Eiffel Over

Author: Oliver Broadbent

  • In praise of Aix-en-Provence TGV

    I am speeding north on a train from Aix-en-Provence TGV and reflecting on what it is I like so much about this station. It sits on the southern section of the high-speed line from Paris to Marseilles. The original line built in the 1970s went as far as Lyon. In the 1990s, as part of President Mitterand’s ‘grand projets’ the line way extended to the Marseille.

    The extension feels like an unapologeticly bold statement of the importance of high-speed rail. All the stations and many of the bridges have a monumental quality to them. No doubt the line was built with huge controversy – it seems to pay little reverence to the villages and countrysides it blasts through other than to say this is a piece of national infrastructure to be proud of.

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  • From Dminor to F#minor – new adventues in chord transitions

    My Dad and I talk about chords. How would you get from one key in a piece of music to another? To onlookers, it might seem as though we are playing a game of Mornington Crescent. But it makes sense to us.

    This evening I put on the second movement of Ravel’s String Quartet in F, which I love. It’s a plucky effervesecent number, with a soaring, bowed second phrase in a completely different key. I sat down at the piano to work it out. The first section is in D minor, and the second part is in F# minor. The common note that allows the connection is A. But in all my years hammering things out on the piano I have never noticed this as a possible transition, in any key.

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  • Memories of seven – a diary for my daughter

    Memories of seven – a diary for my daughter

    My daughter is now seven. I have been trying to remember what being seven was like for me. Memories start to become more frequent around this time. Some major changes were going on for me around then, moving house, moving school, parents divorcing. Until recently I would have said I could clearly remember when and in what order these big events in my childhood happened. But when I tried to write these down, it seems my hard drive is more fragmented than I had realised.

    So I started to recreate my picture of seven on a piece of paper, and in conversation with family, started to fill in the gaps. This is what I’ve managed to piece together.

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  • Olafur Eliasson at the Tate + reflections on my own work

    Olafur Eliasson at the Tate + reflections on my own work

    This week I have had the feeling that I have been struggling recently to find focus on my creative work. I have lots of projects on at the moment, and I am not satisfied that I am being able to draw a cohesive thread between them. I think this is important because I subscribe to the idea that to have impact on your work, you need to be regularly adding to it in a disciplined way – always adding momentum to the fly-wheel, as Jim Collins puts it.

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  • Why do they say ‘sixty-ten’ in French?

    This question came up on the way home this evening. On the back of the tandem, my daughter was experimenting with counting in French. Things were going fine until we got to sixty-nine. And then I explained that French for seventy is soixante-dix, literally, ‘sixty ten’. Without turning round, I could feel the look of bewilderment on her face.

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  • Keynote: How problem-based learning can save the world and make you happy too.

    Keynote: How problem-based learning can save the world and make you happy too.

    In November 2019 I was booked to deliver the keynote address for the University of Edinburgh Engineering Faculty’s away day. It was an opportunity to explore how the climate and ecological emergencies are an invitation to delve into:

    • The scale of the challenge to traditional university teaching
    • The nature of the challenge and how we need a different approach
    • How to use a problem-based learning approach
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  • On traffic

    Drivers, please don’t complain about the traffic: you are the traffic

    Broadbent, O. (2019). Internal monologue everytime I hear a driver complain about the traffic. Bristol.

  • Performance versus reflection

    A key part of problem-based learning is reflection. But how do you get people not interested in reflection to start thinking critically about the decisions they take over their learning. The answer could be to think about performance.

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  • The end of trying harder and being nicer

    The end of trying harder and being nicer

    Over the last few weeks I’ve been talking to engineers about they can do in response to the climate emergency. For those that are engaged with the topic, I am picking up a sense of deep frustration, which seems to come in two flavours.

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  • Creative Surplus

    Creative surplus is the time we have to invest in thinking creatively, just like a financial surplus allows us to make financial investments. I like the term because it implies both that it is a quantity that you have to create and it is something that you can invest for greater benefit later.

