How To Build A Fake House
They were putting this up as I walked past this morning.
I went back last night to take a few more pictures and spoke to the contractor. He told me, it will look like the surrounding houses when it’s finished and that Hackney Council were very co-operative.
We don’t have too many eye-sores around here, but I’ve seen places in London and other cities, where a house in say a terrace is well past its renovate-by-date and surely this technique might be a much more affordable way to create a new house.
It will be interesting to see what it looks like when it’s finished.
Crossrail Again Shows How To Be A Good Neighbour
Let’s face it, Crossrail is a large project and in some ways it’s as disruptive as letting several herds of elephants roam Central London unchecked.
I myself don’t get much aggro, except as I indicated here to the various bus routes I sometimes use.
This story though, shows how they are minimising bad publicity, by doing positive things in the community. How many of the kids talked to in this story, will get a better University place or job, because of the experience?
PR often gets a bad press, but used properly it can bring positive benefits to everyone.
A Sunday Morning Trip
This Sunday, I did my usual trip to see progress at the various Crossrail sites in East London.
My route tends to be the same. I start by getting the DLR to Custon House station and then doubling back to Royal Victoria for the cable-car. After Greenwich, I either go to Canary Wharf for lunch or straight to London Bridge station for a bus home.
The cable car wasn’t that busy, but then neither was anywhere else. Coming back from London Bridge station, I got suckered into changing buses at a closed bus stop, which resulted in a walk, I’d tried to avoid. The sooner Crossrail is finished in the Moorgate area the better.
Room At The Top
The Times today has a big article about how the office space in The Shard has not been letting very well.
If we assume their report is correct, then could this be because, The Shard is not a building that those who live in this great city, don’t generally like the building. I don’t think I’ve actually met anybody who lives here, who has visited the viewing galleries or speaks positively about the building. Admittedly, I’ve met a few from out of town, who have liked the experience.
So does this negative attitude amongst the people of London, put decision makers off renting space in the tower.
Apart from the fact, that it gets into every picture you seem to take of London, with the notable exception of the cable-car, where Canary Wharf is in the way, the biggest problem I have with the building, is that is has questionable aerodynamics. When I end up at London Bridge station and want to get home, I go to the bus station and get a friendly 141 bus to perhaps fifty metres from my house. But on a breezy day, the turbulence around the base of The Shard can be fearsome. So I now take other routes on breezy days!
I suspect, anybody interested in renting space on a windy day, would go elsewhere!
The Shard is a classic case of a designer not making sure all the consequences of his design are covered.
Perhaps the building is only suffering from the same sort of problems as did CentrePoint in the late 1960s, which stood empty for five years on completion.
They’re Filling The Big Hole At Kings Cross
I took these pictures from South Eastern’s platform 13 at St. Pancras of the new Kings Cross development. The last time, I looked at it, it was just a big hole.
Judging by the developer’s web site, it will be some place.
Birmingham Is Getting A World Class Station
I’ve been going to the old Birmingham New Street station since the 1960s. Until recently, you always got the impression, you were in the depths of a dark place underneath the centre of the city. The platforms are still a bit dark, but I suspect that’s because they haven’t been finished yet, but get upstairs and some of the station has been transformed.
A Transformed Station
Or at least half of it has, as the reconstruction has some time to run.
Escalators are everywhere, as they should be.
Escalators Are Everywhere
At present only one bridge over the platforms is complete and the second, is just a building site.
Outside an impressive frontage is being finished.
An Impressive Frontage
Although, another entrance is littered with dummies.
New Street Station With Dummies
How do you stop smoking dummies cluttering up entrances? But at least it’s not as bad in the UK, as in some European countries.
After lunch, my friend dropped me back to the station in his car. And what a surprise we got!
Passenger Drop Off At New Street Station
How many stations or airports have such a good well-designed drop off area? I walked straight into the booking hall, and after buying my ticket from a new and improved machine, two minutes later I was on the train back to Euston.
After Birmingham, you realise what a dump Euston station is. And of course it gets worse, as you descend into the Underground. We really knew how to design and build things badly then. Although, there are some notable exceptions! But Euston station is not one of them!
Remove Weight To Make Something Better
You would think, that by now, we’ve pushed the technology in lifts, as far as we safely can.
But, go up in a very tall building and you’ll often have to change lifts to get to the top.
One of the problems was that the weight of the steel cable that holds the lift car up, was just too much.
But now Kone have come up with a carbon fibre lift cable, that is both light and strong. They call it Ultrarope and it’s described here on their web site.
They claim that maximum lift heights can rise from 500m to a kilometre, whilst saving energy too.
That sounds good to me.
It’s a classic case of improving something, by using a new lighter and stronger material.
Tottenham On The Up!
I took a 149 bus to Tottenham this morning, to look for a tunnel boring machine, that was being transported to its work site in North London. I may have missed the TBM, but I got a good chance to look at Tottenham nearly two years after the riots.
Things seemed to have improved immensely. It also looks like Spurs are getting their act together and are starting to create the new stadium.
Crossrail And The Super Sewer
The two large tunneling projects in London at the moment are Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel or Super Sewer.
They both require long tunnels and will cost billions of pounds each.
But the public seem to have different attitudes to the two projects.
Nearly everybody seems to support Crossrail, whereas there is substantial opposition to the sewer.
I did ask a friend, if there had been any opposition to Crossrail and he said, there was a bit in the early days from places like Mayfair. People seemed to have been worried about dust and noise during the construction phase. But now everybody just gets on with life and hopes that Crossrail will be finished and walking and driving will get back to normal.
To be fair to Crossrail, they seem to have gone out of their way with green walls to minimise noise, using the river to carry tunnel spoil and being a good neighbour as at Stepney City Farm. They have also launched a well-funded and publicised archaeology program.
On the other hand, the Super Sewer, doesn’t seem to have done the same to allay the fears of a public, who don’t want all the problems of construction and the increase in water bills.
I do wonder, whether the difference is down to the fact that a new railway is something people can use and feel gives them tangible benefits, but a sewer, is something that they only use a few times every day and don’t want to think about. And it looks to me, that Thames Water have not done a good enough job to sell the benefits of the new sewer to the general public.
How To Recycle A Roof
This story on the BBC, tells how the old station roof at London Bridge station, is going to be given to the Vale of Rheidol railway in Wales to help build their new museum.
It wasn’t many years ago, when this structure would have been reduced to scrap, so Network Rail are to be congratulated. Hopefully, the new museum in Aberystwyth will bring tourists to the town and create some new businesses and jobs.
I think too, that this story illustrates how intelligent recycling might be slightly more expensive, but properly done, it can save lots of money elsewhere. The new museum in Wales is reported to be costing ten million, but how much more would it cost without the recycled roof.
The Anonymous Widower 