Dang.

Missed nomenclature glory aside, it is certainly something to sit up (pop up? OK, no bad jokes) and take notice of.

Cheap Housing in Africa

This is a trend that might have started in Africa. Shipping containers have a sea life of 5-10 years, and shipping companies have found it easy and profitable to dispose off their old containers in Africa. Some companies like Safmarine even donate these old containers to charities that work in Africa. Critics call it an ugly dump of western trade, which is entirely true, but at the same time, one cannot argue with the fact that these containers are providing entire communities with a cheap and recycled, if not entirely durable form of shelter. It in fact has gone well beyond housing – containers have become shops, warehouses, offices, and even schools. I’m not sure this is at all a solution to the developmental issues of African cities (it in fact might just be exacerbating the problem by generating more urban waste) but I’m sure that the people who’ve found shelter and livelihood in these cheap containers would hail them as life-savers, even if for the short  term. Little wonder, then, that there are now formal companies in Africa that “specialise” in providing container developments. You read that right.

Container Retail

And where the West smells a profitable trend, it runs to, with open arms. How many “pop-up” (there goes that term again) retail formats using containers have you heard of in the last five years? if you live in London or New York, chances are that the term “pop-retail” has started to give you a rash.

The most notable one of these in the news recently has been Boxpark – the word’s first shopping mall made entirely out of shipping containers (about fifty of them) in Shoreditch in East London. It is not a permanent structure, though – true to its pop-up (argh) philosophy, it will be around for only five years. If you haven’t heard of it that much, don’t worry, it’s probably abut to “pop-up” near you soon. This is one trend that’s showing little signs of dying out.

Container Everything-You-Can-Think-Of

But it doesn’t stop here. From cinemas, to restaurants, to hotel rooms, to office spaces, everything and everyone is jumping onto the container bandwagon. It has moved well beyond housing for the underprivileged. Architects are now designing  container houses for the super-privileged. Containers are literally taking over the world.

Container Disaster Relief

But it’s not just all profit-making and consumerism faddism*. Containers are being put to good use in disaster relief in various parts of the world. Notably, in Christchurch, New Zealand in Haiti, post earthquake, these containers are being used to provide essential services like health-care, grocery staples and education, and also to quite literally, restart the economy in ravaged Christchurch.

*Faddism: The trend of following a particular fad, just because it is a fad. Now there’s a useful new term for you. Don’t forget to mention that I coined it, though.

Chosen out of more than a 1,000 entries from across the UK, the shortlist that spans four categories, is a treat:

Book Illustrations

1. Cathy Maclennan: Bunny Bunny Catkin

2. Laetitia Devernay: The Conductor

3. Rob Ryan: A Sky Full of Kindness

Book Jacket and Cover Illustration

1. Matthew Richardson: The Outsider

2. Vicky White: Can We Save The Tiger

2. Petra Börner: Emma

Editorial Illustrations

1. Stefano Morris: Henry’s Demons

2. Luke Best: Chilvaric Fiasco

3. Nick Lowndes: Small Businesses

Student

Clockwise from top left: Daniel Clarke: Heygate Memories; Faye Coral Johnson: Nonsensical Thoughts; Rachel Lillie: Born Fighting; Joe Lyward: Fear; Holly Mills: Hothouse

The results will be announced on the 11th of June, and the shortlisted entries will be available to view in exhibition at the V&A after that.

Do you have any favourites to win? I do! I’ll reveal my favourites in the comments section tomorrow.

I will be running a regular themed series here on my favourite illustrations from near and afar, called Illustrati. For me, this will serve as a visual scrapbook of the handmade art I love, and for you, it will hopefully serve as inspiration to make your own, or kick-start an urge to buy some of this fabulous work.

Today’s Illustrati is about Cities. (Oh what a surprise!). I introduce to you, five of my favourite illustrations based on cities, from Etsy:

1. Tubidu

2. Nate Duval

3. My New York City by Agnieszka Zabawa

4. Neely Illustration

5. City Rooftops by Danny Roberts

Five distinct styles, five immensely talented artists. I am just waiting to move into that sprawling house with endless wall space to make these art works my own… sigh.

I’m really hard-pressed to choose a favourite from these. What about you?

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*All art works above are the copyright of the respective artists.

