Alain de Botton’s latest book “Religion for Atheists” was published this week alongside a big media campaign with graphically stunning posters and the seemingly simple question ‘Even if religion isn’t true, can’t we enjoy the best bits? What I find interesting is the connection of a philosophical and maybe political question to an architectural statement.…
Last week I had the unexpected chance to get myself inside one of London’s most iconic buildings: 30 St Mary Axe, Headquarter of Swiss Re, also known as the ‘Gherkin’. Built by Norman Foster at the turn of the century using parametric design and thus a novel technological approach, this building has seen both praise…
Schools are interesting as a building type for a variety of reasons: they have a clear function, i.e. accommodating children and organising teaching and learning; there are clear temporal patterns in usage and stark differences between classroom activities and the times before, after and in between; and the interface of schools is complex, too, in…
Like hundreds of other Londoners, I was curious to see the insides of The Bank of England at this year’s London Open House. And like hundreds of others, I thought it would be a good idea to come early to avoid the historic queues. Well, arriving a mere 7 minutes after official opening on Saturday wasn’t…
The idea of the coffee house as the place to be if you want to get good work done is not new. In his informative TED talk, Steven Johnson highlights the role of the coffee house in the era of enlightenment: a place for people to meet, engage in discussions, think, read and write. Ideas…
Or: The Good, The Bad and The Shiny. Channel 4’s series on ‘The Secret Life of Buildings‘, broadcast in August 2011 is a fascinating inquiry into the way buildings affect people. Three episodes on our homes, our workplaces and places of leisure looked at examples of good design and bad design. I can whole-heartedly approve…
VISITING THE PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS Ever since reading about the fact that defendants keep escaping justice by being able to flee from the Palace of Justice in Brussels (for example in a NY Times article in 2009), I was curious to visit the building. Being in Brussels for a conference in April 2010 meant I could…
spaceandorganisation 