Eiffel Over

Tag: supply chains

  • Clunch

    You read that right. No it is not an abbreviation of pack lunch. Clunch is a type of limestone, and one of the wonderful pieces of vocabulary I learnt this week from Mark, the stonemason who is renovating the front of our house.

    I asked Mark where he thought the Bath stone used in the surrounds to the windows and doors on our house came from. He pointed to a window jamb (another great word) and said which quarry he thought it came from, and not only that, but also whether it came from the top of the quarry of the bottom. All from the way the rock feels and can be worked.

    Here I am in my office writing about localising supply chains. And outside is someone who lives and breathes (literally I suspect from the dust) local supply. Who knows where rocks came from. Who can tell a story about why a block was placed one way or another. Who can find new uses for old pieces (a broken lintel has become a keystone elsewhere on the facade).

    He laughs at me and my Zoom calls. Fair enough. Thank you Mark for all your local wisdom, and your amazing work.

  • Where we make but also where we take

    When it comes to regenerative design, it’s not just where we make but also where we take that matters.

    For the last two decades, engineers (and other humans) have become more conscious of reducing their impact. Of how energy efficient our buildings are. Of reducing pollution from our sites into the surrounding environment.

    These are ways of reducing our impact where we build buildings and infrastructure. In the places where we make.

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  • Notes on building local

    This month I am writing an article on that explores what if we restricted construction material use to those from a local catchment. Rather than a global supply chain of materials that is disconnected between source and use, what if we could use materials that were a more locally relevant, resilient and regenerative resource?

    Today at the third of James Norman and my sessions exploring regenerative design with Buro Happold in Bath, we heard about the example of the machine shed at Westonburt Arboretum that was built only timber from the site.

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  • What if the screen you are now using is your last?

    What if the screen you are now using is your last?

    One day I hope this article will be printed in a book. But until then I can be fairly sure that you will be reading it on a screen. In 2021, that is most likely to be a phone, a tablet or a desktop, or possibly some sort of wearable device. In the future, that list could include countless other devices: a web table, a car dashboard, smart glasses, digital wall paper – even a hologram? Such is the speed of technological development that it is only natural to assume that whatever device we have now it will be renewed and upgraded to the next thing at some point. But what if that weren’t true?

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