Dark skies

Just read an article concerning "stargazing and dark sky tourism" on the BBC's website.  Unfortunately not a topic that is currently of any relevance within England's southeast.

Like most people, I grew up with light representing excitement and security (although further reading suggests that the latter is debatable) but it's got me wondering about the duality of light, like sound, and whether lighting every area of our lives is really such a great idea?  Obviously there are many pros and cons, but there's beauty in both starry skies and the glow of human settlements.

GB Light Pollution

London at Night

Galloway Dark Skies Park

Campaign for Dark Skies: http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/index.html

Masterplan scenarios

Elements of Space & Time (connective)

High Society (alternative)

Work, Rest & Play (educational)

Vampire garden

Well, I suspect like everyone else, December's been a very busy and, at times, stressful month with blogging unfortunately coming low down the priority list.

Whilst looking for a file on my computer I stumbled across this animation, an assignment from a previous a course 'Digital Landscapes' taught by David Watson.  Created using a mixture of AutoCAD and Bryce, it's incredibly clunky in places but I've got a bit of a soft spot for it ...

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the torches to flame during the main animation and after upgrading AutoCAD have lost the option of exporting to 3DS files; I suspect that this may be version-dependent.  If anyone knows or can offer a solution please let me know 'cos I'd love to be able to use this again.

Christmas cheer

Merry festive llamas to you all!





Masterplanning excercise

Pitifully, it took me several days to realise that I'd approached this task from the wrong starting point.  As usual, I missed the bleedin' obvious and focussed too much on the detail.


The sensible - logical - action would have been to develop my designs for Calverley Grounds around each word (as instructed!): 'alternative', 'connective' and 'educational'.  Foolishly, I completely missed this critical and, in hindsight, obvious point and attempted to come up with three designs based on other criteria. I'd love to put it down to the snow making my brain too cold to function properly but sadly that's probably not true.


Still, having had a hasty rethink (and redesign), I'm trying to console myself with the thought that this is only the start of the design process and, hopefully, will stop trying to produce the final design in one session.  It's worth a shot ...

Is it too early in the academic year to undergo a crisis of confidence?