Eiffel Over

Tag: vulnerability

  • Six motivations for collecting Analogue Skills

    Six motivations for collecting Analogue Skills

    Today I thought I’d share some of my motivations for the Analogue Skills project. 

    1 – An engineer’s fascination

    I am not anti-technology. I’m an engineer. I’m fascinated by how systems, machines and technology work, and how people use them. I am also fascinated by how technology changes the user and the user’s perception of the world. 

    2 – Tech awkward

    I’m also a bit awkward when it comes to tech. Sometimes I’m an early adopter – I got an iPhone before all my friends. Sometimes I’m an early rejector – I think I’m the only person I know who doesn’t have Google Maps on their mobile. Sometimes I’m a never adopter – for example, I don’t have an Amazon account. 

    The awkward bit is that I do have a smart phone (or phone, as they are now called), but I don’t assume I should use it for everything. Phone or no phone is a false dichotomy. I just don’t want my experience of life to mediated through a screen and potentially manipulated to meet corporate ends.

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  • Fear holds back my imagination

    Fear holds back my imagination

    I had a revelation this morning as I walked down the hill to the newsagent: fear holds back my imagination. A fear of imagining the impossible; fear of saying, hey I want this wonderful thing and other people laughing. It was a meta-level realisation of the lid that fear was putting on my imagination.

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  • Developing a design brief: asking the bigger questions

    Developing a design brief: asking the bigger questions

    When developing a design brief, it is tempting to start by constraining the problem – by clarifying, by simplifying, by cutting out. But if we want to make sure we are answering problems that matter, we need to step back from the brief and ask some bigger questions.

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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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