Richard
@rtruscott
Architect, work for a London Borough in Planning, Urban Design, Housing, Policy etc, like politics, culture & history, cycling…
I’m in Cornwall for a week, specifically in beautiful St Agnes on the fascinating, varied north coast, & I’ve already had 2 days of mostly coastal walks followed today by a trip to Falmouth & Newquay. I’ll post more details of each & subsequent walk/trip later…
Urgent need, as part of making our cities more resilient in ever more hot weather (thanks to man-made #ClimateChange); shade on traffic islands, where you have to undergo the inconvenience of a 2-stage pelican crossing!
I really don’t like new raised planters on main walkway into Olympic Park from Stratford & Westfield! Potentially, this is an unpopular opinion (but I am convinced I am right)! It’s a route, not a place in itself, & visibility, visual continuity, is what’s most important. Additional trees providing…
They’re already setting up for this year’s #CallyFest, on the heart of Caledonian Road from 12-6
One of the places I went this weekend was the Bartlett School of Architecture @ucl Summer Show (my alma mater 37-40 years ago), & though much of the work was utterly experimental & unrealistic, of course, there was some terrific quality, of both ideas & graphical representation/modelling
…like more recent new-vernacular gated development next door or equally gated conversion of an exuberantly decorative Victorian building down the street, past the 1960s 2storey terraced council houses replete with Reform UK flags (not photo’d; I value my safety!)
…though not half as badly weathered as the nasty GRC cladding on the pre-fab Urban Splash houses opposite! All surprisingly low rise, low density & car oriented, though the flats have HUGE carparks behind too,…
My final photos & thoughts on New Islington start with the exuberantly Postmodern, low-rise terraced houses by the architects FAT, with a magnificently strong, robust, durable, decorative & functional street wall, but some of the cheaper window surrounds are suffering, …
…Allsop’s Chips Building has, I think, just had its cladding replaced, & the great canal & mill building inheritance New Islington fully exploited to great success, with the waterfronts very lively & pleasant (though could do with more trees)
A few more details of the, I thought really impressive New Islington district of Manchester, which I know is old news, but is still being built, & felt pretty successful, especially the late, great (but sloppy at details) Will Allsop’s Chips Building,…
…but also the impressive recent library/council offices & bus station & vibrant narrow pedestrian friendly shopping streets full of interesting looking independent shops, cafes & bars…
Also went to Rochdale yesterday, the town of my birth, & where the town centre was looking gorgeous & very lively, especially there a festival was going one beside the magnificently restored Town Hall,…
For me much was new & impressively vibrant, to my Dad, a planner there in the 1960s, the transformation was outstanding! Admittedly not typical Manchester weather…
Went to Manchester yesterday with my Dad, doing a bit of architecture spotting, getting around by tram, taking in New Islington (the highlight), the Etihad, Castlefields & the Bridgewater Halls…
If you wonder HOW; the space proposed for this Camden Highline was the 3rd & 4th tracks of the North London Line (now Mildmay) between Maiden Lane & Camden Road. With a bit of jiggery pokery where it crosses Kentish Town Rd., I reckon separate tracks could connect HS1 to the WCML at Primrose Hill:
Good evisceration of Farage & his cronies’ openness to untraceable, unaccountable bungs of £millions from crypto-billionaires by @frasernelson.bsky.social, including responding to Zia Yusuf saying “politics is no longer about right versus left, it’s establishment versus anti-establishment…
Wow, that’s an earthquake, predicted by the consistently impressive @samfr.bsky.social in the 3rd part of his upcoming elections prediction, covering London - that, if it happened, would lead to paralysis & a further collapse in housebuilding, I’d further predict! open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/e...
Images from this afternoon’s #TogetherAlliance march against far-right extremism inc Farage & Reform UK; dipped in & out of, not wholly comfortable with some mass-produced placards & flags (eg Islamic Republics of Iran), but admiration of many imaginative, humane, home-made placards & banners!
Nice rainbow over the mouth of #Islington Tunnel on the #RegentsCanal, viewed from the #CaledonianRoad bridge, on my walk home, a few minutes ago!
A bit hurried, last minute, thrown together (I’d forgotten to do any specific shopping) but I managed to make some pancakes for #ShroveTuesday (I LOVE #PancakeDay)! 2x lemon & sugar (1 I ate whilst making the other 2) & I damson jam, so not particularly healthy or virtuous!
Have to say the location of this new station (in red) looks perplexing; at the back of this business park with no obvious access except of a suburban road way off to NW, probably a bit to far to walk from the shopping centre, if a long, awkward, unoverlooked path can be built; why not the blue ring?
Handsome woodpecker getting a good feed of niger seeds & peanuts from my Dad’s garden, a moment ago! #OverHaddon #Derbyshire #PeakDistrict
Possible, I concede, especially your latter point; looking at an aerial photo, the bridge takes a very long route across the river!
Well, I’m at London Build Expo at Olympia - not an event I’ve been to before, looking forward to finding out if it is at all interesting, but 1st impressions are that it’s very busy!
What’s this in the sky above me, here in my home in Islington? Looks like some sort of high-powered, blue-green laser, or possibly the aliens in the Independence Day franchise!
A complaint I’ve made before, but I really don’t think Tarmac Ltd should refill the diesel tanks of their cement mixers in ordinary domestic petrol stations in residential areas like the one opposite my home, photographed earlier this evening; they should refuel in their depots!