Waugh Thistleton are a Shoreditch based architecture practice pioneering the construction of tall timber buildings. After researching the topic of building skyscrapers from wood I realised I have actually visited two of their projects.  Firstly, I was able to visit one of their pieces of work at the London Design Festival where their 9m high…

Today we received a lecture from Ben Craven in which he highlighted the usefulness of using feasibility calculations at early stages in the design process.  By carrying out some simple calculations at the concept stage of design, it can enable us to assess whether the project can be a success or not and therefore hopefully…

Blood in the Mobile is a documentary made by Frank Piasecki Poulsen in 2010 that tries to get to the bottom of if his phone company, Nokia are part of the blood mineral trade.  The film is definitely an eye opener and really makes the viewer think about where the materials make up our possessions…

The 2018 film Rams directed by Gary Hustwit is a biographical documentary film about the legendary designer Dieter Rams.  The film made me really respect Rams’ career as it was clear that no one has made such a big impact on the field of product design. The aesthetic of Rams’ designs is iconic and consistently…

25% of Singapore is built on reclaimed land from the ocean and 20% of Tokyo is built on artificial islands.  Given that 90% of the world’s cities are built on the water’s front, expanding cities into the seas, rivers or lakes does make sense.  These developments are incredibly expensive however and often destroy sea life. …

After watching the film Eames: The Architect and The Painter about Charles and Ray Eames, there were a few main thoughts that I had coming away from it, mostly about the differences in the design world today compared to the middle of the 20th century. Firstly, gender roles, this is quite an obvious one and…

I think that many of us think of cities as being polluted, carbon consuming areas, I certainly have spent most of my life so far with this way of thinking. Growing up living in the countryside surrounded by farm land and then in the the suburbs, I remember thinking of cities as cramped and somewhat unpleasant…

The first of our talks on design and technology came from Craig Whittet encouraging the discussion of the demise of skilled, traditional manufacturing techniques and some of the implications of this. One of the areas of manufacturing focused on was shoe manufacturing, an industry that illustrates this change in how goods are manufactured.  Shoe manufacturing…