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A 3D of our TES 'Classroom of the Future'
Monday saw the memorial service for Sir Bobby Robson at Durham Cathedral. The attendance and warmth shown by everyone at both the Cathedral and St James Park was an unbelievable testament to what people thought about this man.He has always been someone who I have admired and who has provided me with some of my best memories in football. Italia 90 was possibly the highlight for me however he also managed to get Newcastle United on track.I have never heard anyone say anything bad about Sir Bobby. I did not know him personally, but saw him at several events over the years and he was always very humble and friendly.How he spent the last few years of his life was an inspiration – raising thousands of pounds for good causes for the North East.Sir Bobby died without anyone having a bad word to say about him and most successful man I have ever seen.One of his childhood friends spoke at the service and said he had never changed despite his international success.He may not have had the big house or the yacht, yet so many people felt so much for him and he left such a legacy it is a great lesson for all of us. It gives us all something to strive for while on this planet.I think we need to campaign for a statue in the centre of Newcastle to act as inspiration for us all at so many levels not just football.
After my adventures in Florida at the beginning of the summer, I quickly found myself in need of another holiday.We have just returned from a trip to Madeira - a beautiful island and the home of Ronaldo!As ever, my holidays give me the opportunity to catch up on my reading. My taste in reading materials are a little ‘anorak-ish’ but I thought I would try my hand at reviewing some of the books I read whilst I was away, as I don’t have much more to report on because I didn’t get much further than the swimming pool!Leading from the Front: My Story. Gerald RonsonThe first book I read was the story of Gerald Ronson who heads up the Ronson Group, which was a very successful business in the 70s and 80s. It ran petrol stations whilst more recently the group has become an international property developer.Gerald Ronson is now aged 74 and is still working a 6-day week! His story is fascinating and takes you through how he grew a business, lost it all, and then grew it back again. He was infamously involved in the Guinness shares trial and ultimately ended up spending time in prison. He gives an interesting account of his life, how he shaped his future and what is important to him.His family and community are a large part of his life and he has spent much of his time supporting Jewish charities over his 60 years in business. He is so matter of fact about the people he has met, from royalty to celebrities, many of whom became his friends. His company crashed in the last recession and after some poor investments in America, he was forced to sell large parts of his equity.He continues to run the business on a day-to-day basis and is now the grandfather of property development in the UK - seen it all and done it all.This was a fantastic read especially with the focus on development and the economy. Clearly, Gerald Ronson puts his family and his community at the top of his priority list and he clearly demonstrates how you can have success yet still share with others.Common Sense Rules. Deborah MeadenOut of the current five dragons on Dragons Den, four of them have written autobiographies. I have now read all four after reading the recently published, book by Deborah Meaden.This is a fairly light business book giving common sense examples of how to run a business, as well as examples of how Deborah Meaden grew her organisation and ultimately sold it to venture capitalists.Much of the information is common sense but still useful by giving a brief insight to the author who is clearly an effective and focussed business manager. This is a quick read targeted at those who watch Dragons Den.
Going back to the 80s I was one of the greatest critics of the BS5750 and the Quality Assurance process. I remember wading through huge documents and ticking thousands of boxes just to be able to demonstrate we had carried out everything in accordance with our procedure. The reason for my criticism was that I was not convinced that this delivered any real value to the business.However, over a number of years the standards have been reviewed and have been changed to ISO 9001 which used the Demming plan, do, check, act model. We spent a lot of time as a business reviewing ISO 9001 and decided to develop our own continuous improvement wheel based on plan, do, check, act. We used the 9001 standard as a base however. I remember in the past when we had a QA audit there was two weeks of frantic activity before the Auditor arrived to make sure that every box was ticked and every piece of paper was in the right place. Now we look forward to the auditor arriving and make no special arrangements for these particular days. We use the audit as opportunity for continuous improvement.We have named out internal management system _scils (_space Continuous Improvement and Learning System) and have been able to integrate other standards within it without major change.We have recently been accredited with ISO 14001 in relation to environmental standards. Far from believing that quality standards are a hindrance I have now moved my thinking to believe that such standards are imperative in time of recession. Particularly with ISO 14001 it has structured our thinking in relation to waste and risk. We now look at every aspect of the business and consider where waste is being produced and how we can minimise it. By measuring what we use in the first place we can monitor resource movements and percentages against others.We are now aiming to include the ISO 18001 standard within our _scils model to ensure that our Health and Safety achieves the highest standards.During a recession when process, waste and risk are very important I would recommend any business to invest in these standards to ensure that the organisation is run as efficiently and effectively as possible as I believe they add real value.
Life begins at 40... / photo
Over recent months one of the terms which I keep hearing in our industry and in particular from architects is that they plan to ‘batten down the hatches’ and ‘ride out the storm’. I think in the past this has been the way many architectural businesses have responded to recessions and generally the profession is badly hit by such down turns. Much of this is caused by the fact architects depend upon capital spending and in recessions this is one of the first things to be cut.Over the past decade our industry has made huge strides forwards in relation to its approach and technology. There is no doubt that there is still further to go but my worry is that much of the hard work we have done in relation to partnering or integrated working will be stopped and potentially be forgotten.As an industry we need to continue to invest in training and development.. With Building Information Modelling and integrated project delivery we are on the cusp of a revolution. Unfortunately many companies are battening down the hatches and cannot afford to invest.I also worry that by battening down the hatches the storm will happen around us and when many companies open the hatches there will be no industry left. At _space we made the decision to think very carefully about how we move forward but do not intend to batten down the hatches or bury our heads in the sand. We will continue to invest in our people and technology and think differently about our industry.Hopefully this will stand us in good stead for the future and in fact help us weather the storm.We are always looking at how we can diversify our offer to enable us to sustain our business for the long term.
I spent sometime in Milton Keynes last week, this was the first time I had had the privilege of visiting this much talked about town.
My first challenge was getting there, as a regular train traveller cutting across country was going to be problematic. The answer was to head into London and back out to Milton Keynes. I was on a secret mission and the first thing that struck me on that particular day was the incredible heat with temperatures reaching 32 degrees.At _space we talk much about sustainable communities and I am always looking for the collective elements that can make this happen. Clearly, at some point, Milton Keynes was thought to be state of the art. Many years later the masterplan has been developed and the new community created.
What I am not sure about is, if this is an integrated or sustainable community. It has all of the pieces but many of the elements operate in isolation. It has to be economically sustainable in that it is operated for several years and continues to grow. However the roundabouts and road system gave little priority for pedestrians with huge industrial zones being surrounded by forests of trees.
The housing seemed to be remote lacking the usual mix of a buildings and styles developed over many years.
Much of the architecture was of a similar 60ies and 70ies style again with little response to human scale.It would seem from the outside that commercially Milton Keynes has been successful, possibly due to its good links to London by both road and rail. I would challenge however, whether this is the best place to live if there is the rich mix of uses, ages and architecture which can create a place.I came away from Milton Keynes believing that it was difficult to force a community to happen on a rigid plan such as this. Communities need to evolve over time and respond to the times in which they develop.
Places also need to be particular to their geography and I did feel that whilst I thought I had not been to Milton Keynes before I had visited the same place in Telford and Washington.
A 3D of our TES 'Classroom of the Future'