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  • A reminder about the imminent climate catastrophe and how we should educate engineers to prepare for it

    A reminder about the imminent climate catastrophe and how we should educate engineers to prepare for it

    [The following text is adapted from the after-dinner speech I gave at the University of Edinburgh Engineering Faculty’s away day. It was originally titled ‘How problem-based learning can save the world and make you happy too’. But I have renamed it ‘A reminder about the imminent climate catastrophe and how we should educate engineers to prepare for it’]

    Tonight’s engagement is my first since I took a summer sabbatical, which I planned to use to work on a book. Those plans changed in my first week away when I got involved in the Extinction Rebellion summer uprising in Bristol. That experience of direct action and the reaction it caused prompted me to read much more about climate breakdown, models for political change, the implications of societal collapse, the role of engineers to help minimise impacts and deal with upheaval in our own communities and the role of the people that teach engineers.

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  • Bubble surface

    Bubble surface

    This afternoon I headed to We The Curious with my daughter for a summer holiday treat. The highlight was the giant sheet of bubble you can make there by dragging a sort of rollerblind contraption through a soapy solution. The result is a vertical bubble surface that flows and swirls with irridescant eddies. When you blow at the surface is distorts out of plane, like a bullesye from a spun pane of glass, or a portal to another dimension.

    And then without warning, ping, it disappears without a trace.

  • Parenting x inspecting hydraulic structures in the Frome Valley

    [Written in May, posted today] Saturday was the chance for my one of my favourite kinds of parenting: the kind where I can go on a journey with my daughter at her pace, stop and look at various bits of engineering infrastructure along the way, and then move on when we are ready.

    This weekend’s excursion was along the Frome Valley in East Bristol. Near where we live the river cuts a steep gorge through the limestone landscape that forms a lush green necklace that weaves its way through our neighbourhood. It is an excellent off-road route for cycling.

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  • Notes from leaving my phone at home

    I’ve started experimenting with leaving the house without my phone. On purpose. Here are some things I’ve noticed.

    I need to get a watch. Without a watch, however, I have to seek out the time, usually on the clocks above buildings, on church towers, behind the counter in cafes. My favourite is when you can’t see the time but you can hear it. Two nights ago I slept out under the starts without a phone or watch – my clock was the peel of bells in the nearby village; my alarm the dawn.

    Failing architectural time pieces, I have become adept at spotting the time on the screens of people adjacent to me. Sometimes I have to crane my neck.

    I look at the map before I leave the house, and try to identify landmarks that will help guide me on my way. I make use of maps I find in the street, and I find I am more conscious of where to find these. Sometimes I ask the way. Usually I figure it out. Before long my own mental map starts to form.

    I see things that make me think of friends and family and times together. I notice how often I want to reach for my phone and share that thought there and then with the subject concerned. I try instead to sit and savour the warm feeling of the association – and just live it without taking any action. I sometimes write a note about the moment in my diary and tell myself to save it for when I next see the person concerned.

    A notebook is the friend of the phone-free flaneur. Use it to:

    • Do a quick sketch map to help you find your way.
    • Write down your itinerary, including confirmation numbers and train times.
    • Note any things you would like to tell your friends about next time you see them.
    • Tear out pages and use them to send a message to someone you are thinking of.
    • Draw a sketch of the view from the top of a mountain (you may be rubbish at drawing, but photos taken from mountaintops are always disappointing, so what have you got to lose?)
    • Slide a debit card in the back cover of your notebook and its like you’ve got Apple Pay.

    Without distractions, I can hold onto and let ideas mature more fully in my mind. Once they have taken shape I can write those down in the diary too. But with my phone in my pocket, a message can arrive out-of-the-blue and my clarity of thought is gone.

