Chris Stewart

Lying on the beach in my hand knitted speedos, I decided it was about time Fortnightly Blog got serious. This earnest note was prompted by my holiday read, Eco Minimalism or as I much prefer The Antidote to Eco Bling, a must for me, having had so many in depth conversations about a book I've never read. Unfortunately here on Bute the distractions are many and unusual for the Glasgow Fair the weather is hot. The speedos dry out quickly after my early morning dip (be careful wool sags when wet) and I go in search of an ice cream.

Pondering the merits of oysters versus double nougats, seriousness returned as I reflected on last month's SEDA conference. It was here that I blindly conversed about Eco Bling and was mesmerised by Sandy Halliday's reflection on the work of Howard Liddell, Gaia and herself. The fight against Greenwash and poor Ecological Design has been brewing for a while and it brought pleasure in the knowledge that although Gaia's rumble is quite technical it shares the outcome of our own spiritual approach to sustainability. While Collective Architecture put faith in the value of enjoyment, collaboration and longevity through ecological design, Gaia understand the quality of material and environment, challenging Building Control's over emphasis on airtightness, a window can be opened to let in fresh air but also to smell the roses, call the children and enjoy the view. Sandy and Chris Butters laid the foundation with a workable ideology to combat Greenwash and SEDA now march forward with the pinched call 'Deeds Not Words'.

It was refreshing to both eat my world famous Zavaroni ice cream and notice the minimal ingredients milk, sugar and water; more a reserve than a wash and a reminder that the grass is not always greener. A point being stressed right now by Friends of the Earth Scotland, Reforesting Scotland and Lesley Riddoch with the 'Help Make a Thousand Huts' initiative. This is a fantastic way to encourage home grown holidays and improve health and well being for the many. The Scottish Government has proposed there should be a provision for huts within the Scottish Planning Policy and the call is out to support the development of hutting culture. Contact details are below and the consultation ends on the 23rd July, so email today, 'Huts Need You Now'.

Double nougat finished we notice the fun-fair is in town and although not the most ecological of distractions we cannot resist a shot on the Waltzer. Lunching on ice cream, even with the purest of ingredients, is not the cleverest mix with a high speed dance. Seasickness remedies come to mind and I focus on the most distant point, acid coloured cartwheels. Mindfulness and transcendental thinking flash before my eyes and recent photographs of Buddhist monks in a private jet, drinking champagne. This spin takes on greenwash proportions where Eco Hummers claim high performance, low emissions and zero guilt; where 'Barbie Bcause' flaunt plastic bodies decked out in recycled clothing and where MacDonald's corporate logo bleeds from red to green. I am startled out my meditation as the ringmaster issues the command 'Everybody Scream' and I let out a blood curdling shriek matched only by my 20 year old son. Parents accompanied by younger offspring cast looks which we put down to the dyed red mohican and ox blood doc martins with yellow laces but I suspect it has more to do with the sagging speedos.

We leave the fun-fair with our bodies satiated and a desire to feed the soul. For an architect there are snacks everywhere from Robert Rowan Anderson's Victorian Pile at Mount Stuart; Gokai Devici's residential tower; Greek Thomson's Craigmore Villa; James Carrick's Rothesay Pavillion and our own humble Bute Recycling Centre where I pick up a Puch classic road bike out the bargain skip for a fiver. Jumping on with the Last of the Mohicans we cycle off to the Victorian Pile to take in the fabulous Lucy Skaer exhibition, worth a visit to Bute on it's own. Everything at Mount Stuart is in the best possible taste, even the smack of your entrance fee finding it's way abroad and including the stunning Munkenbeck & Marshall visitor hut.

The weather forecast for the remainder of the Fair Fortnight is climate changing scorching, so like a green Bill Murray tomorrow will be much the same as today, the day after the same again, although multiple dips in the Firth of Clyde have shrunk my speedos and I head of to Bute Fabrics for some off cuts. It is a little known fact that Plastic Bertrand had a bit part in Groundhog Day but a better known fact that supposedly  UPVC (and not tight trunks) is the main culprit for reducing sperm count and endangering marine wildlife, so in the immortal French bards mistaken words 'Ca plage pour moi'.

