Eiffel Over

Category: The Eiffel Over Podcast

  • #18 Hazel Hill Wood – Dawn chorus sonic lockdown therapy- show-notes

    #18 Hazel Hill Wood – Dawn chorus sonic lockdown therapy- show-notes

    30 minutes of uninterrupted dawn chorus Hazel Hill Wood, recorded at the end of March. Hazel Hill is woodland nature reserve and education centre helping frontline staff develop resilience and wellbeing through connection with nature. While people are prevented from visiting the woods during lockdown, the team are working on ways to bring the wood to them during lockdown. Listening suggestions:

    • Early in the morning
    • Over breakfast
    • In the background while you work
    • To clear your mind at the end of work
    • Late at night as you drift off to sleep
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  • #17 Tabitha Pope – Participatory Architecture – Show notes

    #17 Tabitha Pope – Participatory Architecture – Show notes

    Tabitha Pope is an architect and lecturer, with a specialism temporary structures and participatory architecture and a passion for work that sits at the boundary of art and architecture. In this episode, produced in support of International Women’s Day, my colleague Lucy Barber interview Tabitha about:

    • What is participatory design and what benefits does it offer us in the climate emergency.
    • Challenging power in order to make architecture a more inclusive space for all under-represented groups, not just women.
    • How her practice of carpentry allows her to intervene in the design process in a different way.
    • Establishing a nature connection to help designers and citizens alike tackle the biodiversity crisis.
    • Stepping into a space of vulnerability in design in order to do things differently.
    • Creating spaces for joy and encounter to tackle loneliness and build resilience in communities.

    Listen on Apple Podcasts , Sticher or by download here.

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  • #16 Bengt Cousins-Jenvey – How to save a million tonnes of carbon – shownotes

    #16 Bengt Cousins-Jenvey – How to save a million tonnes of carbon – shownotes

    Bengt is a consultant and ‘re-designer’, working in sustainability and circular design in the built environment. This year we are working together to create training in response to the climate emergency. In this interview I ask Bengt about his big question: what single thing can you do to save a million tonnes of carbon. Exploring this question we get into:

    • High-level strategies for accounting for carbon that help avoid getting stuck in the detail.
    • Using culture-change models to guide organisations as they respond to declaring a climate emergency.
    • Thinking frameworks that help consultants engage with the businesses they are supporting.

    Listen on Apple Podcasts , Sticher or by download here

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  • #15 Show-notes – Oliver Broadbent interview by Alexie Sommer – Creativity, climate and clowning

    #15 Show-notes – Oliver Broadbent interview by Alexie Sommer – Creativity, climate and clowning

    I spend most of my time designing creativity training for engineers. In this episode we flip the format. Alexie Sommer, Independent Design and Communication Director and collaborator on many of my projects interviews me about why I set up Eiffel Over and Constructivist Ltd, and what our plans are for designing creativity training for engineers in 2020. We get into:

    • Techniques for teaching creativity
    • Our programme of training support people tackling the climate emergency
    • And what engineers might learn from clowns.

    Listen on Apple Podcasts , Sticher or by download here

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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

  • #12 Show-notes – Roma Agrawal: how to build a skyscraper

    #12 Show-notes – Roma Agrawal: how to build a skyscraper

    In this episode I bring you a step-by-step guide on how to build a skyscraper with structural engineer Roma Agrawal (@RomaTheEngineer), author of ‘Built, the Hidden Stories Behind our Structures’. We get into the engineering, creativity and philosophy of sky scrapers and their designers. Don’t try to build a skyscraper yourself without listening to this first.
    And since engineering education is something I do for my day job, I thought I’d accompany this episode with some additional resources related to the topics of this podcast. I’ll be adding to these over the next few days so stay tuned.
    • Listen to it on iTunes
    • Listen on Stitcher
    • Stream by clicking here
    • Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

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  • #11 Show notes – Jack Bardwell – Spine-tingling creativity

    #11 Show notes – Jack Bardwell – Spine-tingling creativity

    Graphic designer Jack Bardwell and I used to be colleagues at the Useful Simple Trust, he bringing alive the many wacky ideas I have had about how to teach people engineering. Over our three years working together we had many fascinating and long discussions together about creative processes and teaching design.

    I recorded this episode with Jack last summer just before he left to puruse new adventures in interior architecture. I miss him in this office, so it has been a pleasure therefore to listen his voice in the edit, and to hear the many fascinating things he has to say about his creative process, what he has learnt from working with engineers, and, most intriguingly, the spine-tingling effect other people’s creativity can have on him.

