Author: mazdaPage 1 of 8
Having spent his whole professional career performing and recording symphonic music, my father, Nigel Broadbent, is a font of knowledge about composers’ creative methods. For engineers (and other…
Design is a continuous, looping process. It is a loop that begins with observing a situation, then establishing a brief for your work, developing ideas, and testing those…
I spent most of yesterday afternoon up to my middle in waves learning to surf. (I’ve got a long way to go). So it is no coincidence that…
It is a simple question. What if every time we built something the world got better? Not just in the places we construct but in all the places…
I’m just noticing that I’m entering that perfect groove of Friday afternoon. I’ve stopped travelling for the week and I’m back at my desk. My head is buzzing…
I was in Cambridge again yesterday to deliver the second workshop in a new cycle of material on conceptual design for the Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment…
Our summer tour continues. From Batz-sur-Mer we took a TER train to Nantes. No cycle reservation necessary. And then from Nantes, an Intercité train to La Rochelle. This…
The highlight of our visit to Nantes was standing next to the Great Elephant as it set off for one its walks around the former dock yards. The…
Salt has been harvested in the bay between Le Croisic and Guérance on the edge of Brittany for centuries. The industry had been in decline but in more…
The last leg of our journey along the Loire à Vélo cycle route, à 35km flat run into Nantes. It was misty as we covered the early morning…
A day for integrated travel! 70km from Ponts de Cé to Ancenis, and then 10km by kayak, our bikes carried to the downstream dock in a van, then…
The next leg of our cycle trip along the Loire took us from Saumur to Ponts de Cé, a town a little south of Angers. Again the river…
The one night we decided to sleep with out a tent and it rained. Only a few spots at around 5am, but enough to wake me and wonder…
We left Amboise, climbed the out of the valley of the Loire and over into the Cher, which runs parallel to the Loire and would be what we…
The second day of cycling along the Loire. A relatively flat 70km that would get steadily heavier going as the day heated up. The cycle path along the…
Today our trip shifted gear, away from the city and on the road again. We left paris from the Gare Austerlitz, which feels like it has been under…
From stage one of the Tour de Femmes in Paris to a very different stage two finish in Provins. The stage in Paris was of ceremonial importance, but…
One of the anchor points for our trip this summer is to catch the start of the Tour de Femmes, which coincides with the end of the Tour…
Today we had a proper tourist day in Paris. We’ve been numerous times with our daughter but now she’s old enough to remember we decided to take in…
The port of Ouistreham is about 15km from the city of Caen. Journey today began with a cycle along the canal de Caen à la Mer. The canal…
A multimodal stage on our journey through France, with 70km by bike, 7km by kayak and another 2km uphill to finish the day. We crossed the Maine river…
Restorative and regenerative are two words I am hearing used interchangeably. Both are relevant to engineering and design. Both are approaches to design that are valuable. But they…
On a recent trip to the Alps I took Robert MacFarlane‘s breathtaking ‘Mountains of the Mind‘. In it I found this delightful tale about Mark Twain taking his…
Sunday morning we cycled through Bristol and up to Leigh Woods. We took the ‘high route’, choosing to climb up through the wealthy streets Clifton. Everywhere oozes money…
‘Act it Out’ is my favourite technique for shifting creative thinking from the mind to the body. This post is another in my series on Turning the Kalideascope,…
I’m sharing today my notes on the fuel crisis and what it reveals about how the government is acting in the wider context of climate breakdown. Defending fossil…
I have been spending more time at the allotment as a stimulation for thinking about regenerative design. Notes from yesterday’s visit.