens to have a quiet beauty also in the rhythm of headers and queen closers alternating wlth the simplicity of two stretchers. And it's actually the same course rotated by 90 degrees every time.

Add to this the gorgeous curves of a well proportioned stone capping. There's just a hint of the baroque about this one, to my eye at least. And how about the gate? Cast finials, forged scrolls, nice and chunky.

I'm sure there is modern work that matches this in its blend of form, function and materials: but remember this is just a run-of-the-mill Board School in a back street of what was then a small market town. Judge an architectural style by it's humblest examples.

The many flavours of classicism score quite highly by that measure. That's my view.

 

 

Second session with my Slovenian physiotherapist today, training my sense of balance. It also involves strengthening my legs and core. Everything is connected right? Never really a single issue or cause with a silver bullet solution.

I have been aware of balance issues for two or three years now, especially since I started on the hormone therapy. Maybe it's one of the side effects of ultra-low testosterone. But if it sends the cancer to sleep that's OK with me.

Hopefully this is the last of the therapies I need to learn to keep my issues in check moving into retirement (fascitis, lower back pain, balance) Maybe not, but it's a good start. The Arabic coffee and dates are complimentary, served up by a guy in local dress at the entrance to outpatients.

The brown paper bag has two healthy salads from the coffee shop. Just another visit to American Hospital Dubai, my home from home.

 

 

HARD SLUG

Yesterday was a meetup with my cousin after far too long. He took me to Bucklers Hard, a village on the Beaulieu River which used to build warships back in the days of Lord Nelson. Fascinating to see how such a modest place could be producing cutting edge naval technology 250 years ago, just around the time that the industrial revolution was starting to get a grip on cotton spinning much further north.

Looking at the scale model it becomes easier to understand the wide space between the houses. Of course it's an imaginative reconstruction, but it makes a lot of sense, sets the brain to working. Which a museum should do.

 

It's sad for such a busy working centre of skilled craft to be reduced to a tourist attraction, but that's how things go.  All the same, I do hope that there will be a resurgence of new buildings built by hand with time-worn skills comparable to those that were omnipresent even a hundred years ago.  Maybe the long-promised emergence of universal plenty will unlock that potential? Or maybe not.  Could just as easily be that doing drugs and playing online games/ scrolling TikTok will be the dominant way of life.

 

The other pics are from before I went to UK. Exercises in curtain-paneling-by-pattern that I upgraded and uploaded to ACC.  I called this “the slug” and it was inspired by Zach Kron. If you divide a torus with rectangular panels, each ring around the donut contains identical components. You can then slice that torus in a way that makes it look more “nurbsy” than it really is.  There will be a bunch of on-offs at the cuts of course but still a substantial amount of repetition, giving a nod towards affordability.

 

Of course I then went ahead and introduced pyramids of different heights, once again reducing the repetition factor. I was exploring Revit schedule to Excel workflows in those days to automate the randomizing. You can control it so there are only 3 or 4 different heights.  Anyway, that was a brief interlude in my overall history and I haven’t done this kind of thing for a long time. I’m sure the younger guys are using a completely different approach to achieve these whacky concepts now.

My hope is that by packaging up 15 years of blog explorations into the cloud, Daniel and perhaps a few other close friends, can help me to pass this work on to future generations. I know that a few students have been inspired by my blog over the years, so it would be nice to keep that going. Not necessarily the most amazing work Revit/BIM work out there, but I think I have followed an unusual path.  What did Frank say?

I did it my way.