City Design

I am fascinated by CIty design, I love walking cities, trying to see how they have developed, and what is being developed, but I have yet to see how a city can transform the way this article in the Guardian article outlines.

I love the idea of a city thats truly green, a city that smells right, not of car fumes, and a city that loves light. but most of all a city that might live, not envy at night.

Lets get this straight though, it will not be easy, the article covers a lot of ground, and misses some vital points, services, existing services, and transport, but its a start.

The article might be a dam good two hours CPD, with all the followup and research, plus sketching, and looking at your own city. As I stated, I walk my own city a lot, and dismay at the lack of care, the waste, and road structure. But love the way some people can take an old building and bring it to life after so long in the back streets of industry.

Planting out a city takes time, and its not an instant thing, it takes an army of people to care for plants, I know this from our small garden, I can imagine this on a city scale, the water requires, the soil, the containers the leaf trimming, and the season effects, of changing planting at the end of summer.

Insects will once again become the norm, and we will have to get used to it, bees will flourish, and thats a good thing, after all, no bees or insect, no humans.

So there it is, an excellent article, and one that needs a lot of thought, Its not just the planners, its the human race that needs to take a action, the planners work for us, not the other way round, demand action, but don't think it is a one sided problem, we all need to get on board to achieve green cities.

In a few weeks I will visit Paris and one of the "To Do List" items will be to walk a long park thats been made out of old railway and industrial areas right in the centre of the City, can't wait.

Facebook and Twitter

Once again, I seem to be tied to time, and be so busy as not to find time to blog, so I have been using Facebook to record sites I thing are worthy of looking at, I use my Konstrukshon CPD page for most of this, please drop by and check out, I also use ifTTT to notify Twitter of all posts, so perhaps you might like to follow me there, @scays is the address, I also use Google+ to link articles from both here and Facebook, again using ifTTT .

Finding time to blog correctly at this time of year is proving not difficult, but a constant itch that I sometime have to scratch, I love blogging and sharing good construction info and knowledge.

Email is getting a bore, I seem to get so much junk, it was interesting at the time, or someone has got hold of my email address, but today I solved the problem, I have created a rule, this rule sends ant email address I have added to a specific folder, I might scan through them but I am afraid most will get the boot. You might ask why not do it straight away, just in case is my answer !!!!

So there it is, bit immediate blogs go to my Konstrukshon Page, of keep checking in, University will finish soon and time will allow me to blog in detail hear.

CIAT CPD Officers Meet 20-06-2016

In about five weeks, or on the 20th June 2016, all the region CIAT CPD officers will meet in City Road, London, to discuss CPD. As yet I have seen no agenda, but you know me, thats not going to stop me making a list of things I want to talk about, from manufacturers presentations, to real study time, to reading lists, to note taking to building up some sort of personal archive of information. to just an electronic record system.

I also want to discus the way BIM seems to be taking hold of CAD, not that thats a bad thing, just the way the "CAD" bit is being dropped and I hear only I am going to BIM this up, not CAD or draw it up. Yet BIM surely should be on the list as it will and is affecting the way we draw, and also with it huge potential for data rules base, or internal / external algorithms, and how it will be shared via IFC.

Evernote, or anything similar, is there anything!, should surely be discussed, as the personal archive I mentioned before.

Is there a place for online lecture, or hangouts, I attend several and find then just as good, with no travel time.

I wonder if the way academic papers are written and viewed, might be discussed, its a major way to learn and research a subject, but for many its a system that might be unknown, thinking its only for academics, yet its not, and so many of the AT universities might well help is reading and advising on a papers format and subject.

So there it is, if you want to add to my list,  drop me a line and  will raise it, or contact your local CPD officer.

Todays photo is of the old Queens Hotel that was built onto the side of Curzon Street Station Birmingham the subject of much discussion as HS2 becomes more of a certainty,  and pulled down as part of the saving of the main station entrance building. I have never seen any other photos of the hotel building, one of the other lecturers who was heavily involved in the work says there are some, so watch this space to see if they turn up. This shot was from the rear of the site looking south West wish.

Using Sketchup to make a Site Model

Sketchup has some great tools, but one them is the link to Google Earth and maps. This video below is  a classic video that shows so easily the way to build up a site model in 3D using these tools.

I have watched this several times, but for the purposes of CPD time I have claimed only 2 hours quality CPD time making notes the second time.