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I'm not what I appear

My world is totally dominated my limited eyesight! Everything I see, everything I touch and everything I do is conditioned by my perception of the world. But I don't have any complaints. For over fifty years I have been perfectly satisfied and fulfilled with the limited faculties that I possess. And I expect you have been too.

What we see and how we interpret the world is totally governed by the wavelength band of the visible spectrum. Our acuity is limited by the wavelength of visible light. This is good enough to see tiny detail, read small print and see large objects and to recognise people's faces but any detail at the atomic or even at the larger molecular level is unresovable. We see objects as being discrete and therefore give them discrete names, like car, brush, person etc. Were we to 'see' in other wavelengths we would have a totally different perception of 'things'. We use an electron microscope to see very small detail because the wavelength of very short wave electromagnetic radiation is smaller than the detail that we want to look at. But were we to have such vision the separateness of our perception under the visble spectrum would change to a connectedness when viewed with short wave radiation...
To be continued but please let me know what you think so far.

Steamed up over a kettle

Last weekend we bought a new electric kettle. Not of great interest to your day/ week /month and not to mine either except for the fact that its predecessor practically welded itself to its base making it unsafe/unusable.

The new kettle, similar in format to its predecessor, is a cord free type on a powered base: elegant, simple and efficient. And it is a whistling kettle: when the water boils it whistles. Cool. You're saying to yourself there's a 'but' coming.

Right! I was intrigued enough to find out how it worked. The actual cycle is as follows:
1 fill kettle and switch to boil.
2 the kettle switches off when the water is boiling
3 the 'whistle' slowly rises and falls in amplitude over about 10 seconds.

How?

Clearly there is a sensor that triggers the 'whistle' when the power shuts off.
The whistle is actually in the base and is electronic with a speaker, not a device on the spout as in days of old. Very cool,again. Or maybe not.

The whistling spout on an old kettle acted simply as a vent before the water boiled. On boiling the steam pressure generated would build up in the spout and literally drive the whistle. It was an actual whistle, powered by steam pressure. It would begin to sound as the water neared boiling point and reach a crescendo at boiling point, remaining until the kettle was removed from the stove. The audible warning gave you a clue to the imminent boiling of the water and the cue to remove it from the stove before it boiled dry.

Its electronic equivalent fails in several ways:
1 it 'whistles' only after the water has boiled and has begun to cool down
2 it does not indicate that the kettle needs to be switched off because it will already have done so itself
3 If you want boiling water you will have to switch the kettle back on and catch it as soon as the whistle starts.

So we now have a complicated, by comparison, fake whistling kettle that has nothing of the engineering simplicity of its original counterpart. It does not give the auditory clues and cues of the original and pretends to be cool.

The link between steam pressure and utility is lost. For me, it simply reinforces the elegance of the original concept. For my children, this realisation is lost and it's OK for electronics to step into a 'magical' role. This perpetuates the disconnect between function and design.

...I'm off to make a cup of coffee!

The other side of the mountain

Its nearly a year since our epic expedition in Tanzania but it's still fresh in my memory, reinforced every time I 'don some kili kit: boots, rucksack, buff (yes, it's brilliant for cold weather on a bike). But time to think of other things and hopefully, take you along with me. This may be stretching your loyalties to this blog a bit far but I'm proposing that it metamorphoses into a debate on 'Beauty in architecture'. This transition is not a revelation incubated in the thin air of Kilimanjaro but more of a growing awareness that we present many of our new buildings in much the same way that the two swindlers 'presented' the concept of the King's new clothes; 'if you can't see it then you must be stupid'. Am I being an old fogey or do I have a point? I recently started one of our office Au (Architect's united but also, cunningly, the chemical symbol for gold!) meetings with an image of a building taken form a recent Building Design magazine (and I should point out that being published in BD is not the ultimate accolade in architecture). This was a new retail and commercial building in a provincial high street where the response by the architect to a very straightforward brief was to be well mannered at ground and first floor levels but to introduced curious splays in the plan at successive floor levels. This has nothing to do with rights of light or the 'planning envelope' and everything to do with giving some excitement and 'interest' into a design that clearly the architect feels embarrassed about. Thankfully my peers concurred and concluded that there may be point here. And I got to thinking, where does beauty come into the argument? Should architecture be mere utility and we should be grateful if the result looks half decent or should we insist in a level of design quality, indeed even beauty? In the several thousand years that we have been building I'm not the first to consider beauty but it does seem time for reappraisal. Is there anything intrinsic in design that might confer beauty or is it entirely subjective? How does proportion, scale, rhythm, symmetry affect beauty? Please let me know your views. Perhaps you can point to a beauty or a horror. You may identify a period that is more likely to have created beautiful buildings but I hope not. Contemporary architecture can deliver both utility and be beautiful but then should we really care? Yours, with my feet firmly on the ground but maybe my head still in the clouds, PaulNick.

