Barnabas Calder

Why did UCL settle? As you say, it was grotty luck to be a student during the pandemic but we didn't have any choice but to move online, and resumed studio as soon as we were allowed. Whom do I get to sue for the fact that it wasn't great for my children of 1 and 5 at lockdown 1?

Thank you so much - I'm glad it's proven useful.

Front Row - Review: Wuthering Heights film and Jack Thorne's Lord of the Flies - BBC Sounds Former artistic director Jude Kelly on the Southbank Centre being Grade II listed.

I was on BBC R4 today talking about the beautiful South Bank Centre. Starts 19 mins in.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

YouTube video by New Weather Institute Winter Olympics Report 3 - Off Track

Here's me prompted by Matt Rendell to risk the opinion that perhaps the #winterolympics could be less #climatecrisis and ecosystem destructive:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=sfhW...

Yes, that's a weird one. Acknowledging the architectural origins, choosing a very odd source to cite for it, and then jumping to neoliberalism, is quite the rollercoaster.

Mutually so - thank you so much for coming.

Prof Tim Waterman lecturing to an audience in Liverpool.

Great to have @tim-waterman.co.uk speaking at Liverpool School of Architecture today. Masses of thought-provoking insights on our perceptions of our planet, and even some hopeful notes, which is quite a hard thing to achieve in January 2026.

Am I right in thinking it's all heat-treated as part of the processing? How much does that affect its embodied energy consumption?

It's nice, isn't it? I'll have to have a look at the Paddington one. It's weird how little I've used Paddington in my life.

The correct answer was:

Snap! And the carpet commissioning policy, too. But yes, another casualty of 2016.

Hahaha! Excellent trolling, then!

I will once I've given people longer to not recognise it first.

Nope! Sounds worth a visit, though.

A light fitting and the top of a pilaster

Guess #whatbuilding:

'The past is an underused tool': An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm In a deadly cold period known as the Little Ice Age, clever Elizabethan designs kept a magnificent stately home unusually warm – with lessons for how we can heat our own homes better.

Brilliant to see the BBC picking up Ranald Lawrence and Dean Hawkes' fabulously interesting and important #environmentalhumanities work on #HardwickHall. They measured solar gain to understand Elizabethan comfort tech.
The original articles are hugely worth reading too.
www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Did anyone snap the Foster/Holcim Essential Homes prototype at the Venice Biennale 2023? If so might I be able to use your photo for an article? I'm not getting replies to my request for permission.

Form Follows Fuel - a book by Florian Urban and Barnabas Calder about the energy history of architecture.

The wonderful @johnczulowskiburns.bsky.social has joined Bluesky! Do give him a follow. He's the architect who produced the digital models of our buildings for #FormFollowsFuel, which enabled us to calculate #embodiedenergy for each of them. Also the stunning cover image.

@florianurban.bsky.social

Thank you Michael! Great to hear that ours is in your top 4! The others look great. More to add to my toppling "to read" tower...

4 Books and a straw OSB on a chest. 1. STRAWBALE BUILDING REDIFINED 2. FORM FOLLOWS FUEL 3. Building for People 4. Die Expontialgesellschaft

Fav books '25
No particular order, just bangers, no prisoners taken.
* Straw Bale Building Redefined
strawbuildingbooks.com
* Form Follows Fuel
@barnabascalder.bsky.social @florianurban.bsky.social
* Building for People
@holz-bau.bsky.social
* Die Exponentialgesellschaft
@deutschmann.bsky.social

The great @milesglendinning.bsky.social has joined bluesky! Please follow him if you're interested in #housing, #heritage and #architecturalhistory.

Quite right!!

Malcolm Fraser architect backs keeping Argyle House, Edinburgh. Redevelop don't demolish. #brutalist #architecture
@barnabascalder.bsky.social
#embodiedcarbon

Yes, that makes sense. But giving the bald figures is the first thing: this cost x kWh to build, and y kWh to run the way we're running it in practice. Those are knowable, clear figures we need to reduce.

Interesting - thank you!

Is embodied carbon a vanity metric? With ambitions for regenerative architecture increasing, it is vitally important that we measure the right things in trying to get there, say Barnabas Calder and Florian Urban

@florianurban.bsky.social found for our book Form Follows Fuel that it's v hard to get #embodiedenergy figures for buildings today. #embodiedcarbon is widespread, yet it's much less clear, and more vulnerable to distortion. Here's our argument:
www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/is-embo...

Interesting!

Flensburg municipal building

Here's my crap snap from yesterday night. Sorry it's quite so bad. My phone isn't a great camera these days.

Thank you! Your ability to track stuff down is genuinely remarkable.

Me too. Since it's my first train it's the least likely to have issues from an earlier one going wrong. It's the Eurostar that I'm more nervous about in this direction.