Nigel Dale
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otboae.bsky.social
Nigel Dale
@otboae.bsky.social
Writer illustrator 20th C architecture art engineering. Interests Modern Movement and British High Tech including Patera Building and Potteries recent heritage. Banner image Spirit of Fire © Andy Stoddard
I like the new photo bottom right - credit?
May 22, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Shipping containers present as unwelcoming. Good inexpensive architecture should be an expression of use and should add to a sense of belonging in streetscape. Containers do the opposite.
March 19, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Once shipping containers have been adapted, there can be little cost benefit over developing a factory-produced small span component-based building in the style of Hopkins' SSSALU or Gullichsen & Pallasmaa Moduli 225. Containers have limitations and are architecturally uninspiring.
March 19, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Well-recorded - the all to familiar story of The Potteries' heritage. I don't recognise the bottom right image?
March 15, 2025 at 9:45 AM
A "Pottery Trail" around the Six Towns could take in The Leopard. Such tours would guarantee a level of business - making renovation worthwhile.
March 11, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Architects are Foster & Partners
March 11, 2025 at 11:28 AM
It's a fabulous design - What AI can do must be very worrying to aspiring designers. Good luck with the book.
March 10, 2025 at 11:19 PM
It might be AI because the strut supporting the seat on the far side isn't crisp - and in true perspective, it would be shorter than the nearside one - whereas it appears longer. That design is a winner AI or not.
March 10, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Is the chair AI? If not and it's real, please let us know who designed it? It's a perfect composition.
March 10, 2025 at 11:02 PM
There's something compelling about a backdrop of pine trees - Onkel Toms Hütte housing estate in Berlin, Bruno Taut 1926-32. Does it suggest a permanence due to its location in a well-established neighbourhood?
March 8, 2025 at 11:39 AM
No interaction for the residents with the outside world? - balcony design has become crucial - otherwise the prison identity might realise an unintended consequence.
March 8, 2025 at 10:05 AM
1958 for football, but engineer Oscar Faber had pioneered the cantilever stand at Northolt Park Racetrack from as early as 1929. His solution was to clad a steel structure to make it look like concrete.
March 6, 2025 at 10:46 PM
The bio-domes here won't be as extensive as the originals at the Eden Project.
March 6, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Although this possibly wasn't built as a pub - see bricked up first floor window - it is absurd to remove a familiar landmark by making it nondescript.
March 6, 2025 at 11:41 AM
In those days, concrete was seen as a poor man's masonry. Hence the joint patterning which suggests it was masonry-built.
March 5, 2025 at 4:00 PM
The towers were the last to go. As they were made from in-situ concrete, they couldn't be taken down brick by brick and relocated - a shame.
March 5, 2025 at 3:58 PM
It’s an interesting story. Owen Williams was the engineer, Maxwell Ayrton the architect. Ayrton’s classicism, formality and symmetry was engineered in ferroconcrete by Williams - using fake columns where none was needed structurally. Later Williams designed the Empire Pool opposite to his style.
March 5, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Art Deco was named after a French exhibition in 1925 two years after Wembley 1923 was completed, but more generally the interwar period is used as the timeframe from 1919. Take your pick.
March 5, 2025 at 2:11 PM