Wednesday, October 9, 2024

HAMPSHIRE WEEK

 

Basingstoke is cold and wet. Just passing through for a week. Amazing how quickly we adapt to a new routine, new surroundings, new climate. All the little details of life are different here, but it soon feels like home.

Took a walk down to Top of the Town. So many buildings in this area still have traces of the old oak framing that was once the height of modern technology. Evidence of West Saxon origins, the old kingdom of Wessex. Ghosts in the walls and in the language. Windows and doors blocked up and moved countless times. Shifts in the vowel sounds. Old meanings forgotten. Words compressed.

The new artificial lenses in my eyes are part amazing, part frustrating. I can see individual leaves on the trees at the other side of the park, but I need reading glasses to type this on my phone. Life moves on. Each moment is precious because it is connected through our memories and imagination to a vast web of stories. For me those stories mostly revolve around buildings. They form the backbone of my conceptual world.

A thousand stories could be told about this one image. From the lichen on the plain clay roof tiles, to the coal-soot on the chimney cowls, to the security cameras sprouting from the walls like mushrooms.

Good to be back.

 



 Following on from yesterday's post about a Basingstoke roofscape: (Top of the Town viewed through my new artificial lenses) I was taken back to my 2017 visit, and an outing to The Vyne, a country house just to the North.

The roof was under renovation, which gave me the privilege of climbing the scaffold and seeing the innards exposed. Evidence again of a couple of centuries of evolution in form technique and materials. A transition also from the vernacular of master carpenter to the studied classical vision shared by gentleman patrons and their chosen architects.

Plain clay tiles again, hand-made with matching hips and ridges. Chimneys from the time when wood was still the primary fuel although coal would have begun to compete on price in London based on transport costs. A house that changed hands after the English Civil War, power shifting from the old catholic noble families to the lawyers and merchants of London.

Perhaps that shift brought in a move to a purer classical style, demoting the master craftsman and inserting sculptor-architects who shared their patrons' passion for ancient Rome.

 



Typical UK weather, as in you never know what to expect. Cool and crisp today but dry with bright sunshine at times.

The shopping centre at Basingstoke isn't ground-breaking architecture, but it's a good enough mixture of fun and amenity to attract shoppers day in, day out. Half the fun of shopping is the buzz of other shoppers all around. So it works, which is far more important than architectural awards.

In the evening, an impromptu meet up with my old friend Kamran and a walkabout in Whitchurch. I've beenp talking about the local tradition of heavy oak framing in the last couple of posts. This gable end is a nice example. The pegs that signal mortice and tenon joints are well expressed. I also appreciate the natural grey of the wood.

You have to call this a vernacular, artisan tradition. Very different from the paper designs inspired by classical precedent that gradually took over. Architects with academic training and no experience "on the tools" laying down the law for mere builders to follow.

There's no going back, but it's interesting to see the traces of this fundamental shift, locked in to the building stock of so many small towns and villages around here.

 



I never got very far, reading my copy of Lewis Mumford's most famous book. Is that the book or is it me? That uncertainty has kept it out of the suitcase trip to my retirement flat (so far)

I looked in vain for a copy on Kindle but bought instead one of his shorter works. I found it an easier read and quite intriguing. An account of American buildings making the transition from craft tradition to self-conscious architecture. Presented as an echo of the same transition that took place in England a century or so earlier.

 

 

"educated eighteenth-century gentlemen, (with) one foot in their own age, and the other in the grave of Rome. (exemplified by Thomas Jefferson in the USA)"

"It was the Revolution itself, I believe, that turned the classical taste into a myth which had the power to move men."

"the work is not the product of a specialized education; it is rather the outcome of a warm, loving, and above all intelligent... and precise interest in classical forms."

The Vyne captures this transition rather well with its classical portico set against more pragmatic earlier work.  Was it the English revolution also that marked the end of the medieval world and the emergence of an "age of reason" inspired by ancient Rome. I used to wonder about the odd, hybrid forms of Tudor & Elizabethan architecture but perhaps they make more sense as creations of the old Master-Builder class, before the gentleman-architect came to prominence.  Not that one is better than the other, just that both reflect the way that the society and economy of England was evolving.

Then, according to Mumford, their is a kind of recapitulation in American history with the transition from frontier society to urban civility also marked by a civil war. 

It's an interesting framing

 


 

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

DXB-LHR-TPA

 

Andy through the Taxi Glass. These four snaps capture the journey back from American Hospital to International City which I have made many times in the last two years. Mostly routine visits, a couple of low-risk procedures, and one scary diagnosis which turned out to be not so scary.

It's a typical slice of Dubai : gleaming high-rise projects, lots of tower cranes, highways and flyover, then light industrial suburbs and mid-range residential that passes unnoticed much of the time.

I'm trying to remember back to the time when these sorts of views felt exciting and exhilarating. The whole ambience is totally different from either Zimbabwe or UK. The human species so readily adapts to new environments. It's all very familiar and comforting now, floating past as I sit in the back seat.

