A WINDOW OPENS

 

Spent my afternoon watching cricket, women's club cricket to be exact. Quite a high standard and lots of fun. Notice All Saints Church in the background. The bells were ringing for quite a while too. How English can you get?

 Did I mention the draft beer?

 

 

Change of focus because of "reasons" I'm returning to the sash window families I created several years ago during Project Soane. I was quite proud of them at the time, and they have done good service, but there are lots of issues.

Time to step up to the next level. As usual I am taking a modular approach. More variations with less effort. First nested component is called VOID. It's a complex shape and can be swapped out with other variants. In this case there is allowance for a stone sill extending sideways under brick reveals and deep enough to sit under the window frame. It's a walk hosted family with 3 separate voids.

Second component is called FRAME. It's simplified, but it will do for now. Solid sill, weight boxes at the sides, open head, staff bead round all 4 sides. To improve would mean notching out some of the extrusions where they overlap. That can come later.

The fourth image is a Revit project file. Here I collect component variants, plus fully assembled window families. You will notice examples of the nested item called SASH.

 

Last night I went with a close family member to watch a Black Sabbath tribute band. The venue is less than ten minutes walk from my place. What a privelege. I never was a big Sabbath fan, but live music is always a couple of notches above the recorded item, especially in small intimate venues where you can have a drink with a friend.

Earlier in the day I changed the mattress set up on the day bed that I am using in my flat. Out go the two thin items that belong to the frame. In theory, they allowed switching between bed and sofa. In practice that never happened. Too much hassle. So I'm going for a single, thicker mattress and gaining a few inches back into the room. Hopefully the sore chest-muscle issues I've been having since I left Dubai will fade away.

 

Further feedback on my Sash Windows study. I have set up a sheet to get a solid overview of progress. The situation I know best from my own experience is a late Victorian /Edwardian version as found in terraced housing in the north of England.

Nine inch walls (one brick) with internal lime plaster and red face-brick externally. Box frame set into brick reveals and finished with architraves and window board (sill) internally. Usually stone sills externally, full thickness of the wall with stooled ends to support the outer brick leaf.

The box frame is closed at the sides to contain the cast iron counterweights but open at the top. The head could be a flat arch or gently curved, or a stone lintel. Yet to develop these options. I do have a variant from Project Soane, meaning Georgian era. The wall is usually thicker and plastered externally often with classical mouldings.

I will come back to the Soane types once I am happy with the later version, it's constraints and parameters, linked nested components, ease of use and stability. Fairly happy, let's say.

 

 

 

 

BENCH MARK

 

I think this cluster of five mature trees next to the peace garden is a variety of lime. My British Trees app lists three types. I'm guessing there are more.

Now I have a preliminary ID, I can keep them under observation for further clues. I do know that lime wood is highly prized by wood carvers. Wikipedia tells me that the Lime tree is different from the citrus fruit tree with the same name. In Europe it goes by the name Linden and in the US it's called Bass wood. Why didn't I know all this long ago?

Wiki also says there are 30 species of Tilia, which is the botanical name for the Genus. I think this cluster of five mature trees next to the peace garden is a variety of lime. My British Trees app lists three types. I'm guessing there are more.

Now I have a preliminary ID, I can keep them under observation for further clues. I do know that lime wood is highly prized by wood carvers. Wikipedia tells me that the Lime tree is different from the citrus fruit tree with the same name. In Europe it goes by the name Linden and in the US it's called Bass wood. Why didn't I know all this long ago?

Wiki also says there are 30 species of Tilia, which is the botanical name for the Genus.

 

 

We have new recycled plastic benches (with some metal parts) in the park. I'm not going to share a picture because they are quite ugly. The old 'timber slats with cast iron ends' have all gone.

But there are still a few all-timber benches. Most of these seem to be donations, with little metal plaques. The age varies. The older ones have wonderful textures which are hard to capture in a photograph.

I tried using the AI watercolour option and this matches reality in terms of drama and emotional impact, but in a very different way. It's just an experiment, but it reinforces my belief that conveying what we "see" is very different from taking a photograph. That's the job of an artist. To convey something intangible.

