Sad news from Scotland

Some things are rather more important than politics, and I've been saddened by the news that a fire has damaged a large part of Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art, one of my favourite buildings. Thankfully, no-one seems to have been injured in the blaze.

     

Lots of videos on this page.

Light Relief

I don't want to detract from more serious discussion on the other threads, but I couldn't help but notice this amazing revelation about Ysgol Hendre in Caernarfon.

     

I wonder if it's the only school building in Wales that makes use of natural light.

Oriel Mostyn

The remodelled Oriel Mostyn in Llandudno has won Ellis Williams the Gold Medal for Architecture at this year's National Eisteddfod.

The handsome but hardly spectacular façade of the original building does little to prepare you for the extraordinary dynamics of the new space inside. There are some words about it here, but the pictures tell you what words can't. These are from David Roberts Photography:
 

     

     

     

     

     

Dancing with Nature

In the old days, wind turbines used to look like this. These turbines in the Tehachapi Pass windfarm in California were only built in the 80s.

     

     

Even those who don't like the look of modern wind turbines would have to say that what we have now is a vast improvement on the earlier versions.

-

So it is interesting to read that moves are being made to change another design anachronism, the pylons that carry overhead cables. The RIBA is launching a competition for alternative designs, following the example of Iceland.

     

I don't think it's quite fair to say that Iceland uses these anthropomorphic pylons, they are a conceptual design. And, as we can see from the number of stay cables required to hold the pylons up, it's not a particularly well-conceived solution from a structural point of view. But they are a lot of fun and I particularly like this image:

     

Another weird but wonderful entry was from Arphenotype:

     

     

I'm sure the RIBA competition will produce some equally idiosyncratic designs. But for me, the sort of alternative design that would work best is one of elegant simplicity.

-

This design called Dancing with Nature by Hugh Dutton Associés for the Italian energy company Terna fits that description perfectly, and explains the title of this post.

     

     

     

     

Even the technical detail is fascinating ... well, at least to me. Clicking the images will open a larger version.

     

     

Whatever arguments there might be over where to put power lines and whether or not they should be underground, we would do well to ensure that all future pylons are more like this, rather than keep putting up latticework pylons that have hardly changed since the 20s. As with the design of wind turbines, it's time for us to insist on pylons that might grace rather than spoil our landscape.

Symbolism

I smiled when I noticed this tweet by David Jones:

New Welsh Assembly office in Llandudno Junction looks like a stylised Prince of Wales Feathers from the air.

Well done Dafydd El!

In the same way that a Rorschach ink blot picture says more about the psychological state of the person looking at it than anything objective about the picture itself, this casual observation probably explains why David Jones sees the world so differently from other people.

From my point of view it has a far more obvious and direct meaning. It is the Nod Cyfrin ... the symbol of the Eisteddfod that represents Cariad, Cyfiawnder and Gwirionedd (Love, Justice and Truth) and is worked into the design of every Crown—and Chair—of recent times.
 

     

Well done Austin-Smith:Lord!

Caernarfon Prison design prototype unveiled

There was some discussion about the location of the new prison in North Wales on the Syniadau Forum, but not too much on how it might look.

So the Ministry of Justice, obviously cut to the quick by my comments, here, on design of the new courts centre at Caernarfon, have been quick to react ... unveiling better design standards for the next generation of prisons on S4C last night.

     

For those of you who don't understand Welsh, the presenters were expressing their concerns that PFI and the credit crunch don't conspire to water down the essential design concept when Caernarfon's new prison is built.