Such a privilege to have split my life between these three countries. Distance vision coming into sharp focus, both literally and figuratively.


Not at all sure what to think about these drawings. It was a second year studio project I think. Interesting brief. I remember we went out to look at a couple of motorway service stations as part of the briefing process. I was already going way out on a limb, for whatever reason. Mostly just exploring the boundaries I think. Trying to find something to believe in.

The crudeness of the drawings is quite shocking really. Although it's not quite fair to compare this to the output of computer literate students of recent years. I could draw, but I don't think I was putting the time in and I certainly didn't bother much with drawing boards. I suspect I was aiming at a certain deliberate spontaneity bordering on the naive.

 


 

 
Twenty years later (when I had actually read Venturi and seen the woeful influence of his polemics on South African architecture) I came out strongly against the Post Modern fashion that had swept through architecture schools. But when I made these drawings I just thought we were being radical. Doing for architecture what David Hockey had done for painting.

But what is it that connects the young idealist of more than 50 years ago to the grandfather with a passion for BIM and history living alone out in the desert? They are both me. I suppose it's the journey of life that connects them.

Such a winding road.

 



A wonderful place, inspiring project, superb little film. Well done guys! Brings back so many memories of the time that I attended the workshop and made my own small contribution to this epic exploration of history.

I only managed to attend once but it was such an inspiring visit. This project meshes so well with my life-long passion for understanding history through the prism of "the way we build" A great team. Proud to have played a part.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mT1lY032wY

 

I will soon be heading to the US and attending Autodesk University. Looking forward to connect with many old friends and in particular the Volterra group who will have an exhibit this year.

Events beyond my control have prevented me from attending the Reality Capture workshop for a second time. Let's see what the future will bring. The first visit sparked off a lot of activity which can be found on my blog. One branch of that work was the modelling of San Giusto, a church that sits outside the medieval wall, but within the Etruscan boundary.

 

 

 
My term for this is "Rustic Baroque" . The interior exhibits the flowing space typical of Baroque churches, especially in the treatment of the ceiling,which is quite tricky to model in Revit.

Every now and then I spend a weekend or two pushing this model a bit further along. This could involve hardcore modelling, or it could focus on developing the sheet set. As with my other work under the rubric of "The Way We Build" I try to juxtapose model views with photographs taken on sight and personal reflections on the meaning of the building to me as representation of its own place and time.

 



Monday, September 30, 2024

TWENTY TWENTY

 

Just as I am sorting through 20 years plus accumulation of books and looking to move towards the last major transition of my life, out come these articles and blog posts.  In recent years, GAJ has had a very dynamic PR department, keeping the firm in the public eye, and motivating us to take pride in our company.  This is a blog post to celebrate my 20 year milestone

 



“Love That Design” coordinated with Elaine to write an article about my 20 years in Dubai. This was to be one of the last acts of her time running our PR dept.  She did a wonderful job in that role and became a special friend.  Wishing her health and happiness as she moves back to UK.

 

Rather bowled over by this article about me. Very well put together. It's been an amazing journey (so far) and I'm looking forward to making another transition over the next couple of years.

Thank you to everyone who has been with me along the way.
😁

 

https://www.lovethatdesign.com/article/andrew-milburn-having-bim-and-design-specialistsits-an-awful-disconnect/

 

Before and after cataract surgery. Looking forward to walking around without glasses in the near future. It's a common thing for people of my age and I wanted to get it done while I'm still on private medical insurance.

No disrespect to the NHS which is a wonderful thing in many ways, but I have heard that there are long queues for many procedures. Some suggested a 12 month wait for this type of operation. Took just 2 weeks to set it up at the American Hospital Dubai who have also been handling my prostate cancer treatment.

Great ambience, top class doctors and nurses, plus my favourite breakfast menu at the Plaza Cafe 🤣🤣🤣

 

 

When I started to use Sketchup, (2002?) I had already decided on "The Way We Build" as the title for a series of books. The idea was to continue the work of the textbooks I had worked on for Secondary School building students during my three years with the Curriculum Development Unit in Zimbabwe. But the subject matter was to be extended now that I had reverted to a career in architecture.

Unfortunately the demands of returning to a profession at the age of 40 didn't leave time for more than a few exploratory notes and sketches. But the power of that title sustained me in collecting images and data, formulating thoughts and dreaming dreams for the next 30 years. It burst out in my enthusiasm for Project Soane, a competition to reconstruct the Bank of England as it was 200 years ago, using Revit.

 




And that spirit was given a new boost after the fire at Notre Dame de Paris, when a small group of Revit enthusiasts coalesced around my tentative first steps and embarked on a collaborative model of the cathedral on BIM360.

So "The Way We Build" has become a slogan, in my mind, to represent a personal research effort over several decades, linking together my years as a bricklayer, my work as a teacher of Building Studies, my career as an architect and BIM addict, and my travels to various parts of the world to look at buildings that express different human cultures.