My night at Maud's

"The philosophic conversations between a Catholic and a Marxist and Maud, a freethinker, in Clermont-Ferrand in the winter, as well as their love stories".

What you might expect from French new wave!
Re-release of 1969 Eric Rohmer French classic currently on at the BFI.

Quilts!

Quilts + maps + architecture = Haptic Lab
London version in pink.
(via)

FUSE

The Royal Parks hosted their first festival for young people yesterday.
All day at FUSE in Kensington Gardens asking young folk to design birdhouses! Guvenc from Fal Studio explained geometric shapes. Tate, Serpentine and the Photographer's Gallery led other workshops. Why weren't these free events on offer when I was growing up?!

Apple Meadow Orchard

Illustrations by Anna Emilia
A fairytale illustrated biography

Visit The Blue Hour. Photographs to make you beam and transport you to the seaside.

The Stirling Prize Nominees

Will Zaha finally get the prize? RIBA's Stirling Prize nominations announced today.
(Image: Zaha Hadid's museum in Rome)

Glass blower

The simplicity of Bella Hawkes' beautiful glass designs is deceptive. She wants us to focus on the interior volume of object, a glass blowing technique that is highly complex to realise. The Rachel Whiteread of glass? Luminous.
(Thanks Jessame)

Duvet day please?

(via)

Review of 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces

My review of the fab V&A exhibition featured on Kultureflash

Nineteen international architects were invited by the V&A to develop designs that explore the notions of retreat and refuge. Seven of the resulting "havens" have been built and are currently dotted around the museum's staircases, galleries and garden. So where can we retreat to? The response is far from the series of cabanons one might expect and includes a "floating" tea-house (Terunobu Fujimori), a book tower with 6,000 titles (Rintala Eggertsson Architects) and a transparent inside/outside tree (Sou Fujimoto). All at a reduced scale, the constructions have allowed the architects to experiment with proportion and materials, while enabling the visitor to interact truly with architecture rather than simply glancing at scale drawings. It is an architecture exhibition at its most playful and tactile. Intriguingly, Carlos Teixeira's shelter, Spiral Booths, is informed by the word "to retreat" as a verb, implying falling back -- which does much to explain the intense installation and performances by Seven Sisters Group and The Lab Theatre Collective. Climb a ladder to the proposed sanctuaries and keep an eye out for future exhibitions curated by Abraham Thomas, who going by this is one to watch.
NB: runs till 30/08. Woodshed jazz improvisation sessions take place every Friday till 23/07 in the Porter Gallery, Spiral Booth performances run from now till 25/07 and Friday Late Summer Camp hosts events from carpentry workshops to singing around a campfire in true DIY style on 30/07 and 31/07.

the week that was

It's been a week for some of my close friends and people I love. Lots of 'I have news' phone calls. Holding my breath right now.
I've had the average week of teaching 13 year old girls about regeneration in Peckham. And being called Miss. I kept trying to keep control of the class by putting my hands in the air, closing my eyes and saying Shh as if we were in a library. Possibly not the most effective approach! Rescue remedy needed.
(top image via )

Brighton in the summer

All the ingredients: Duke of York picturehouse, supper at the Gingerman, D went running on the seafront while I ambled around the North Laines in search of seaside anthems. One question however: when did Brighton become only stag night and hen territory. Let's share the space, ok?


Colourful lunch at Bill's.

cycle across town

Saw a series of bike hire points outside the Langham. Just need the bicycles with their mildly prominent Barclays branding. The scheme is launching this month.

Tools for Living

Chef knives, pots and pans, door handles, bathroom taps. A (hefty coffee table book) celebration.

Design*Sponge's Living In series

Guess the film
Clue: well la di da.

1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces

"Using the landscape of the Museum as a test site, the V&A invited nineteen architects to submit proposals for structures that examine notions of refuge and retreat.

A shift in scale towards smaller, bespoke structures encourages a heightened sensitivity to materials, texture and proportion. A renewed clarity emerges, allowing architects a freedom of expression that often struggles to survive in larger building projects".

Friday off this week so heading to the V&A for their latest exhibition.
(image: Beetle’s House, Terunobu Fujimori)

Basil and persian lime

Rococo chocolate bars. New painted packaging reminds me of the Bloomsbury group.

Last weekend: London Festival of Architecture

My profile on Kultureflash

Bankside Urban Forest (03/07 and 04/07)
This festival is an invitation to be part of London's developments, going beyond buildings. Taking the lead from Witherford Watson Mann Architects' Bankside Urban Forest scheme, LFA's final weekend focuses on the stretch of city from the South Bank along to Elephant & Castle. The architects' scheme proposes improvements to the public realm amongst a redeveloped Elephant & Castle and a regenerated Bankside. A derelict car park on Union Street will be transformed into an idyllic urban orchard with Wayward Plant Registry's plant adoption and exchange programme taking residency over the weekend. View a live build project (a new performance medium?) as German architects Kobberling & Kaltwasser construct a theatre from recycled and found materials. NEO Bankside has commissioned a model of Tate Modern made entirely of sugar cubes at 100:1 scale, and a visit to Tooley Street for Moss Your City at The Architecture Foundation's HQ is highly recommended. There will be a series of walks, talks and hard-hat opportunities to experience the diversity (and biodiversity) of this area in transition.

Fantabulous Moira (centre) and the Urban Orchard team.