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

Black and white image of a tree canopy in winter, looking a bit like a series of river tributaries joining together.

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

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

Bengt Cousins-Jenvey podcast - how to save a million tonnes of carbon

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

Photograph shows Oliver Broadbent leading a swing dance lesson at Pete the Monkey Festival with the Mudflappers.Image used to create link between teaching swing dancing and creativity training for engineers

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

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‘.

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#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

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#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

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

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

Bay bridge suspension bridge, seen from San Francisco Embarcadero

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.”

Continue reading “#9: Engineering transport in San Francisco with Andrew Kosinski”