    All it takes is for me to receive a message about something or other for my emotional state to change in a flash. I wish my brain could stay more firmly attached to the hear-and-now but it quickly focuses its attention on the new stimulus, and my emotions are hijacked. Of course, I want to be helpful and see to whatever matter is arising, but there may be a better time for it than when I am walking down the street – and I might respond better when I am in a more appropriate place. Without my phone, I feel I keep on a much more even emotional keel.

    And, I’m reading more.

    So, give it a go. Leave your phone at home, and see what happens. Let me know how you get on (tell me when you get home).

  • Climate breakdown – uncivil engineering questions

    Climate breakdown – uncivil engineering questions

    At the start of the summer I felt that the best contribution I could make to tackling the climate emergency was to offer my skills as a trainer and a facilitator to Extinction Rebellion (XR). In June, I joined the team that run induction sessions for new members of XR Bristol. The following words I’ve adapted from the script we use as the basis for the induction sessions.

    ‘The Government has an obligation to provide protection for the citizens it represents. This is the basis of the social contract upon which the citizens give the government the power to rule.

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  • Appreciating concrete in Marseille

    One of the thing things that I like about Marseille is the quality of the concrete tower block design. I’ve been riding in taxis back and forth across the city with my father who is undergoing cancer treatment in various branches of the city’s healthcare system and appreciating the architectural tour I’m getting.

    In the centre of town these blocks remind me of bookcases: two monolithic, slick sides between which span the concrete shelves, on which sit the apartments like colourful books. It’s fascinating to see the different ways that windows, balconies and staircases are articulated in these concrete buildings. I point out towering souring fin walls, beautifully articulated fire escapes, and how paint is used to express the different elements of the concrete structures.

    The rocky hills that rise up behind Marseille keep the city hemmed in by the sea. Standing on the high ground platform of Notre Dame de la Gard in the middle of town, you can see clusters of distant tower blocks that seem to bravely climb the distant slopes of the edge of the city, like pilgrims. I’m used to seeing tower blocks standing imposingly against the flat, grey London sky, but here these structures are rendered tiny by the massive hills behind them.

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  • Transformative infrastructure goes both ways

    Marseille

    In my previous post I was talking about the experience of distance, and how, when understood as an experience, distance is no longer a fixed entity.

    That post was triggered by some lines from Proust in which the narrator is talking about how his perception of local distances alters when he switches from rail transport to motorcar. Some further thoughts on this topic.

    I recall how the distances between various destinations, and therefore the shape of the city itself, appeared to change when the London Overground, an orbital railway in the inner suburbs, opened. All of a sudden areas of the city that seemed far away felt much closer: South-East London, previously impossibly far, was now a nearby neighbourhood to where I lived in the North-East.

    Such a step-change in the experience of city living demonstrates the transformative power of civil engineering infrastructure. Linking, drawing together, connecting – this is what engineers have been doing for centuries.

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  • The experience of distance

    Marseille
    A morning walk up the steep hill to the Basilica of Notre Dame de la Gard granted me panoramic views of the city of Marseille and the sea. I love the peaceful hum that can be extracted from high up of a limbering up for a day of activity.

    I underlined these words yesterday in ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The narrator is talking about how his perception of distance was changed when, instead of travelling by rail, he starts to go by car.

    ‘We express the difficulty we have in getting to a place in a system of leagues and kilometres, which becomes false the moment that difficulty decreases. The art of distance, too, is modified, since a village that had seemed to be in a different world from some other village, becomes its neighbour in a landscape whose dimensions have altered.’

    Proust, M. (1921). In Search of Lost Time, Vol 4. Sodom and Gomorrah. (C. Prendergast, Ed.) (Penguin Cl). Penguin Books.
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  • #14 Show-notes – Sophie Thomas – Circular Design

    #14 Show-notes – Sophie Thomas – Circular Design

    Sophie is an unusual mix of campaigner, practising designer and Chartered Waste Manager. She’s been working in the fields of sustainable design, behaviour change and material process for nearly 20 years. I invited Sophie on to the show to talk about waste and circular design. In our conversation we get into:

    • The engineering of linear and circular products, material selection, recycling houses and oil rigs.
    • Creative strategies for circular designers, and in particular the idea that waste is a design flaw.
    • And the practical philosophy of someone who has spent so long think about waste.

