The Renzo Piano retrospective at the Royal Academy

A master of his craft. It finishes in a week or so and I doubt I’ll see it’s like again. I wish I had gone earlier. The models and drawings are lovely, plus It sums up so many of the essential truths about architecture. Firstly, the powerful underlining of the technical and craft skills involved in making these amazing, truly bespoke structures and of the subtle interactions between architect and maker, between his vision and the makers capabilities. But, secondly, you are privileged to watch that sublime magic where a pure metal construction takes form in the mind of a …

Look before you leap…

We have just over 6kgs of sirloin to roast. On the bone. It looks massive, specially cut to fit the width of the oven, & sitting on the cut face of the bone so that the meat rears out of the pan like the stump of a wall from the ruins. How long to cook? it’s been two hours out of the larder, so not like putting an ice lolly in the oven. Even though it’s massive, it’s cross section is relatively slight and the meat is divided by a continuous blade bone. It’s time for O level physics. The …

In praise of level playing fields

Biological systems are complicated, often unpredictable, as are organisational ones. The Guardian reports a study from Sweden showing there is greater risk than previously thought of tipping points in biological systems being breached, because apparently separate events are often linked. Obvious when you think about it. My relentlessly SME (small manufacturing enterprise) focused brain jumps immediately to the theory of constraints and it’s preoccupation with identifying the primary constraint in any particular system. Like so much scientific endeavour, we tend to look for a single cause when in truth it is almost always a group of causes that needs to …

IN PRAISE OF addressing the real issue

We use a great big complicated German Biomass boiler for our heating. It runs on pellets which need to be just right to work properly. We just had a delivery that is completely unusable. Even in the lorry you can see the high proportion of dust and broken pellets. We take the delivery and God help us by the next morning the boiler has stopped. The sensors are coated with dust. I complain and from their MD arrives a copy of the certificate issued at the port of embarkation which proves that the pellets are perfect. So, it is not …