Category Archives: blogs

hello there

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 My fascination with maps (bit of a cartophile) and mash-ups that the Web 2.0  internet now allows, (where would we be without all the google map hacks?), I keep an eye on where readers to isite are based.  To share this – below is a ‘real time’ snap shot list of visitor locations who were on line this afternoon, (well afternoon here),

I guess it ‘s what helps me keep blogging, knowing what the maven (*)  in me wants to share is being picked up, and I hope of use.  Now I need to find a way to get you all to comment now and again !

Lancaster, Blackpool, United Kingdom
Menomonie, Wisconsin, United States
United States
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Rockford, Illinois, United States
Lancaster, Blackpool, United Kingdom
Fort Worth, Texas, United States
Glen Burnie, Maryland, United States
Downey, California, United States
Hampton In Arden, Solihull, United Kingdom
West Lafayette, Indiana, United States
San Carlos, California, United States
Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Bristol, Bristol, City of, United Kingdom
Rochdale, Rochdale, United Kingdom
Downey, California, United States
Leitrim, Monaghan, Ireland
Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Countess Wear, Devon, United Kingdom
Stevenage, Norfolk, United Kingdom
London, Lambeth, United Kingdom
Egham, Slough, United Kingdom
Chelsea, Newham, United Kingdom
Mansfield, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Dallas, Texas, United States
Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Falls Church, Virginia, United States
London, Lambeth, United Kingdom
Peace Valley, Missouri, United States
Erlangen, Bayern, Germany
Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
Riga, Riga, Latvia
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Hedgerley, Slough, United Kingdom
London, Lambeth, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
London, Lambeth, United Kingdom
Paris, Ile-de-France, France
Blackpool, Blackpool, United Kingdom
London, Lambeth, United Kingdom
Star, Pembrokeshire, United Kingdom
Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Lancaster, Blackpool, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Birstall, Bradford, United Kingdom
London, Lambeth, United Kingdom

* Maven: (extract from wikipedia)

Malcolm Gladwell used it in his book The Tipping Point to describe those who are intense gatherers of information and impressions, and so are often the first to pick up on new or nascent trends.  Gladwell also suggests that mavens may act most effectively when in collaboration with connectors – i.e., those people who have wide network of casual acquaintances by whom they are trusted, often a network that crosses many social boundaries and groups. Connectors can thus easily and widely distribute the advice or insights of a maven.

a real school for the future – without eco-bling

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Education Guardian reports today on the development of Acharacle School on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Scotland.  The report by Tariq Tahir, should make ‘essential ‘ reading for those involved in school design, construction and in community assets. In addition the school childrens blog ‘they are building outside our class‘ illustrates how construction can be a real educational benefit.  One to RSS and watch develop.

And with no eco-bling, no greenwash, this is sustainable development…

The design, illustrating a sustainable future, for two or three generations is based on the use of mass-timber.  Architect Howard Liddel from Gaia comments … “the modern school does what it says on the tin but what it has on the tin is a skull and crossbones, and these are toxic fumes. Modern buildings have huge amounts of formaldehyde coming out of the floor coverings, seat coverings, the walls run with condensation.”

“What this project is doing is ticking a lot of boxes in a very subtle manner. There’s no covering the building in ‘eco-bling’ – the gimmicks people put on to make buildings green. It’s really quite liberating for an architect.”

He promised that the new building would provide a much healthier working environment for the staff and 50-odd pupils. “We have an immense problem with toxic materials in buildings – we have 55,000 chemicals we use in building and only 3% of them have been tested for their effects on humans.

“The timber is very good at dealing with indoor moisture passively. In other words, you don’t need a ventilation system when you’ve actually got a material that’s dealing with the moisture. Continue reading →

on building school futures …

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school things on my radar this weekend…

In May the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club will be held at Devonshire School, Blackpool an exemplar school that is a significant step forward in the design of learning environments for young children. Details of the event and site visit will be posted on the Events pages very soon

but … Building schools for the future is far too slow …. says the the NASUWT

Almost half of all teachers work in schools where water drips from the ceilings and windows do not fit properly, a study by the NASUWT concludes. A third complained of damp and slippery corridors, while one in five said lighting was poorly maintained. Most said they had to work in excessively hot or cold conditions and 30 per cent did not have easy access to drinking water.

Source: Scandal of Britain’s Crumbling Schools

What happened when Bright Green, an innovative green recruitment organisation brought together leaders from Britain’s top construction firms, sustainability consultancies, schools think-tanks with Kit Rogers, a teacher at Priestlands Secondary School, Hampshire, to discuss sustainability issues in schools?