Six months from the summit attempt

Hi everybody, anybody? Is there anybody still out there? Today it is six months since that memorable attempt on the summit of Kilimanjaro. I'm sure that I'm speaking for all six of us when I say that hardly a day goes by without some recollection, not only of that day but of the whole trip. And just as I might forget or be distracted by day to day business something will remind me to bring the whole experience back into focus and consciousness; wearing some of the clothes bought especially for the trip, the jacket with the logo on, the trainers which were so welcome to don after a day slogging in boots, seeing the card that Dalton gave to the other four of us to say thanks for raising £52k for Shooting Star and, even now, meeting sponsors for the first time since returning and recounting the highlights and the emotions. And then any glimpse of Africa on the TV or even hearing about it makes me want to be back there, now. People often say that Africa gets in your blood and I think I now know what they mean. Sounds, the scale of open space, the amazing ingenuity to make a living by people at the side of the road, the harsh simplicity of existence and then the apparent acceptance of life without change for hundreds of years save the incongruous mobile phone shop in otherwise biblical land.

Mike and I are enjoying a less energetic period at the moment, Phil is preoccupied with family weddings but is probably taking every opportunity to escape to the Ohio hills but Dalton, Joycey and Hair Flick (Darren) have just taken part in the London half marathon. Well done guys but how did you do?

So life the other side of the mountain is both exactly the same and entirely different. We are putting together a video and a presentation which will be available to show to groups but don't expect a George Lucas or Spielberg experience. Rather, its a collection of images and snippets of video that tell a great story, like the porter that had an Easter service on his crackly portable radio at 3700m on a rocky path on Easter Sunday and the amazing coincidence of visiting Maundi Crater on Maundy Thursday!

I'm contemplating keeping this blog live but making a radical change in subject: 'Beauty in Architecture'. How does that sound. In fact have you any starters for ten? Speak soon. Nick (Paul Nick)

Final team meal

We're are enjoying a bit of luxury at Kia Lodge, adjacent to Kilimanjaro international Airport prior to our departure tonight for Amsterdam and then variously to Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester and Heathrow. This will be our last meal together as a team and we're all feeling a bit emotional: two weeks of bonding in the face of adversity and exhilaration that has been climbing Kilimanjaro. We're all looking forward, however, to seeing our family and friends again and to begin the recount of our memories. Look out we're coming home!

This will be the last team blog but we will be publishing some photos shortly. Thank you for following our blog closely and making your comments online. They have been a great boost to the team.

Many many thanks from TeamShootingStar that is: Dalton, Mike, Phil, Joycey, Darren & Nick.

Reflections from Mike and Phil

Mike writes 'Reflecting 48 hours after the ascent, there is no doubt in my mind that this was the most difficult physical and mental challenge I have faced. The reward though of reaching one of the summit points at 5:30am on Mount Kilimanjaro and watching a magnificent red African sunrise shed its light on Kilimanjaro's huge crater was a fulfilled objective for me. The amount of energy though that had to be expended in reaching that stage should not be underestimated as scree slope became increasingly steep during the night climb and gave way to a boulder scramble before eventually reaching Gilman's Point at approximately 18,740 feet. At that height, breathing is difficult and recovery time longer than at lower levels but staying in one position on the climb was not an option because of the intense cold. The final stage of the climb for me was over what appears to be giant ice cubes but in reality these were ice covered boulders! Our guide did not want us to stay very long at the top and knowing how tired I was and that I had to get back down, a further 2 hour up and down trek to the other side of the crater to Uhuru was neither a serious or sensible option for me. I was also aware that we were expected to walk the 8.3km back across the Alpine desert from Kibo huts to Horombo when the descent was completed! All that with very little food as well did give rise to questions of personal sanity! Team Shooting Star should be proud of all of its members and the team spirit that has been shown throughout is something that I shall never forget. It was unsurprising that several recovery beers were required when we got back to our hotel!

Phil writes' the trek undoubtedly lived up to the promise of being the most difficult thing we would ever attempt. I have an intense feeling of pride and satisfaction-not so much in the height gained but in the effort I was able to put in and maintain for so many gruelling hours. The camaraderie, friendship and strong support of my fellow climbers will remain with me forever.