    Listen on Apple Podcasts , Sticher or by download here

    Related podcasts and posts

    If you enjoyed this episode then check out this written interview I did with Sophie two years ago as part of a Royal Academy of Engineering-funded project we did at Think Up into the strategies of different sorts of designer.

    For more strategies on creative thinking, read my article ‘How to have ideas – strategies for engineers and other humans‘.

  • #13 Show-notes – Forth Bridge – An Engineering Detour

    #13 Show-notes – Forth Bridge – An Engineering Detour

    An engineering detour is something engineers do when they go out of their way, usually on holiday, to go and check out a piece of engineering infrastructure. In this episode I take an engineering detour to the mighty Forth Rail bridge. Along the we get into the engineering of the structure, how taking detours can build our creative skills, and on a philosophical note I weigh up facts and figures versus experiential knowledge. Join me for the ride.

    Listen on Apple Podcasts , Sticher or by download here.

    Related Eiffel Over episodes and posts

  • Microadventure #1: Garden Sleeping

    Microadventure #1: Garden Sleeping

    For my birthday this week my partner Mary gave me Alistair Humphreys’s inspirational book  ‘Microadventures’. According to Humphreys, a microadventure is an adventure that is short, simple, local, cheap – yet still fun, exciting, challenging, refreshing and rewarding. Last night I undertook my first mission – to go and sleep under the stars in the garden. As adventures go this reads as really not very challenging at all, but I was surprised by how unorthodox it felt. 

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  • Superpowers for Creative Design – University of Bath

    Superpowers for Creative Design – University of Bath

    I’m on the road again, this time to the University of Bath where I have the pleasure of running a workshop with first-year students on creative thinking in support of their structural design projects. I’m using the Superpowers for Creative design resource I shared earlier this month – now updated, thanks to the help of my colleague Alexie Sommer, to be in the form of a fold-out zine. The image above is a teaser for what to expect!

    I’ll posting a downloadable version of this resource soon.

    Lesson notes to follow.

  • Superpowers for Creative Design

    Superpowers for Creative Design

    Superpowers for Creative Design is the name I gave to a one-page summary of my undergraduate creativity teaching at Imperial College. This is my first draft. I like the idea of creativity being a superpower. I am sure that people who can channel their creative thinking will have a great advantage in the future.

    The diagram brings together material from other posts on this site. I describe the Kalideascope concept in ‘How to have ideas – guidance for engineers and other humans‘. And I wrote about the concept of a creative system in ‘9 Ways to Build Creativity in your Organisation‘.

    Drawing this diagram I found a nice interrelationship between all this material. To have ideas we need to draw upon information. That information comes from the things we see, the books we read, the website we look at. But critically it also comes from talking to others. How we interact with one another has a big impact on the quality of thought exchange. With the right interaction, ideas can sparked off of one-another and can be transmitted to others, and form the basis of their ideas.

    Underlying it all is behaviours, and within that self-discipline. Mastering that self-discpline is a great strength – a superpower!

  • Building creative culture in engineering companies

    Building creative culture in engineering companies

    I am starting to shift my attention away from creative tools for engineers. Tools are still important. But I’ve realised that you need a creative culture for individual creativity to thrive.

    Recently, I rediscovered in Laloux’s ‘Reinventing Organisations‘ the Wilbur four-quadrant model. The model describes how culture, systems and worldviews interact. We can use this model to understand a phenomena in an organisations from four different perspectives:

    • How the phenomenon can be measured from the outside
    • How the phenomenon feels from the inside – intuiting how it feels
    • How the phenomenon appears to the individual
    • How the phenomenon appears to a group of people.