Source: The Green School Dinner

ISO 9001:2008 – dramatic proposed changes

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Or Not.

It has been some 5 years since I was actively involved in ISO 9000 implementation, training and audits, but I was still underwhelmed to see the proposed changes to the new ISO9001:2008 standard as posted by Shaun over at Capable People . The world has moved on since 2000 – when the last real changes were made, it would appear the standard has not.

Even the world of quality has moved on from quality of product, quality of service, through excellence to arrive at ‘experience’

Being close to development of other standards though, I can understand the watered down consensus one size fits all committee discussions – and the outcome – but is this the way to bring the most used and influential quality standard up to date? As Shaun says John Seddon will have a field day !

I recall putting ISO 9000 on trial in a court room setting, the standard being accused of not delivering quality, parties put forward their cases for and against, John was the prosecutor, BSi the defence, both calling ‘witnesses’ to the stand.

The verdict? – you can guess, but I will fish out the summary from the Judge and post here.

See also how ISO 9001 is forming the base of a number of standards such as BS6001 – Responsible Sourcing Management – is it up to the job these days?

virtual world collaboration

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As I have been developing an exciting project in Second Life recently, collaborating in-world (as they say) with people across the US, in the UK, Switzerland and elsewhere – but more on that later – the emerging virtual world collaboration concepts have been rattling around my brain, emails and blogs that I read.

Whilst I bemoaned the fact that Eco-Build event had no real virtual presence, it was good to note Phils push for the virtual Sustainability Now event (now moved to 1 and 2 July).

I haven’t given enough time to the Think on line  forum – it didn’t really take off for me, but I sense that may be addressed through the Think08 event (where hopefully there will be more, and parallel online content)

In what must be a classic oxymoron – the Virtual Worlds conference in New York in April would appear not to be availble online!

An email from Howard Lictman at TelepresenceOptions intrigued me with the expression ‘keeping people off planes and improving collaboration” I guess here in the UK that would translate to ‘keeping people off the roads and improving collaboration” which is always a good thing.  (Telepresence is a conferencing technology where participants feel as if they are in the same physical space.)

Howards fascinating paper: ‘Telepresence, Effective Visual Collaboration and the Future of Global Business at the Speed of Light’ can be downloaded here

Facebook is too bloated now for effective collaboration – other than shallow social fun.

Finally there is a debate within  LinkedIn  discussing where the best Live Community collaborations are to be found – Second Life, Facebook, or elsewhere.  Maybe the answer to that is within the blogging community?

newspaper house

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Treehugger ( number 13 in the top 50 most powerful blogs according to the Observer on Sunday) carries the news of the London house built from discarded free newspapers that was revealed over the weekend – it took just 5 days to get the 150,000 papers!.  Read more here

Treehugger, which must be on everyones RSS feed, has a staggering 1.8million unique hits per month,  has 40 writers in 10 countries and was bought last year  by Discovery Channel for reportedly $10m.  It has pages dedicated to design and architecture that covers the eco and green aspects of the built environment.

using isite as a bid tool

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I received interesting feedback from two individuals last week who mentioned they use isite as a knowledge base when answering bid questions for new work, to ensure they are up to date with current thinking. One of these was local, ie in the North West UK, the other in the USA.
I now regularly use the blog as a bookmarked, knowledge base, to easily recall items to develop work with clients, but I am really pleased to hear that others find value in the site as an archive source of information and knowledge.

Its another powerful plus for blogs.

new blogs to check out

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Two new blogs have come across my desktop in the last day or so:

Hat Projects Blog – this is the blog of Tim and Hana at HAT – covering architecture, planning and regeneration – with an interesting post on eco definitions (covered here on isite some time ago)

and

Public Works Group Blog – this is the blog for the Second Life construction and SLengineer groups.

Sponge green guide to buying a home

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Bit late on this one as it has been picked up by Mel at Elemental and Phil at Zero Champion, but worth relaying across to isite readers is the Sponge guide to green home buying – a check list you can print off and take with you.

Nice

Reminds me of the 10 Principle guide to slow homes …  which should see more light of day here in the UK as a backdrop to the new eco-homes, and eco-villages.

what these blogs are for …

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An excellent, must read post from Mark Brinkley  – Is the prince igniting a civil war?  – guest blogging on Phils Zero Champion blog  – sets the scene for a roundhead v cavaliers schism on zero carbon homes, code level 6 and all that …..