Correspondance for ideas

Cool. Well if I get on with designing the structure over the next few days, can you all have a go at what you think the display boards should have on them? We can then hopefully decide on that on Friday so that we each can develop slides over the weekend and be well prepared for Monday.

From: Mike Howarth
Sent: 31 January 2012 14:55
To: Noel Brandley; Andrew Mather; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

Sounds great

Kind regards

Michael Howarth

Graduate Engineer

Building Services

T +44 (0)161 827 1890

mike.howarth@ramboll.co.uk

From: Noel Brandley
Sent: 31 January 2012 14:40
To: Andrew Mather; Mike Howarth; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

Andy- for me that is: Nail, Head è Direct hit!

Erm.....you’ve hit the nail on the head

From: Andrew Mather
Sent: 31 January 2012 14:39
To: Mike Howarth; Noel Brandley; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

There’s definitely a middle road through here. Firstly, attached is a better sketch of the bball hoop. I completely agree it needs to be a nice and visually pleasing structure without adverts. I think the Ramboll logo can be made to look good on it in some way though, but that is something we can get to later on. Not a critical thing at the moment. Secondly, I feel we can definitely cover the Cradle to Cradle idea incorporating the problem of waste. That won’t be large or complicated or something that people are bored of since it’s been covered too much. What I don’t think we should do is offer solutions to how the industry can better use steel/concrete etc, that part can be inferred from our design. Hence our displays illustrate the problem (inc facts), ask leading questions and then explain our design and show how to build it. We then will have educated people, got them thinking, engaged them with design, shown how our company puts design as important and done something unique for the festival.

How does that sound?

From: Mike Howarth
Sent: 31 January 2012 14:12
To: Noel Brandley; Andrew Mather; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

I just don’t see why using this to champion a design philosophy is overambitious. What realistically are people going to infer from the design other than recycling is good and there are things you can recycle in old buildings? We should be using this as a focal point to put across our message:

“At the moment the construction industry produce large amounts of waste, and that needs to be mitigated with innovative ideas like this. The future of the construction industry however, is that the future reuse of building materials needs to be considered from the very beginning, even when the building is in the design stage”

Kind regards

Michael Howarth

Graduate Engineer

Building Services

T +44 (0)161 827 1890

mike.howarth@ramboll.co.uk

From: Noel Brandley
Sent: 31 January 2012 13:17
To: Mike Howarth; Andrew Mather; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

I really liked the initial replies where you mentioned that you liked the idea for its simplicity. Please don’t forget that!

Do we have to put the message across so bluntly? I think adorning the bball net with slogans would look very tacky! Is it not possible for the public to simply INFER ideas about recycling/reusing from our design?

The way I see this idea developing is as follows:

·         Develop a design for the net that is super simple and replicable. Any contractor should be able to pick up this idea and build a bball net for themselves. The structure does not have to be the most ‘efficient’ in terms of mass, but does have to be ‘efficient’ in being able to source the materials.

·         Produce a ‘How to Build’ guide along with a set of detailed plans (sizes, connections etc). These will be made available online for anybody to get hold of.

·         Presentation of the idea in week 4 can include how this fits in with the whole cradle-to-cradle philosophy, and of course we would have the board as well. I don’t think we should get too involved with this philosophy, as we may (will!) be biting off more than we can chew.

·         Build the bball net for the LFA. In my opinion it should be BARE STRUCTURE, thus showing off Ramboll’s prowess in creating beautiful, simple structures and coming up with innovative ideas. No slogans or logos!!! I’m sure any architect would be of the same opinion

A few comments on the structural design- the bball net must be able to act like a bball net, that is, the ball should bounce properly off the backboard, and people should be able to slam dunk (nb this would result in a large moment to the connection between the hoop and the board). I wonder if there are any standards for basketball net design. Probably are.

From: Mike Howarth
Sent: 31 January 2012 11:01
To: Noel Brandley; Cillian Ryan; Andrew Mather
Subject: RE: New idea

I’m still not sure what the message underlying this is really, It seems rather odd to target members of the public and encourage them to recycle materials from a building site or I beams or whatever.

What I recommend would be combining these proposals, so that we’d have a display in the foyer explaining our message, that we’re trying to champion this design philosophy of end use recycling, and as our visual example have this recycled basketball hoop that we’ve installed out in the city. That way we get to cover all the bases.

Kind regards

Michael Howarth

Graduate Engineer

Building Services

T +44 (0)161 827 1890

mike.howarth@ramboll.co.uk

From: Noel Brandley
Sent: 31 January 2012 10:23
To: Cillian Ryan; Mike Howarth; Andrew Mather
Subject: RE: New idea

Cillian- no, I’m crap. Andy must be brilliant though!!

From: Cillian Ryan
Sent: 31 January 2012 10:17
To: Andrew Mather; Noel Brandley; Mike Howarth
Subject: RE: New idea

Grand ill synopsise Noels email into a little paragraph and forward it on to Yanchee.