    Like all engineer-friendly models, Wilbur’s is a two-by-two grid. The columns divide the grid into interior perspecitve and exterior perspective. The rows divide the grid into individual and collective perspective. According to Laloux

    Wilbur’s insight, applied to organisations, means we should look at: 1) people’s mindsets and beliefs [individual interior perspective]; 2) people’s behaviour [indvidiual exterior perspective]; 3) organisational culture [collective interior perspective]; and, 4) organisational systems (structures, processes and practices) [collective exterior perspective]”

    From Reinventing Organisations, Laloux (2016)

    Applying the four quadrant model to organisational creativity

    I’ve assembled some quick thoughts on how the four quadrant model might apply to understanding creativity in an organisation. I have written the statements for a fictional, ideal case. This difference between this ideal case and reality can give us some suggestions for what we might need to do to build a more creative organisation. 

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  • Coventry Cathederal

    Coventry Cathederal

    After a recent seminar in Coventry I had an hour to spare and so headed over to the famous cathederal. This sketch doesn’t come close to catching the finesse of the columns on this bold modern design but it serves to remind me of the textiures and feel of the place.

  • Notes from IStructE Academics’ Conference 2018

    There was great energy at today’s IStructE Academics’ Conference, the theme of which was Creativity and Conceptual Design.
    If you are visiting this site for the first time, it may have been thanks to Chris Wise’s kind recommendation in his keynote presentation – thanks so much Chris.
    I presented a session on how to have ideas. Usually when I’m billed with this title, I run a workshop on idea generation, but I thought for once, I would stand up and say what I think about the subject. I’m glad I did because it seemed warmly received. It was also a chance to talk through themes that will be included in the chapter I am writing in a book on scheme design – more details to follow.

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  • Secretly teaching design – notes from our curriculum planning day at Imperial

    Secretly teaching design – notes from our curriculum planning day at Imperial

    I am just back from taking part in a Design Thread workshop at Imperial College, the aim of which was to co-ordinate activity between the various design-relevant courses on the undergraduate civil engineering course at Imperial. Here are some reflective notes as I whiz home, during the writing of which I came up with the notion of ‘secretly teaching design‘. (more…)

  • Aristotle, Seneca and Emotional Intelligence – conceptual design training notes

    Aristotle, Seneca and Emotional Intelligence – conceptual design training notes

    This post is intended as a reminder for the people participants in last week’s conceptual design workshop. It may also pique the interest of anyone else interested in learning or teaching creativity for engineers.

    The workshop was the fifth of five workshops for this cohort of engineers. At the start I asked attendees to list any challenges they face in doing conceptual design that they would like to focus on in the final session. I asked attendees to name the challenge and what kind of progress they would realistically like to make today towards overcoming that challenge. I summarised the challenges everyone shared, and asked participants to prioritise the topics for discussion. The following topics and talking points follow from that prioritised list. (more…)

  • Notes from ISEE 2018, UCL London

    Notes from ISEE 2018, UCL London

    A very interesting couple of days at the 7th International Symposium of Engineering Education down at UCL. Here’s something I found interesting which I am sharing with colleagues and collaborators.

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  • We are engineers, what are we doing?

    We are engineers, what are we doing?

    Irrigation reservoirs/ocean plastic cleanup robot/fingerprint recognition keyfinder/light-up bicycle/anti-drinkdrive steering/air-conditioned tie/plant-based academic gradebooster… a maelstrom technology, ideas and solutions proposed by school children who made the final of the Primary Engineerand Secondary Engineer Leaders Award.

    In this competition, children interview a practising engineer to find out about problem-finding, problem-solving and creativity in engineering. They then go home, find a problem of their own to solve, and create solutions, answering the question, if you were an engineer, what would you do?’ An astonishing 37,000 pupils entered the competition, from as young as recetpion-age. (more…)