    In this episode we get into:

    • Tuning in to other people’s creativity
    • How people express creativity without realising it.
    • The receiver is the context
    • Cooking is design
    • The importance of copying in developing skill as a designer
    • How new skills open up possibilities, too much skill can limit them
    • Using jigs to constrain the creative process
    • How a carefully tuned jig can force a particularly aesthetic on what you create.
    • How you communicate different parts of the design to the client.
    • When is a jig not a jig.
    • Thinking in lists
    • The way information is presented to you is not necessarily the best way for you to look at it.

    I’ve got a feeling this going to be one of those episodes I keep coming back to when I need angles for looking at the world. Enjoy!

    • Listen to it on iTunes
    • Listen on Stitcher
    • Stream by clicking here
    • Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

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  • #10 Show notes- John-Paul Flintoff – Saving the world one creative project at a time

    #10 Show notes- John-Paul Flintoff – Saving the world one creative project at a time

    Journalist and author John-Paul Flintoff is this person who inspired me to start this podcast. He talks passionately about how to get people started on their creative projects and the positive impact their creativity has on the world. This interview gets very meta: a podcast about the creative process of podcasting. We get into all sorts of great techniques for creative projects, including:

    • Improv games
    • Valuing what you are good at
    • Not losing track of what is working well already
    • The importance of getting started
    • Not worrying about whether it is going to be good.
    • Shared space in the creaive process
    • Why we need to keep noticing

    But beyond any particular tactic, it is J-P’s warmth and encouragement that I find so inspiring. I hope it inspires you too.

    • Listen to it on iTunes
    • Listen on Stitcher
    • Stream by clicking here
    • Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

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  • #9: Engineering transport in San Francisco with Andrew Kosinski

    #9: Engineering transport in San Francisco with Andrew Kosinski

    I can’t think of metropolitan landscape that offers more varied and exciting opportunities for designing transport infrastructure than San Francisco, with its steep hills, its bay, its rapidly changing economy and its tantalisingly separated land masses.

    In this second episode of the Eiffelovercast from my recent trip  to the US (catch the first one here)  I catch up San Francisco-based transport engineer and old friend Andrew Kosinski and we geek out on transport-related matters including:

    • Bridgoff: Bay vs. Golden Gate
    • Tearing down freeways
    • Bringing cycling into San Francisco
    • Is driving a right and it is a freedom?
    • The phenomenon of ‘parklets’
    • Tunnelling through ships
    • Building towers on weak and shifting sands
    • The creative bubble of silicon valley and the unintended consequences
    • Autonomous vehicles
    • Using firms like Uber to replace under-productive bus routes
    • Becoming passive consumers of cities

    • Listen to it on iTunes
    • Listen on Stitcher
    • Stream by clicking here
    • Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

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  • #8 – Eiffelover on tour in San Francisco

    #8 – Eiffelover on tour in San Francisco

    This is the first of two episodes of the Eiffelovercast recorded in San Francisco earlier this month. I was in the city to run some Think Up workshops, and so talk the opportunity to recorded some thoughts, interviews and sound bites related to my regular themes of engineering, creativity and practical philosophy.

    “News from San Francisco: We are all part of the cloud”

    In this episode I visit the Golden Gate Bridge (my favourite bridge in the world?), find out about experiments down in Stanford about what makes us collaborate better, try out as many modes of transport I can, learn about extended cognition and our relationship with the cloud, and experiment with ditching Google maps in an attempt to understand the city better.

    The second episode from San Francisco will be on line later this week. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy listening.

    To listen you can:

    • Click play on the player above
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    • Listen on iTunes
    • Download the episode here
    • Access all episodes online here

    Did none of those links work for you? Or do you access podcasts from another source that I am missing? Then please let me know in the comments below.

  • #7: Musician and composer Ellie Westgarth-Flynn on creative strategies, instruments as an extension of our bodies and creative feedback

    #7: Musician and composer Ellie Westgarth-Flynn on creative strategies, instruments as an extension of our bodies and creative feedback

    Ever since I was a kid my Dad has been sharing musical composition strategies with me, so I think music has been a lens thorugh which I’ve thought about creativity for a long time. And so I jumped at the opportunity to interview my friend Ellie Westgarth-Flynn, pianist, singer, composer and performer about our shared interest in creative techinques for composition. As in many of these podcast interviews, I think that creative techinques from one domain can easily be transported to another, and so I hope that whatever your domain of work, you find something useful in the creative techinques that Ellie and discuss. In this episode, we get into:

    • The tension between technical mastery and creative freedom.
    • The freedom that rhythmic and harmonic templates or restrictions bring to our compositions.
    • Building up composition from motifs and building blocks.
    • The importance of feedback in the creative process – acting on feedback is where change takes place.
    • There comes a point at which you need to leave yourself out of it and get on the with the job of writing the music.
    • Three creative techniques for anyone trying to get into song writing.


