Almost any building you care to point to has its own story and identity. Whether it's an architect trying to get one over a competitor, an architect trying to outdo him or herself, or an architect responding to some social or physical constraint, there is personality in every pane of glass, every steel support, and every brick or block of limestone.
Read MoreDriving Up Quality: Are We Due an Emissions Scandal in New Homes?
Once the full extent of the VW scandal became clear, it was not uncommon to hear suggestions that the performance of buildings - and housing specifically - should be highlighted as a similar scandal in an effort to raise public awareness.
How outraged were people really, though?
Read MoreClimate Change Protests: Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?
We can all reel off topics we think should have been taught at school. Subjects that might have made finding our way in the world that little bit easier; that would have been more relevant to our everyday lives. Mortgage interest rates over quadratic equations, that kind of thing. Is it time building performance became one of those subjects?
Read MoreWhat I Worry About When I Talk About Thinking
Being open, being vulnerable, is phenomenally difficult. Even more difficult than we often acknowledge. You can think you’ve got it cracked, only to come up against fresh obstacles and new insecurities - or the exact same old ones, just in a different guise.
Read MoreWhat I Think About When I Worry About Talking (4)
The optimism communicated by much of the book is infectious. Its compelling arguments for a brighter future almost help you to forget chapter one’s alarming summary of how it will take nothing less than significant action to avoid reaching a tipping point for the climate in 20 or 30 years.
Read MoreWhat I Think About When I Worry About Talking (3)
Why can’t I do that?
Maybe because I’m not interested in fine art and haven’t held a paintbrush since finishing a mediocre watercolour of an Italian villa for a school art exam when I was 14?
Why do I do this to myself?
Read MoreWhat I Think About When I Worry About Talking (2)
One of the attractions of the authentic diner experience is that ritual of having your coffee cup repeatedly topped up. On my first morning in Chicago last autumn, taking a seat in the Sweet Maple Cafe, I realised I could partake in that ritual. There was just one problem: I don’t like coffee.
Read MoreWhat I Think About When I Worry About Talking (1)
Our chats were stimulating and inspiring, taking me on rare conversational journeys and making me give voice to my own ideas and beliefs. Having settled into something of a comfortable routine recently, writing only for work, those two conversations left me compelled to commit thoughts to paper. They also left me with an altered perspective.
Read MoreWhen the Dust Refuses to Settle
Remember that this advice comes from people just as flawed as you. We do our best to practice what we preach. We don’t always succeed. But we’re better for trying, and knowing how good the benefits feel inspires us to keep going.
Read MoreReflecting on Man Up
When I told my brother I'd started rehearsals for the performance, he said, "It's not something I'd have expected you to do." He wasn't the only one. But I'd been with Man Up the whole way and, if I'd departed from it at the last, there was no excuse I could have given that I'd ever have been happy or comfortable with.
Read MoreBuilding Homes of the Future Today
People are fallible. Daily life and unexpected changes in routine get in the way. We put things off for a minute, and a minute turns into an hour or two or more. We forget to open windows, or we open them and we forget to close them again. We can learn to use an overly-complicated letterbox, but we struggle to operate our buildings properly.
Read MoreHow are you today?
Appearing vulnerable, especially in certain social circles or in the workplace, is something that many of us feel we can’t do. We may not recognise the feelings to give proper voice to them, but that only makes it more important to be honest with the people around us.
Read MoreHealth warnings for buildings?
It's perfectly possible to construct buildings resilient enough to face this oncoming challenge, but the sad truth is that few are. There shouldn't be an excuse, but that's a post for another time. The even greater challenge is retrofitting existing buildings in a sensitive and holistic way to provide them with that resiliency.
Read MoreRaw Craft and Raw Emotion
Usually, my reaction to celebrity deaths reported in the news is one of detachment. It says a lot, then, that I was genuinely moved and taken aback by Bourdain's death last week. The world felt a poorer place; I felt upset and vulnerable. This didn't seem like something that should have happened to the person I saw in that video.
Read MoreMaking Yourself 'At Home'
The development of homes from single-roomed halls in which every household activity took place to multi-roomed houses is particularly fascinating. In the larger houses of the very wealthy, kitchens and dining rooms would be so far apart that one stately home owner resorted to installing a railway in his property in an effort to deliver food to the table while it was still warm.
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