London Sound Survey-Sounds of London

http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/projects/12_tones_intro/

There are over 1,000 recordings of London life on the London Sound Survey website, plus sound maps, historical references to past London sounds, and some original 1930s and 1940s radio broadcasts. 

All the recordings (which are safely stored in the sound cloud )are Creative Commons-licensed which makes them available for NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY. All you have to do under the terms of the license is include an acknowledgement and a link to the London Sound Survey website at www.soundsurvey.org.uk.

Elements from the  London Sound Survey also feature  on These Are The Good Times LP published on the Vittelli label  and on  issue 6 of An Antidote To Indifference.

Ian Rawes who compiled the The London Sound Survey works at the British Library sound archive and this collection of sounds  is the result of his explorations of the world of Field recordings and acoustic ecologists . His own recordings employ a variety of professional, home made, and adapted devices .

Other websites featuring different ways of perceiving 'the city'
 urban75, Classic Cafes, Derelict London, Subterranea Britannica and Spitalfields Life



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Product Designs: It's Nice That

BSG's WOOD.b bike

I was looking for a good selection of Product design images and came across It's Nice That.

"Founded in 2007, It’s Nice That is a publishing platform that encompasses several different online, print and events offerings as part of its mission of championing creativity across the art and design world".

The website, updated daily with at least nine new articles has an international readership of around 350,000 unique users a month. They publish a quarterly magazine Printed Pages and The Annual which rounds up some 150 of the most interesting projects to feature on the site in a single year. Their events programme includes annual creative symposium Here and monthly Nicer Tuesdays talks.

First Broadcast is their audio visual site for hosting original content, Company of Parrots a shop for specially-commissioned products and This At There is a dedicated arts and design exhibition listings guide to London. The Jobsboard connects employers and jobseekers in the creative industries.

enjoy great contemporary designs under the following categories

Advertising

Animation

Architecture

Art

Events

Exhibition

Fashion

Film

Furniture Design

Graphic Design

Illustration

Interactive

Miscellaneous

Music

Photography

Product Design

Publication

Sculpture

Set Design

Web

Cardiff again!

Don't forget we have a fabulous Public Library here in Cardiff. The Central Library in town has been named one of the top libraries in the world as well as one of the greenest buildings. To join all you need to do is turn up with one form of identification. If you're already a member of another library service in Wales, England, or Northern Ireland, you can join Cardiff Libraries simply by presenting your existing valid library card.
As well as including 90,000 books, the Central library  has a white concert grand piano, which if you know how to, you are allowed to play for free, there are plenty of music scores to choose from if you do. There is a also a good DVD and music library and childrens section.
Electronic resources that can be searched in the library include Which? online and Grove Art Online. On the 5th floor there is a Local Studies Library with books and maps and photographs galore on Wales and Cardiff.

Thomas Heatherwick: the Cauldron and a Retrospective

The English designer takes Steve Rose through his retrospective show Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary, which runs at London's V&A until 30 September

Thomas Heatherwick is a designer architect from London and the man behind the Olympic Cauldron.

 The cauldron was lit on 27 July at the end of the end of the Olympics opening ceremony, which was directed by Danny Boyle.
The design of the cauldron had been one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the opening ceremony. When the competing delegations arrived in London, they each received a copper petal, inscribed with the name of their country and the words ‘XXX Olympiad London 2012’. They carried these petals into the stadium during the opening ceremony before laying them down on the cauldron. When all the petals had been laid down, the seven torchbearers each ignited a single tiny flame within one of the copper petals on the ground, triggering the ignition of all 204 petals. The Cauldron’s long, stainless-steel stems then rose towards each other and converged to form one single flame.
Lots more on Heatherwick here
The cauldron being lit here

Green Building Standard 'The Living Building Challenge' wins award

The Living Building Challenge has won the 2012Buckminster Fuller Challenge an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.

Published by The International Living Future Institute,  a non-governmental organization (NGO) in America The Living Building Challenge is an intensive green building standard that seeks to define the highest possible level of environmental performance.