 

There are several of these poem fragments in my local park. Pie-shaped slabs of stone inset into the tarmac path with carved letters and small pictorial elements.

I don't know if they were purpose made, or moved from somewhere else. The poems were written at least a century ago and tend to be celebrations of the English countryside.

This one is a lament for a village displaced by gentrification and creation of large landscaped estates in the eighteenth century. Ironically it now sits in the Goldings Estate, now repurposed as War Memorial Park and operated by Basingstoke local government.

So there is a sadness for the lost ways of life but also a joy to live in a place where these traces of deep history are still accessible, an honour to belong to a continuous culture stretching back several centuries.

 

I'm getting quite good at going down rabbit holes. This morning I was working on an excel sheet giving my personal take on plant taxonomy (with a bias towards the UK)

Meanwhile I have a set of folders to organise information on trees I have spotted during my daily walks. To help with identification I have found two programs (an android app and a website) The app is the Woodland Trust guide to British Trees. The website, something called Pl@ntnet. org

The app is great for browsing through and getting an overview of local trees, whether indigenous, or common exotics. Compare overall form, leaf shape, flowers /fruit, and bark. The website allows uploading up to 4 images to a recognition feature. It gives percentage likelihood of the first few possibilities.

By the way, we finally had some rain, not enough but let's not complain.

View from my "office"

 

 

 

FREE PARK-ING

 

I think this cluster of five mature trees next to the peace garden is a variety of lime. My British Trees app lists three types. I'm guessing there are more.

Now I have a preliminary ID, I can keep them under observation for further clues. I do know that lime wood is highly prized by wood carvers. Wikipedia tells me that the Lime tree is different from the citrus fruit tree with the same name. In Europe it goes by the name Linden and in the US it's called Bass wood. Why didn't I know all this long ago?

Wiki also says there are 30 species of Tilia, which is the botanical name for the Genus. I think this cluster of five mature trees next to the peace garden is a variety of lime. My British Trees app lists three types. I'm guessing there are more.

Now I have a preliminary ID, I can keep them under observation for further clues. I do know that lime wood is highly prized by wood carvers. Wikipedia tells me that the Lime tree is different from the citrus fruit tree with the same name. In Europe it goes by the name Linden and in the US it's called Bass wood. Why didn't I know all this long ago?

Wiki also says there are 30 species of Tilia, which is the botanical name for the Genus.

 

We have new recycled plastic benches (with some metal parts) in the park. I'm not going to share a picture because they are quite ugly. The old 'timber slats with cast iron ends' have all gone.

But there are still a few all-timber benches. Most of these seem to be donations, with little metal plaques. The age varies. The older ones have wonderful textures which are hard to capture in a photograph.

I tried using the AI watercolour option and this matches reality in terms of drama and emotional impact, but in a very different way. It's just an experiment, but it reinforces my belief that conveying what we "see" is very different from taking a photograph. That's the job of an artist. To convey something intangible.

 

 

There are several of these poem fragments in my local park. Pie-shaped slabs of stone inset into the tarmac path with carved letters and small pictorial elements.

I don't know if they were purpose made, or moved from somewhere else. The poems were written at least a century ago and tend to be celebrations of the English countryside.

This one is a lament for a village displaced by gentrification and creation of large landscaped estates in the eighteenth century. Ironically it now sits in the Goldings Estate, now repurposed as War Memorial Park and operated by Basingstoke local government.

So there is a sadness for the lost ways of life but also a joy to live in a place where these traces of deep history are still accessible, an honour to belong to a continuous culture stretching back several centuries.

 

I'm getting quite good at going down rabbit holes. This morning I was working on an excel sheet giving my personal take on plant taxonomy (with a bias towards the UK)

Meanwhile I have a set of folders to organise information on trees I have spotted during my daily walks. To help with identification I have found two programs (an android app and a website) The app is the Woodland Trust guide to British Trees. The website, something called Pl@ntnet. org

The app is great for browsing through and getting an overview of local trees, whether indigenous, or common exotics. Compare overall form, leaf shape, flowers /fruit, and bark. The website allows uploading up to 4 images to a recognition feature. It gives percentage likelihood of the first few possibilities.

By the way, we finally had some rain, not enough but let's not complain.

View from my "office"