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Last summer, the city of Murcia, Spain made big news because of their radical new initiative aimed at cutting down congestion and pollution in the city. The idea was simple, but pretty radical and as as far as I know, never tried before – the city government and the tram company Mejor en Tranvia offered free lifetime tram passes to citizens in exchange for one of their roadworthy cars.

At that time, I thought the idea was brilliant, but I was still slightly sceptical about whether it would work. At the very first level, I assume they would have done their background research and ascertained that a major number of car journeys made by the citizens could be replaced by the tram service in the first place – that the tram service actually served the same origin and destination points for most citizens.

The second, but most important factor was of course, economics. Would it make economic sense for the citizens to replace their cars for the tram, even if their journeys were free?

I did not know the answers to those questions and I wondered what would come of it. I tried doing some online research but given my fairly limited (ok, non-existent) knowledge of the Spanish language, I couldn’t get very far.

Given the campaign was launched in July 2011, I am wondering what became of the campaign – how successful was it?

If it was indeed successful, shouldn’t we all be sitting up and taking notice? There are so many cities around the world, which could benefit from a similar campaign – provided the economics add up, of course.

I would really like to know.

High Street, Ringwood, Hampshire Showing the Regal Cinema. Photochrom Co. Ltd., Tunbridge Wells. Sixpence (by Air Mail to France); postmarked 1959. The Regal Cinema building on the right is now boarded up and at risk.

 Once upon a time there was romantic notion. Although romantic, it had its roots in reality, the reality of the times it was conceived in.

And so it went on to go beyond being just a notion. It thrived, and that was a good thing, but then the notion assumed even greater romanticism, for the very reason that it had thrived. And that wasn’t such a good thing. But no one saw that yet, because although the notion had started to grey around the temples, real decline had yet to show.

Then one day, times changed. People changed, the way they lived and behaved started to change, faster than any long-lived notions can change. And the romantic notion started to flounder. It would have died a death sooner, but for the holders and protectors of romantic notions who would not let it go – having seen in thrive once, they assumed it would live endlessly, that it could be revived to its youth.

And so they tried to make the notion live longer, stretched it, which made it age faster. And then one day, the notion died, leaving the believers bereft – and a bit out of pocket, because they had been so focused in trying to save something whose time had passed, they neglected to look into the present, and the future, and build an alternative.

~

The recent Mary Portas review largely reiterated the problems of the British high street but was highly inadequate in finding real and rooted solutions for the problems. At the same time, there are campaigners stepping up the buy-local slogan, suggesting that if we fill our high streets with indigenous sellers of homemade products, all will be solved and everyone will live happily ever after.

Yet other players are jumping in on the bandwagon selling a one-stop solution – a redesign, re-engineer, refit solution for high streets in terminal decline – a brave statement akin to bringing back the dead from the grave.

In my opinion, they couldn’t be further from reality.

Yes, local sellers and local markets are part of the solution, but far from being the saviours of the high street.

Yes, a refit solution might work in some high streets, especially those that are tending towards decline but haven’t yet gone into derelict status yet; but these are far from being the solution for most of them.

The existing high street must find other uses for it to be commercially viable, while retail finds its place in well-designed shopping centres that are captive destinations - that allow people the retail choice they want, in the comfortable environment they demand, alongside ancillary uses that will encourage them to come to the shopping centre and stay there longer – and therefore spend more. The success of Westfield in West London is not a fluke – it is a result of  locating luxury brands, a wide range of chains as well as local, indigenous retailers all under one roof (albeit carefully selected and zoned within the development – the principles of economies of agglomeration still apply to this type of development). All this, in an environment where people can be comfortable, engage in other pursuits and be entertained for hours, is what has made Westfield such a dramatic success – not only for the developers and retailers, but also for the consumer, the most important link in the chain (but often ignored by the sloganeers).

I’m not suggesting that UK should be colonised by Westfields and its kin. I’m suggesting that the answer lies in a holistic, forward-looking and open-minded assessment of high streets on a case by base basis.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution here.

On one hand, we need to be open to the possibility of finding completely different uses for some of our high streets that are already dead or derelict or fast approaching terminal decline.

On the other hand, if shopping centres are created, they need to look well beyond retail to be successful, and more importantly, sustainable.

Yet another model is that of a combination of downsizing the high street to core retail and recreating parts of it with non-retail uses that can help attract people back to the area.

