Eiffel Over

Tag: wintering

  • What you only notice when everything quietens down

    This is my final post for the year.

    Some things we notice because we are looking for them. I have lost my keys; I look around the house, my brain is scanning for the keys; I spot the keys. But in that search what I fail to notice is that the pot plant above my desk hasn’t been watered for weeks and is about to die. 

    Then there’s another kind of noticing, an awareness that isn’t driven by a specific task. It’s a more open awareness, in which we we may be able to see things that we were not necessarily looking for. 

    For me, the starting point in design is observation. And not just the laser-focused, looking-for-a-thing type of observation, but a more open, breathing-in-of-the-situation kind. What does a place feel like? What is the energy of a group of people? What am I drawn towards or away from? 

    Our brains are incredible at spotting patterns, but only when we let them. Hyper-focused attention, while useful, often comes at the cost of perceiving the bigger picture.

    For many in the built-environment sector, work is a hyper-focused, task-orientated space. Deadlines don’t leave mush space for stepping back. But taking a break from work gives us the opportunity to look up and have a more general awareness.

    If you have holidays coming up, then I invite you to simply notice what you notice when you aren’t looking for anything in particular. What you see might reveal be the wider patterns of place, of community, of life that we aim to serve in our work as engineers (and other humans). 

  • Human beings or human doings

    It is easy to look back on the year and list what you have done – projects started and milestones met, things ticked off.

    It is much harder to look back and reflect on how you have been.  Asking questions like how you have felt along the way or how you have inhabited the year are much more groined and embodied questions than what you have done.

    But these latter questions remind us that we are human beings rather than human doings.

    This year, I’m going to try weaving this question into more of my end-of-year conversations and self-reflection. Not just what did I do?, but how was I?

  • Watt to do?

    At my latitude in Bristol, there are about 12 fewer hours of sunlight at the winter solstice compared to the summer. That’s half a day’s less light.

    What’s more, the noontime midwinter sun sits far lower in the sky than its midsummer counterpart. This means the sunlight we do get has only a fraction of its June-time wattage.

    There could not be a clearer signal from the living world to do less.

  • Better than a New Year’s resolution

    I used to like making New Year’s resolutions. My resolution to stop eating chocolate digestives in my old job at Expedition Engineering lasted 3.5 years. My resolution to stop being sarcastic has been more intermittent—let’s call it a “New Year’s preference” rather than a resolution.

    But lately, I’ve been thinking that resolutions are a rather peculiar way to approach change. They tend to overplay our sense of agency while underestimating the myriad unseen factors that shape how our complex lives unfold.

    As 2025 approaches, I’m struck by the idea that the seeds of what will emerge in the coming year have already been planted throughout 2024. Taking inspiration from the Three Horizons Model, a better approach might be to ask:

    • What new patterns are emerging for me?
    • How might these patterns bear fruit?

    These are questions that take time to answer. In the living world, new shoots don’t appear until late winter or early spring—they emerge in their own time

    So, instead of making a New Year’s resolution, why not try something quieter? Pay attention to the patterns emerging in your life and work. Notice them, nurture them, and think about how you might align yourself with them. In doing so, you’ll work with the momentum that has already, quietly, been building beneath the surface.