Speakeasy @ Claremont

When it comes to meeting environmental targets, the Government has got commercial property squarely in its sights. Commercial buildings are responsible for around half of the UK’s energy consumption and carbon emissions, which is why the Chancellor has targeted all buildings to be carbon neutral by 2019. It is also the reason why there is so much focus on relevant standards,  especially the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) which is currently the UK’s best known and most widely used system. The BRE reckons that around a quarter of all commercial buildings built each year are BREEAM assessed and that there are some 100,000 buildings in the UK which have been assessed under the scheme.

BREEAM has been the subject of quite some criticism in the past but has been revised extensively over the last few years.  The scheme was re-launched for new buildings in 2011 and a version for refurbishments and fit-outs is being developed for launch in 2012.

Doubtless BRE is very much aware of the Ska fit-out rating system launched by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in 2009 and revised in March 2011. Having competing standards does not always help firms to understand their obligations in this remorselessly complex area, but the new standards are a welcome development nonetheless.

To have a look at one of Claremont’s BREEAM projects please click here.

To coincide with the Government’s Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth, The Design Council have published their own set of facts, figures and practical plans for growth. The purpose of this design plan is to bring the design elements of the Innovation and Research Strategy together in one place and to communicate these as widely as possible across design, industry, government and education. The aim is to provide a useful strategic framework for organisations, institutions and individual businesses with an interest in making design-led innovation happen on the ground.

Design can help organisations transform their performance, from business product innovation, to the commercialisation of science and the delivery of public services. That is why design forms an integral part of the Government’s plans for innovation and growth and features strongly in our Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth. The UK has the potential to succeed globally but to do so we must harness our strengths. Design is undoubtedly an area where we are amongst the best in the world, with potential to do even better.” Rt Hon David Willetts MP, Minister for and Science

For more information, click here Design Council

The exquisite Minton Floor in the Great Hall of St George’s Hall will be on public display from Saturday 7 to Sunday 22 January – uncovered for the first time since January 2009. And for the first time in more than ten years, visitors who pre-book a tour will be given special shoe coverings and get the opportunity to walk across the floor.

Consisting of 30,000 beautifully hand crafted rare tiles, the immaculately preserved surface depicts the city’s coat of arms, sea nymphs, boys on dolphins and tritons. The mosaic was covered in the 1860s to provide a more hardwearing surface for dancing and has only been unveiled a handful of times since.

Liverpool’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Frank Prendergast said: “Everywhere you go in St. George’s Hall there is a stunning architecture or a stunning piece of art on display, but the Minton tiles are particularly special as they aren’t on permanent display so it’s a real treat to see the beautiful detail of the floor up close.

“The Hall is one of Liverpool’s greatest cultural assets and we want to do as much as we can to encourage people to come and visit this Grade I listed building. “Many people don’t realise what a gem they have on their doorstep, so we hope by unveiling the floor once again we’ll attract thousands of new visitors who will come and experience the fantastic culture and history the Hall has to offer.”

The Hall will be open from 10am to 5pm every day, and although booking isn’t necessary, there is a £1 admission fee for adults, while under 16s go free.For further information please see www.stgeorgesliverpool.co.uk or book onto a tour by calling the Heritage Centre on 0151 225 6909

The prolific 20th Century American artist Norman Rockwell produced a vast body of work that has allowed him to bridge the habitual divide between critical acclaim and popular appeal. He was often derided in his own time, most commonly for applying his recognised brilliant technique to illustrating books, magazines and posters. Even so, he was a tireless chronicler of American life and subsequent critics have been far kinder to his 4000 or so works . The panache of his work means he could even get away with what to modern eyes looks like a clichéd idea of a flirtatious window cleaner giving a young secretary the glad eye in this illustration for the cover of 1960 issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

Jason de Caires Taylor first gained recognition in 2006 when he created the world’s first underwater sculpture park in Grenada. The sculptures are situated in fairly shallow and clear waters on a coral reef to allow divers and snorkellers the chance to explore them. As well as engaging pieces in their own right, their siting also means that over time they will be colonised and devoured by coral, inherently ephemeral and attuned to nature. The figure of the man at his desk gamely plugging on with his work has an otherworldly feel.

