Category: Internet of things

COVID-19 or The end of coherent action? https://washyourlyrics.com/ Anecdote 1: My downstairs neighbours have had people over for dinner on Friday. In a pandemic. Anecdote 2: A South London yoga instructor suggested we all ‘clap for carers’ and ‘millions’ of people did it at once last Thursday. I only heard about it the next day because… Continue reading COVID-19 or The end of coherent action?

Can makers help the NHS during COVID-19? (In light of conversations with Alyssa Alabassi and her experience of front-line support of COVID-19 right now) Could we support the NHS with access to light industrial talent (design students, prop makers, fashion designers) to manufacture ‘good enough’ face shields and protection scrubs for front-line NHS staff while… Continue reading Can makers help the NHS during COVID-19?

How the internet will eat your home (This post will link all the threads of client work I’ve had since I wrote my book on Smart Homes. You could call this ‘the missing chapter’.) So the UK government has just announced it will start fining landlords who rent out properties that are below an E rating… Continue reading How the internet will eat your home

I’m speaking at tonight’s Turncoats an evening of architecture debates. I’ve been asked to talk about the nuclear home so here are my five minutes for and five against. For: The nuclear home helps people develop a variety of skills like picking things up when they’re done with them, cook an egg for a loved… Continue reading Turncoats: Nuclear Homes Arguments

It’s incredibly hard to read Dominic Cummings’ blog post without wondering what his everyday life must be about. What he reads, who he hangs out with, who he goes surfing/golfing with will help create a world view where Peter Thiel is a reference and machine learning can help civil service keep things ticking along for… Continue reading Better reading

Far from the madding crowd: modern art museums in rural Japan. I just spent 21 days on holiday in rural Japan, my third time there. 31 million people visited Japan in 2018 and most will stick to the shinkansen (fast train) that connects the large cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima) or areas like Nara, known for its… Continue reading Far from the madding crowd: modern art museums in rural Japan.

Women Interrupted: the untold stories of women in design and architecture. In researching my first book on smart homes I ended up uncovering a lot of women’s work. Work that wasn’t very well documented. Work that was largely forgotten. Then through my work travels, I kept visiting homes, museums, galleries where I would find out… Continue reading Women Interrupted: the untold stories of women in design and architecture.

How to organise diverse events : a production checklist Yesterday, the 4th edition of Ada’s List annual conference took place at the Financial Times building in London. I volunteered to produce it back in July and I wasn’t even in the country when it took part (holidaying / writing retreat for my new book). And everything… Continue reading How to organise diverse events : a production checklist

How green really: how measuring what happens inside a building is the ultimate Climate Change data challenge. I left my role as Head of Labs at Bulb in late April and moved on to work with Overlay a project incubated by ING Labs researching how financial institutions could utilise building data to develop a new… Continue reading How green really: how measuring what happens inside a building is the ultimate Climate Change data challenge.

Modern Love: how to teach design history In case you’ve been hiding under a rock you’ll have noticed it’s the 100 year anniversary of the Bauhaus this year. I graduated from a 4 years industrial design degree from the University of Montreal in 2004. I graduated knowing nothing about the Bauhaus and not only that but… Continue reading Modern Love: how to teach design history