Exactly Andy we will need to expand and fill out the background info with fact figures and possibly other projects that have taken structural steel and reused it in a different manner or something of the sort!

Quick one though...anyone any good a basketball?!

From: Andrew Mather
Sent: 31 January 2012 10:04
To: Noel Brandley; Mike Howarth; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

I agree we need to keep it simple, but I also think we need something about why we’ve done this / what the message is. If nothing else they will definitely be looking for this in our presentation. Even if that’s we’re just showing one way and expanding the public’s mind.

From: Noel Brandley
Sent: 31 January 2012 10:00
To: Mike Howarth; Andrew Mather; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

Mike,

The idea is re-using materials from a building site. Simple as that.

We are showing a way how this can be done. I don’t think we need any profound statements. We need to have faith in the public, that they will understand this as one way of re-using materials. I wouldn’t like it to get into the whole debate about recycling every material on a building, because I think it’s too big a debate for us to tackle. Besides, it’s already been tackled in many, many books.

From: Mike Howarth
Sent: 31 January 2012 09:56
To: Noel Brandley; Andrew Mather; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

An extra point which just occurred to me is

what is the message this is trying to get across? Its a great method of delivery but do we actually have a message to hang off it? Like Crispin was saying, There isn’t actually anyone who thinks that recycling is a bad idea, so is there a way that we can use this to say something more than “recycling is good”?

Kind regards

Michael Howarth

Graduate Engineer

Building Services

T +44 (0)161 827 1890

mike.howarth@ramboll.co.uk

From: Noel Brandley
Sent: 31 January 2012 09:20
To: Andrew Mather; Mike Howarth; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

GREAT!!

Really happy you like it. As you just said, and as I mentioned, I would really like to retain the simplicity and not get bogged down with trying to find a way to recycle every single material on a building.

From: Andrew Mather
Sent: 31 January 2012 09:18
To: Noel Brandley; Mike Howarth; Cillian Ryan
Subject: RE: New idea

I like it!

I was going down a similar vein but couldn’t come up with the right answer for what exactly we should build. This does tick a lot of boxes and if we can do a nice bit of design work such it retains simplicity but looks really good too then that would be awesome.

Mike, Cillian what do you think?

From: Noel Brandley
Sent: 31 January 2012 09:12
To: Mike Howarth; Cillian Ryan; Andrew Mather
Subject: FW: New idea

From: noel.brandley [mailto:noel.brandley@gmail.com]
Sent: 31 January 2012 00:01
To: Noel Brandley
Subject: New idea

I have had a new idea!

After bashing out the jumper idea between us I think it's kind of missing the point that it was originally intended to make. The practicalities seemed pretty immense, although I did personally like the idea of taking a community-wide sustainability approach.

I think the conclusion that we made was that the idea should revolve around recycling/reusing materials from a building site. I think trying to tackle this whole problem would be an enormous task and would not really be suitable for the LFA, plus most of the things we would think of will already have been covered in books like 'Cradle to Cradle', 'BRE Green Guide to Specification' and by David Mackay (DECC).

The idea

My new proposal is to build a basketball net using structural materials (I-beams etc). Please see plans attached. I am hoping that people will really like this idea. I am very keen on it, as it is simple and ticks both the boxes of 'Playful City' and 'Reuse/Recycle', and also has the added factor of being related to sport, which can't be bad what with the Olympics nearly upon us.

The design

The net should be designed very simply from steel sections that are often used in buildings. There must be some size sections that are used really frequently. The connections should also be simple, so that any contractor would be able to put them together. The net should be easily REPLICABLE.

Getting materials

I think there would be two ways to get the required materials:

• reuse/recycle from a demolished building. Andy- would you possibly apply a large factor of safety?
• Overordering- there must be some element of over ordering on any construction project. I'm sure that you could manage to find a few metres of I-beam from somewhere.

Presentation

I would like it if the idea were presented as an instruction book on how to build the net- a small book and a set of detailed plans. These would have to show the connection detailing, sizing and how the thing can be constructed. I think that all the connections should be kept absolutely bog standard so that any old contractor could put it together. We would be able to sell this idea to firms wondering what to do with their excess steel.

I think we should aim for a design that can be constructed in half a day by a few contractors.

Delivery at the LFA

Quite simply, it would be built somewhere. I think the building process would be part of the attraction, especially if it can be built quickly and easily. We may be able to get involvement by somebody like Sport England. I think it would be good to have a display by a 'street' basketball team. Also, just have a few balls around and let the public have a go themselves.

Lastly

I feel the idea is very simple and, personally, I would like it to stay that way. I wouldn't like to get into this whole debate about trying to recycle EVERY material from a building. I feel that the public are clever enough to see that we are re-using materials in a clever way and that this may be applied to other materials in other ways (if that makes sense?!?!)

Many apologies for the lateness of this idea. I was thinking about it when I was on the train last night! I hope you all like it, and of course, any input/comments please discuss.

I WILL PUT  THIS ON THE BLOG/DOCUMENT FOLDER LATER