Hay Bales

Need to source some Hay Bales for alternative seating for Speaker's Crescent.
Any ideas? Yes, I've been in touch with Hackney City Farm.
(Image via Kat Heyes

Peonies

Peonies in bloom. A suprise package at 66 Portland Place.
Thank you D!

Bricolage

Bricolage Project: a collective of textile designers
Their pop-up shop at last December's Brixton market was a treat of fabrics, quilting and screen prints. Lovely feature in May's Elle Decoration.
Polly Burton's tree print on fabric happily hangs in my hallway.

Small plea. Lantana salads. Less onion - spring and red
(I need to get on twitter)

Martinis

Make your own martini bar via Sunday Suppers.
Dad, enjoy!

Forgotten Spaces

RIBA London's Forgotten Spaces exhibition opens tomorrow at the National Theatre.
Spent the morning with a paint brush helping out the designers George and Lucas. And yes they like that film from the 70s.

Architectural Association Festival

The distinctions between art and architecture often blur but what about art + architecture + performance + politics? Architectural Association’s interdisciplinary studio (AAIS) are in the midst of
Seed to Scene - Salon 2010, a two week programme of events in which genres across the creative industries collide. Seed to Scene is a collaborative affair with a look at how performance is shaped by spatial perimeters through site specific dance pieces. Intriguingly, the programme is a provocation to support UK creative industries that strengthen the economy by a staggering £50 billion a year. A debate was held last week with Think Tank and New Deal of the Mind to hash out the recent Arts Council report Creative Survival in Hard Times. Highlights this week include a conversation with filmmaker Tal Rosner and a discussion entitled RISK that will give insights into how these genres reinforce and heighten each other’s ‘seedling’ ideas and will also investigate what obstacles the young and the creative are facing today.

London Festival of Architecture Flag

Soon we will be flying the flag from RIBA HQ. Next step a blimp?

Olympic Park tour

9am Stratford for an Olympic Park tour. We all clambered on the school bus and surveyed the (construction) site.
Designing for legacy. Some sites will be flat-packed after the basketball finishes and shipped to Rio for Olympics 2016. Apparently.
(images on today's Guardian)

Happy weekend

It's 3.55pm but let's declare it the weekend. Alex Katz is speaking on Sunday at the Whitechapel and plans for a Columbia Road flower market gallivant.
(image via)

Polish architecture talk

My profile on Kultureflash

morning news

I read The Times every morning. And I read my friend Natasha Solomons. I like cakes. I like when all three combine and morning news involves baumtorte.

Bicycles

New coffee shop in Clerkenwell. Bike friendly with cycle parking in the courtyard.
Look Mum no hands!
(Adeline Adeline via SeaSaw Designs)

A new type of bicycle lane?
(via swissmiss)

Table tennis

And no, it's not called ping pong.
The beautiful game is gaining the profile it deserves outside of China courtesy of Boris. This summer, Ping London will see 100 tables at key London sites; Trafalgar Square, Heathrow’s terminal 5, Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. The table at London Fields will be less of an anomaly.

Violet cakes

An unassuming green door on Wilton Way leads to vanilla bean, English strawberry and salted caramel cupcakes.
(exterior via This is Naive)

Swid/Kaufman

Partners for 25 years, Nan Swid and Donald Kaufman's product design has extended from coffee makers to candlesticks.
A new New York exhibition puts their art at the forefront.

Wired + Building Futures @ Apple

There are so many happenings going to happen over the next few weeks. First up for the techies:

Thursday 24th June 2010 at the Apple Store, Regent Street in association with Wired Magazine and chaired by Ben Hammersley editor of Wired UK.

This debate will challenge notions of the 'data-city': are pervasive digital devices and open data changing the way we interact with the city? Will access to data speed up the divide between affluent and poorer areas? Are we becoming 'data dandys'-'wrapped in the finest facts and the most senseless gadgets'?

Reserve tickets: Lauren.McKirdy@inst.riba.org
*pre-order your first generation iPad. From (erm) £429. A bargain people. A bargain.

Morning after election

on email
Me: Um.. I really feel like my Lib Dem vote made a difference.

Tim: My Green vote didn't make a difference, the bloke still lost his deposit.

Artek - Art and Technology

Founded in 1945 by four Finnish idealists, Artek embodies Bauhaus ideals of functionality and simplicity in their product design. Artek have a consistent presence at Venice Art Biennales and Milan Salones but I'm most interested in Italian designer Enzo Mari's 1974 DIY chair that they mass produced.

The Pendant Lamp is on a wish list.

our iPhone app - first look

Mike has designed an iPhone app for the Festival. The app is an architecture guide and walking tour from Primrose Hill to Regent's Street to St James' Park. It's fancy. And the main colour is shocking pink.
Download available from mid June.

Riverford Yurt

Riverford organic vegetables comes to Islington on 10-20 June. Housed in a yurt, the travelling kitchen will serve lunch and suppers with produce from a co-op of South West farms. If it's good enough for Ramsey and Coren...

Wit + Delight

Wonderlust blog, Wit + delight profiles the seaside.

Game Boy

A note to my brother.
David, I'm sorry for losing Tetris in 1991.
I've replaced it with this 2010 toy version.
(via sub-studio design)

ELECTION

(via creative review)
After all the posters and campaign miles, my favourite cartoon was in the Times. Clegg asks Cameron for PR. Cameron responds with an emphatic yes for more PR (with an innocent smoothie on his desk).

Pencils poised. A few hours to go.

RIBA Talks at 66 Portland Place

Yes is More
Bjarke Ingels
Tuesday 1 June, 18.30
Bjarke Ingels' Copenhagen based practice, BIG,looks for big solutions to create ecologically sustainable design. The practice is currently exploring ways to reinterpret the high-rise, in collaboration with solar heat innovators
Transsolar, after winning the competition to design the headquarters for Shenzhen Energy Company. In this lecture, Bjarke details the practice's bold and often epic proposals that reflect their desire to incorporate architectural biomimicry and positive energy.

The Triumph of the Pedestrian City
Terry Farrell and Edward Jones
Tuesday 15 June, 18.30
Is London pedestrian friendly? Are London architects and planners embracing walking as part of a sustainable future? Sir Terry Farrell, of Farrells and Edward Jones, of Dixon Jones will discuss their current pedestrian schemes, with a focus on long-term aspirations for a walkable city and obstacles to its achievement.

(Having programmed the above, I am likely to say that they will be informative, insightful talks that will get you thinking about London and sustainability in new ways. The good news is that the talks will be information, insightful..I'll stop.
Purchase tickets at architecture.com/programmes.)