'Help make a Thousand Huts' please cast your vote at www.thousandhuts.org

Lucy Skaer's exhibition at Mount Stuart will run from 23rd June 2013 until 31st October 2013, for further information please refer to www.mountstuart.com

Lamenting childhood holidays on the Firth of Clyde with the intrepid Phileas McLachlan, we realised how green these were. I will spend this Glasgow Fair in Rothesay, a synonym for wet and cold, and another in a series of vacations spent in holiday homes, tents and caravans, Memories shine brighter than the reality and Phileas reminded me of MacDiarmid's term the 'yow trummle' when sheep shorn in late July feel the cold, she will not put me off.

One green reason to holiday on the Firth of Clyde is just how great is the public transport. I once timed my journey from Glasgow's West End to Rothesay Harbour, it took just one hour and 28 minutes. This was carried out entirely by public transport, a subway from Kelvinbridge, a train to Wemyss Bay and a Cal Mac doon the water. This made Phileas laugh as it reminded her of 'Trains, Planes and Automobiles', I was able to join the joke and inform her about a teen romance film I enjoyed recently titled 'Angus, Thongs and Snogging'. Phileas hails from the Isle of Bute so is more used to the journey in reverse and made it clear that a one hour, 28 minute trip to buy new shoes and a camping stove is not very green. Phileas knows what she is talking about having shopped in Peru, Papa New Guinea, Portugal and was once spotted buying a round of drinks in the Merchant City, but that apparantly is a myth.

One round I did enjoy was last night served up at the June SEDA Green Drinks by ecological engineer Matthew Petticrew. A fascinating insight into an enquiring mind and how to think 'More for Less'. For example as concrete grows older it grows stronger, Matthew is busy building extra storeys on well aged structures as an answer to our building shortage or he is figuring out how to test high tension glass staircases with a fork lift. SEDA Green Drinks were again hosted at the New Glasgow Society Gallery which I am glad to say is still full of massive carved stones salvaged from Glasgow Green Railway Station.

Right now I climb aboard the 08.55 morning train from Glasgow Central Railway Station and head for the extraordinary Wemyss Bay Railway Station modelled with it's vast tunnels leading from platform to pier to herd the holiday crowds onto their ferry. Phileas unfortunateely could not manage along and on her behalf I have to pitch her brilliant ideas for a Rothesay Lighting Festival, inspired by the 1930s when folk crammed on paddle steamers to oggle the lights of Clyde resorts, one estimate put the crowds at 10,000 daily.

I saunter on to the Cal Mac ferry and less than an hour from leaving Glasgow I feel on an adventure. The adventure is further heightened by a school of porpoises dancing just of the prow followed by a basking shark tracked by five oyster catchers. The ferry arrives in Rothesay and for all that I love about the place there is always a whiff of decay, it never quite regenerates, to compound this I bump into some architects trying to save a listed hotel tottering on the edge of collapse, roofless and plagued with seagulls, I wished them well.

Meeting over and the 'Amazing Phileas McLachlan's Extraordinary Rothesay Lighting Festival' moves a step nearer to being switched on and I start the reverse trip. Journeys back all ways seem longer but I will return in a fortnight when Blog 4 will be posted, weather depending.

SEDA needs you, please join us at www.seda.uk.net

Crits and conferences have replaced the Scottish Highers as the first signs of summer, all spent in darkened rooms focused on the cerebral while outside the world is bright and cheery. Two weeks ago I would have qualified the last statement as snow had been predicted for June and Oklahoma had been devastated by freak tornadoes. Today we only have Northern Eurpoe flooded, those who are interested Jonathan Charley at a Green Drinks date to be confirmed, will discuss the ecology of disastors and his belief that we who contemplate heat exchangers and air source heat pumps are pissing in the wind.

Back to the afore mentioned darkened rooms. Crits have become a lonely experience, at one time they were a joy, a calamity and always ended in a crowded bar. Now they are typified by business cards, no guests, a round of applause and a stop watch (in the form of an i-phone) after which everyone goes home. At Strathclyde School of Architecture in some areas we were able to enjoy some well thought out north light but unfortunately next year we can only look forward to a basement.

