Anne-apolis

  As this is my last blog for 2024, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the various craft projects that I completed throughout the year. I have quite recently become a knitter - it all started in 2021 as a way of managing my anxiety. Before that, I had always hated knitting and dreaded every Easter when we had to knit squares and jerseys for charities supported by my school. My knitting this year started with a marathon - matching emerald green jerseys for my nephew and his family. The next was a real scale change - a pale grey jersey and beanie for a newborn baby of one of my daughter's best friends. Jersey and hat for a newborn baby The pattern for the jersey is a big favourite with all of the new mom friends, as it has buttons at the neck so that you don't have to pull a tight neck over the little face. Soon after, I used the same pattern, this time with variegated yarn, for a darling toddler who is a keen gardener, so the colours won't show the dirt. I like ...

Stone in its natural state has many imperfections, some of which we prize for aesthetic reasons, such as the veining in white marble which gives it a unique look. The problem with these characteristics is that it makes a stone element unpredictable when used in any construction application. For this reason, natural stone has been traditionally used with very thick components, such as the very deep beams in an Ancient Greek temple. When the stone bends under its self-weight or because of weight placed upon it, such as roof timbers, it develops stresses, which, if they follow the same line as the grain of the stone (the veins in the marble), the beam will crack and come crashing to the ground. The thicker the beam, the better it can withstand the forces acting on it. So what is engineered stone? Any material used in engineering needs to be predictable to be able to optimise the use of material and make each element as lightweight as possible. This is arguably even more important than the...

Whether you are designing a large building, or the interior of a single room, it is useful to have an overall guiding principle, the most basic of which would be mirror symmetry. This can be seen in the original wing of the building where I live. It follows a simple rhythm of 'abbabba', where 'a' is a two-bedroom apartment and 'b' is a one-bedroom unit. The entrance is in the centre, flanked by two studio flats, which fit neatly under the two-bedroom unit in the centre on the upper floors. Photo of the original wing in the early 1930s When the building was enlarged, just two years later, a different firm of architects was employed with more modernist ideas, so while the detailing borrowed from the original wing, the overall composition was asymmetrical, with a greater variety of apartment layouts.  The later wing with its syncopated rhythm In comparing the two photos, we have a good example of the differences of approach, with the symmetrical layout being more c...