    • Listen to it on iTunes
    • Stream by clicking here
    • Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”

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  • Eiffelovercast #6 – Riding the Northern Line Ghost Train

    Eiffelovercast #6 – Riding the Northern Line Ghost Train

    In this episode of the podcast I attempt a sonic recreation of a part of the London Underground that never got built, a stretch of the Northern Line that would have run from Moorgate to Alexandra Palace. En route I reflect on the transport infrastructure shapes our experience of the city and the difference between what engineers plan and what actually gets built. I really loved making this podcast – it features my mother, Anne Soutry, as Northern Line announcer, making the most of her skills as a continuity announcer for BBC Radio Manchester many years ago. Also, as part of my research, I got a ride in the cab of a Northern Line train with my friend Stuart McGee – thanks Stu. So, have a listen, and I hope you enjoy the ride.

    If you liked this podcast then you’d definitely enjoy:

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  • Eiffelovercast #5 – Nick Cobbing: photographing the Arctic

    Eiffelovercast #5 – Nick Cobbing: photographing the Arctic

    Photographer and photojournalist Nick Cobbing talks about photographing the Arctic, what happens to photographic equipment at minus 38 degrees, using drones to take photos, the role of the audience in the creative process, being reduced to tears by the beauty of the planet, the best places to swing dance north of the Arctic, life hacks for creative people working on their own and whether penguins tango or waltz.

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  • Eiffelovercast #4 – Crossing France very very fast: a paean to TGVs

    Eiffelovercast #4 – Crossing France very very fast: a paean to TGVs

    Ever since I saw my first one zoom past as a boy I’ve loved TGVs. In January I travelled from one side of France to the other and back by high-speed train to get to a conference, and used the chance to try to capture some of what I love about fast trains in France. It’s a mash up of travel diary, interviews and engineering history, all stitched together with familiar SNCF noises. I hope you enjoy.

    If you enjoy the interview then please let me know in the comments thread below.

  • Eiffelovercast #3 – Andrew Scoones – is there is such a thing as engineering culture?

    Eiffelovercast #3 – Andrew Scoones – is there is such a thing as engineering culture?

    We are trying to define the heritage of the future – the creativity and ideas in engineering that people will look back on – Andrew Scoones

    Andrew Scoones is a filmmaker specialising in the built environment. Andrew seems to have interviewed or met almost all of my engineering design heroes, and so I was equally delighted and nervous when he agreed to let me interview him! In this podcast we explore one of Andrew’s passions, the identification and celebration of engineering culture. Along the way way we get in to some great stories about designers, what they design and how they do it.

    Andrew is director of the Engineering Club, set up over twenty years ago to host events about the broad culture of engineering in an informal setting. In this podcast he shares some of his favourite stories from Engineering Club guests, which illustrate different aspects of engineering culture.

    En route we get into bicycle design, designing trainers, whether there engineering culture includes creativity, and whether there is room for creativity in industrialissed systems. We talk about some great engineers and their projects. And we talk about building your own dishwasher.

    Please enjoy this interview with Andrew Scoones and let me know what you think in the comments below.

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  • Podcast Episode 1 – Engineering, creativity and practical philosophy

    Podcast Episode 1 – Engineering, creativity and practical philosophy

    I’ve been thinking about creating an Eiffelover podcast for over a year. Last week at Port Eliot festival I saw John-Paul Flintoff (@jpflintoff) give a great talk on creativity in which he challenged us to name one creative project that we want to do, and commit to taking the first step…

    And so this is it, the Eiffelover podcast, the first of what I hope will become a regular digest of matters engineering, creative and practically philosophical garnered from the people I meet, the workshops I run and the material I read. I hope you find it useful.

    To kick off, I created my first episode here at Electromagnetic Field camp, a non-profit UK camping festival for those with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, artists, geeks, crafters, scientists, and engineers.

    In this podcast I meet some of the fantastic people here at EMF camp and their imaginitive creations, I dig around to find out what makes these creative people tick, and I get into a fascinating conversation with Richard Sewell about ‘Thingness’, a term he and his colleague coined to talk about the power of making things. Listen now to learn more.

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