Conferences now need to focus our attention away from the sunshine with a theme. In Strathpeffer the RIAS treated us to 'Big World and Wee Scotland' a great event but the theme seemed only to spilt up the two days. Those who addressed the theme fared the best with Kathryn Findlay and Christophe Egret shining the brightest. Kathryn choose to consider the cultural differences she encountered on her return from Japan and how thresholds have been blurred. This was evident in her stunning thatched pool houses built for the mega rich. Christophe stressed another recent trend, that landscaping is pretty damn important, though the rumour that Rem Koolhaas is giving up designing buildings to concentrate on plants, seems a step too far.

SEDA's conference the following weekend in Camphill, Aberdeen was a tad more humble and concentrated on health and well being. Chris Butters and Sandy Halliday of Gaia gave fantastic presentations. I was both surprised and delighted that our own approach to ecological design harmonised with Gaia's, which is best summed up through Howard Liddell's fabulous book Eco-Minimilism or 'antidote to eco-bling' (a must read for any one reading this blog) Our approach follows a more spiritual path placing an emphasis on the importance of loving your building (more to follow in a fortnight or two) but is just as anti-techie.

Finally, I have been disapointed by the quality of blog name suggestions. Come on all you fearsome UR trolls, otherwise we are looking at Fortnighly Blog 3 - probably in a month's time.

Further details on forthcoming SEDA green drinks can be found at www.seda.uk.net

It is the quietest of times, it is the busiest of times. An age with an abundance of the fourth dimension, an age when we could dwell on our work. An epoch where subjects could be researched, an epoch where builders could craft. We would have less to do but we could do it so much better. Could this be the sustainable lining to the cloud of recession?

With this anticipated extra time, old ideas were to be resurrected and shaken down to become part of the future. I was to research materials, make models, draw by hand and wonderful projects were to emerge. They might take a bit longer but they would be worthwhile and they would last.

Shortage of work has made us tick that bit harder and forced us to do so much more, to get a dwindling share. This has not led to the hoped for laid back work day, enjoyed pottering in the studio with interesting friends, but more a red-eyed, rash inducing speed trip accompanied by Dennis Hopper (not the best promotion of the public bus). Models have been made, coloured pencils have been dusted down, but relaxed I do not feel.

Writing was not so much a past idea but more an itch which for long periods has gone un-noticed, whereas ecological design is like a conscience to generate guilt and remorse. Over recent months both these niggling conditions have been soothed by SEDA with a set of new friendly sounding boards. Events have also provoked renewed interest, through delivering lectures and composing articles for magazines, fresh ecological ideas are genuinely emerging.

I am therefore grateful for the opportunity to pen this blog which I promise to write fortnightly. It will bring together strands of ecology, working methods, off the wall ideas and current events. This month we can look forward to various conferences and end of year shows where hopefully something interesting will crop up. If anyone has a catchy blog name please let me know or next time we will be looking at Fortnightly Blog 2, so far I have only received food style names these are Eat your Greens, Greenola and Essential Roughage, all pretty shit.

To conclude this fortnight’s theme of Time, we all seem to be reacting in different ways to the recession. At Collective Architecture we have experienced camaraderie and although not a complete relaxation, our work is moving in the right direction - laser cut models have certainly helped. It has also been a joy to see the emerging young practices and how through ingenuity they have bloomed, long may they thrive. More middle-aged practices have also coped with the crisis foraging afield from Bonnie Scotland - the Glasgow to Birmingham train has never been so busy. Next time we will delve more into some of these subjects but right now I have to admit feeling like a bad looking Keanu Reeves.

Tiree Temporary Lighthouse by TOG Studio one of the emerging young practices.

SEDA will hold its annual conference and AGM on May 31st - June 1st at The Phoenix Centre, Newton Dee Village, Bieldside, Aberdeen AB15 9DX ’Designing for Health and Wellbeing’. Further details can be found at www.seda.uk.net