Whether the project is a single building, a park, a college campus or even a complete neighborhood community, Living Building Challenge provides a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all aspects of the built environment.It has five imperatives, each of which has to be met and maintained for a full 12 months before a building can be certified as “living.” Those imperatives are as follows: a building has to generate all of its own, renewable energy on-site; a living building has to capture and treatall of its own water; only non-toxic and sustainably-sourced construction materials may be used; buildings have to be placed on already-developed sites in order to reduce urban sprawl; and finally, a living building must be beautiful and inspiring to its occupants and others.
More than 140 projects have registered around the world since the Challenge was first released as a certification program in 2006

To celebrate the Olympic year of 2012, a temporary building a one-bedroom boat, the Roi des Belges, by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with Fiona Banner has been installed on the roof above the Queen Elizabeth Hall.The building was picked as the winner in an open competition run by Living Architecture and Artangel, in association with the Southbank Centre
The riverboat building was inspired by the riverboat, the Roi des Belges, captained by Joseph Conrad whilst in the Congo in 1890, a journey echoed in his most famous work Heart of Darkness.

There is a deck, a crow's nest, a cabinet of visual curios - and a bed which slides on rails to make the most of the view over London: a panorama that stretches from Big Ben to St Paul's cathedral. An octagonal library with a curated selection of books and with twin desks looking out across the river enables visitors to use the Room as a studio space.

A range of writers, musicians and artists have been invited to stay in A Room for London, using their time there to create new works or performances. During the year the room  will transmit a programme of writing, performance and music.

Podcasts of the music, text and artworks are available to view from here
Fiona Banner’s work for the Room was  a film of a one-off performance of Orson Welles' unmade film Heart of Darkness The screenplay was performed in its entirety on board the Roi des Belges by the actor Brian Cox and is available on the website here until June 30^th

Damien Hirst, (eco-) property developer

ARTIST Damien Hirst who has been valued at £215 million has unveiled plans to build more than 500 landmark eco-homes in Ilfracombe, which he hopes will regenerate the town and provide a national blueprint for environmental housing.
The plans involve utilising land at Winsham Farm, which has been owned by Hirst for the past ten years, as well as nearby Channel Farm and Bowden Farm.
Mr Rundell said the houses would be modern in design and could incorporate state of the art environmental features such as photovoltaic panels, concealed wind turbines in the roofs and increased insulation.
"If we are committed to doing this as Damien wants it, it will happen. Damien is a man who gets things done."

Damien Hirst's latest exhibition, The Complete Spot Paintings, will be held at all 11 Gagosian Galleries across the world. Here's a selection of the works, which the Guardian has provided in a slideshow here

Product information for architecture and construction

Just added to the Subject Guide for Architecture and Construction on the UWIC Learning portal (for staff  and students at UWIC only) are links to two websites offering free product information for architects and the construction industry.
These are the websites (everyone can view these)

• RIBA Product Selector offers a  database with information about building products , NBS specification information and RIBA CPD providers with free access to product catalogues, technical documents and contact information of 10261 UK manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, trade associations and construction service providers.
• Barbour Product Search  offers an extensive and up-to-date database of manufacturer and product profiles, with images, case studies, technical data and catalogues.

Ecobuild-the future of design,construction and the built environment

Ecobuild is the world’s largest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. Starting today and running until 3 March the conference features more than 600 speakers, 1300 exhibitors, 130 seminars and a packed programme of live demonstrations. If you can't make it to this free event (it's at the ExCeL exhibition and conference centre at the heart of the new Green Enterprise District in London’s Docklands) you can still explore the website and read the  Ecobuild blog on which  a panel of leading thinkers and doers, from around the industry share their views on the latest news and events every week.

Plans for Stonehenge

It has long been a common complaint that a visit to Stonehenge is not as soulful an experience as it should by rights be. The best view was always from afar. As one drew near the stones lost their aura and became somehow disappointing, sat by the side of the road and the visitor centre as they were. The architectural practice Denton Corker Marshall, which won the competition to build a new centre , proposes to construct a building 2 km from the Stones that will not be visible from the monument. This webpage features a video which with the magic of digital editing literally wipes away the roads currently near it and leaves Stonehenge to once more impose itself on the landscape. This webpage as well as relating the travails of funding such a large project also posits a new theory on how the stones were moved 150 miles from the Preselli hills to Wiltshire.

Beauty in the city

There are 35 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England. But 90% of us live in towns and cities and most people rarely get out and visit them. So CABE ran a photo competition to find ‘Areas of Outstanding Urban Beauty’. This Flickr set contains all entries to the competition.