In my work, I have come across several examples in other geographies that demonstrate these models successfully. Fundamentally, Britain needs to lose its attachment to that romantic notion of the Great British High Street. Its time is gone and it’s time for new notions, firmly rooted in the new reality, to take its place.

And that perhaps, could deliver another “happily ever after” – for the next few decades of retail in Britain.

I have a strong itch to wander and it usually shows up about once in six weeks. It also tends to be fairly specific – travel for me is not just a getaway, it’s the lure of a specific feeling, the call of a tangible mood, which seems unattainable unless I take myself to that one place that has caught my imagination.

Travel for me, is also often closely linked to the aesthetics of the place – a sensory, and sensual coming together of the natural and man-made.

I have been trying to plan a trip to Marrakesh for months now, and something or the other keeps preventing it from happening. That of course, does no good to the aforementioned itch, which keeps growing until it is scratched, as itches are wont to do.

I came across La Pause in one of those Marrakesh trip-planning phases and it blew me away in anticipation.

Perhaps posting these images here will temporarily soothe that itch; perhaps not.

Then again, maybe this will transfer the itch to you!

There’s no other way of finding out.

~

*All images from La Pause website

All images (c) David Monjouin t

In response to a brief to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the village’s arts and nature trail programs, Marseille artist Gaëlle Villedary created this 1,400 feet long landscape in the French town of Jaujac. The living grass tapestry stretches across the length of the town.

It has apparently been a huge success as people instantly took to engaging with the installation – walking or sitting on the grass, or following its trail down into the town centre.

(c) David Monjou

(c) David Monjou

(c) David Monjou

Villedary calls it “Tapis Rouge!” or the “Red Carpet” – colour discrepancy aside, I’d imagine the wonderful installation certainly makes the town inhabitants feel special.

~

Fumiaki Goto, a Japanese designer, has taken the simple, ubiquitous graphite pencil and turned it into a piece of art – no, strike that – a fully functional piece of art that can be used to produce art itself.

Working as part of the designers’ collective bril, Goto explains that the thought behind this was just to extend the process of making ceramics, which is what regular graphite pencils are, anyway – ceramics made of a mixture of clay and graphite. He modified the process to create an extended ceramic shape, part of which is the pencil “lead” and the other part is a simple ceramic that can be used to hold the pencil.

Not only does this little piece of brilliance do away with the wood component of the traditional pencil, it renders it as an attractive piece of art in itself.

Bril-liant, indeed.

 ~

If you’ve ever visited Bruges by night, you know where the cliché ‘picture postcard perfect‘ comes from.

In fact, I think the words ‘stunning‘, ‘picturesque‘, ‘breathtaking‘ and ‘ridiculously pretty‘ come from Bruges too.

What do you think?

~

The New Shared At Space Exhibition Road, London (source: www.dailymail.co.uk)

London just grew up a little. Or so one hopes.

A radical new initiative has just been implemented at the busy museum-lined Exhibition Road in South Kensington, where all visual as well as physical barriers between pedestrian and vehicular traffic have been removed. For the first time, people are being trusted to behave themselves and share their space on the road – cars, bicycles and pedestrians alike.

Exhibition Road: Before And After

This is a huge departure from the established norm in transport planning, where drivers are trusted to be (and therefore encouraged to be) selfish, rash and wholely unaccommodating and unminmdful of pedestrians, who in turn, are meant to behave themselves, stick to the very edges of the road and preferably not venture out on foot (or bike) at all. Suddenly, all of these people have been thrown together into one space, meant to be shared. Trust here, is implied – trust in the belief that drivers do not voluntarily want to run down passengers, that accidents happen because drivers do not expect pedestrians to be in what is meant to be ‘their’ space; and that in a space that is shared, drivers will naturally be more mindful of peestrians and bikers.

I could be funny and say this reminds me of traffic in India – where, despite all barriers, pedestrians, drivers, cows, dogs and the occasional cat converge on to the road and fight it out in a constant Darwinian battle, but I won’t. (But I just did, anyway). If Jeremy Clarkson was taken seriously, he would have us believe that that is exactly what’s about to happen on Exhibition Road. But no one does take him seriously (thankfully), so let’s just wait and watch to see whether this bold experiment does succeed.