Dominican friars first arrived at Treviso in Northern Italy in the 13th Century, where they founded the Church of San  Nicolò. In the mid 14th Century they commissioned the artist Tomaso da Modena to create a fresco in the chapter room of the church depicting forty famous monks of the order in their cells and hard at it at their desks. Cloistered life lends itself to focussing on meeting a string of often menial tasks and if it wasn’t for the monastic garb they look like they would fit straight in to a modern office. To have a look at the work please click here.

The Design Museum has added a motorway sign to its collection. Britain’s roads look as they do because of Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert. The graphic designers standardised the road network, created many of its signs and produced two new typefaces, Transport and Motorway. As the government set about creating a brave new world of motorways, Kinneir and Calvert were given the job of making signs that could be clearly read in a split second.

Calvert, now 75, says they had to start from scratch.

“It required completely radical thinking. The information wasn’t there in terms of reading distance, clarity and letter spaces. We had to make up the signs and then test them. It was instinctive. The actual word shape was the most distinctive thing because if you had Birmingham in capitals, from a distance, it’s difficult to read but in caps and lower case you have word shape,” says Calvert. “That was fundamental.”

They were tested in an underground car park and in London’s Hyde Park, where they were propped up against trees to determine the most effective background colours and reading distances. One of their biggest decisions, which caused upset among conservative commentators at the time, was to opt for a combination of upper and lower case letters. After the success of their big and bold motorway signs, the pair were commissioned in 1963 to overhaul the rest of Britain’s roads. They created new signs and remodelled existing ones, based on the European protocol of triangular signs to warn, circles for commands and rectangles for information. They favoured pictograms rather than words on the signs, and Calvert drew most of them in the curvaceous style of the Transport typeface. Many of her illustrations were drawn from her own life.

We take signage for granted, it’s simple effective and we just expect it to be there; Jock Kinneir, who died in 1994, was resigned to this fact. In 1965, he acknowledged that his and Calvert’s designs fulfilled their function so efficiently that the public would take them for granted.

“Direction signs and street names are as vital as a drop of oil in an engine, without which the moving parts would seize up.”

For further information on this story visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

The 19^th Century painter Ford Madox Brown’s Work depicts a London street scene at a time of enormous social upheaval. Its Hogarthian cast of characters including navvies, an orange seller, MP, street urchin with baby and vicar convey the class system of the day in the setting of a typical London street scene. The painting also illustrates the social upheaval of the time, not least in the way people had been thrown into the melting pot of the city to either flourish or eke out an existence with lives defined by what they did. It was completed in 1865 as the British population was undergoing the shift to urban life in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. This work can be seen at the Manchester Art Gallery.

At first sight, Zeichensaal is a photograph of an office. In this case, the office of Richard Verhölzer, an architect from Munich who was important in the post war reconstruction of Germany. It takes a few seconds and close examination to realise it is in fact a photograph of a model of the office, carefully and painstakingly reconstructed by the artist Thomas Demand from an original image.

It’s method is very post-modern. Like the work of Gursky it uses a trick to distance itself from reality. Whereas Gursky uses the digital manipulation of images, Demand reconstructs a real place to twist the perception of the viewer. It can be seen at Tate Liverpool.

Christmas is a time of celebration and good will, cheer and festivities, not to mention fresh starts and new beginnings.

So there is no better time to decide upon new office interior design, in preparation for the new year and a new start for your business.

If your business has been doing a little less than brilliantly, then you can make a resolution to motivate your staff and become a highly successful business after the new year.

Using an interior office design company, will help to find the best balance of motivational colours, design, structure and layout for your office.

There have been studies that have revealed the design, layout and décor within the work place can either motivate or create a great sense of apathy and remove all enthusiasm from the workplace.

Christmas is a great time to ask your staff what they would really like in the design and decoration of the workplace, for instance ‘bean bagged break out areas’, this is just one idea that can help offer your employees the best setting to work in and a separate area to take a break, as its been proven that having a break and stepping away from your desk, can improve work and output.

Enjoy Christmas and make a new start for the new year, with some new interior design.