Coming Home for Christmas
Coming Home for Christmas I knew it wouldn’t stand the wolf test The third of six posts featuring vikicartoons.
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Valuing the Corner Shop
This is the second of six posts featuring vikicartoons Is the corner shop dead? It’s all Napoleon’s fault! Allegedly he called England a nation of shopkeepers. (‘L’Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers’). Since then, the corner shop has been under siege. Whether Napoleon would have use the same words to describe the English today …
Reclaiming the Streets
This is the first in a six part series featuring the work of vikicartoons. Viki; Reclaiming the Streets; before and after. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the Epoque of belief, it was the Epoque …
Co-Housing: The missing ingredient
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing! Which housing model works best? East End Community Land Trust came into being in 2009 of which I became a founding board member. As a result, I realised there were different models of housing still needing to be properly explored …
How Low Carbon is Swansea Bay?
How Low Carbon is Swansea Bay? This week I gave the keynote talk at a Low Carbon Swansea Bay (LCSB) event. So the question was, how do we reduce the carbon footprint of any city and Swansea in particular? The University of Wales, Trinity St David’s has recently completed a new library building in Swansea’s SA1 …
NHS crisis – an Urban Design crisis?
NHS crisis – an Urban Design crisis? We have a big health issue in the UK. Does urban design and city planning have the answer? When not trying to rewrite legislation for post Brexit, as the Guardian pointed out recently, ‘soaring levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes have strained the (NHS) treatment model to breaking …
From WILD WEST to Buyer Beware
From WILD WEST to Buyer Beware The Wild West! “I take it you’ve never travelled this way before sir? “ The guard has just responded to my query about the location of the power sockets in the carriage as we travel up through the Western Highlands from Glasgow. Stuff it, I’ll have to do everything …
CITY OF CULTURE 2021 where to go when your city doesn’t win?
CITY OF CULTURE 2021 where to go when your city doesn’t win? Coventry has just staged the first UK Shop Front Festival following its winning bid for the City of Culture 2021.Swansea didn’t win the bid and neither did Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and the town of Paisley. The taste is more bitter for Swansea who had …
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Drawing Conclusions
Drawing Conclusions Drawings tell your story more vividly and instantaneously than any amount of text. From Palladio to Gordon Cullen, drawings have either been the anvil on which elaborate architectural conceptions have been forged or the tool to observe and analyse what is; to learn. If you want to engage the people, its drawings every …
An Architectural Dilemma
An Architectural Dilemma This week at tennis as I watch my son from the bench, return the ball over the net one more time, I notice a mother next to me reacting to a certain shot her daughter had successfully made into the court of her opponent. Apparently, this is the daughters return to the …