UK - Day 19 & 20

Day 19, we have no appointments until 5pm so I leave my camera in the room and go back to Camden Market with Satara. She has not been here before and, as you might remember, we are to be joined at the hip for the remainder of the trip. I have been to this market already, but did not see it all, so we start at the opposite side and work our way through the great variety of vendors. After a successful shopping day, we rush back to our room to drop stuff and head to Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners architecture office. We are early and chill in the lobby with a nice fellow named Mike dressed all in red. The rest of the group arrives and we have our tour. They are very friendly here and show us their star projects. Their style in highrise building is very distinct - they love to make the structure of the buildings pop out and often do this by painting it with some boldly bright color. Our tour guide used to work at Foster + Partners side-by-side with his fellow geniuses, but he disliked the atmosphere there and tried to get in with Rogers. As it turns out, it is very hard to get a job here because nobody leaves! He was finally hired because somebody retired! The atmosphere here would be great to work in. They are not only coworkers, but friends as well and apparently have a baseball team because the tour ends when they must rush off to play in a tournament tonight!
Day 20! The end is near and by this point I am more than ready to see home and my andyman again! The group drama is escalating and the tours are beginning to run together in my mind. Today, we split up to meet with prestigious professionals. My half meets with Bill Bordass. I always thought he was an architect, but he is actually a scientist who specializes in building performance evaluations. We meet outside of his little apartment, next to his rickety bicycle...
...and then head across the street to his "office" - The Albert pub. They have a garden area in the back where we sit in the sun and listen to this brilliant man tell his story from college days to now.
The man can talk, and gives lots of advice as he goes along. He counsels us to "avoid unmanageable complications" in our attempts to be original and creative because "the best building is one that just works." So, we should all just "keep it simple and do it well." Sound advice, I would say, and things we need to hear after hours in studio trying to reinvent the wheel.
Rain chases us inside and we decide to order lunch and continue our chat. The conversation turns significantly more technical and soon I am over my head and no longer taking discernible notes. Bill continues on and on through and after lunch, even drawing charts and graphs on napkins, until Bruce realizes we are all zoning out and way past comprehension and tells Bill we should let him get back to his day and continue on with ours as well. I am impressed by this truly brilliant man and all his experience and knowledge and I'm amazed that someone like him is willing to sit with us for half a day just to chat, but I can't argue that I need to get out and clear my head.
Satara is with the other half of the group, so I go with Jesse, John, Holly, and Jessica to check out the nearby Regent's Park. (This picture shows the typical way we travel about this city: bag holding sketchbook, pens, batteries, memory cards, etc. slung over one shoulder, camera out and ready in one hand. It really is obvious we're just visiting, isn't it?)

The park has a big "Broad walk"...
...and then huge expanses of open grass - much greener than that at Hyde Park. The building here is The Hub - a restaurant in the middle of green opennouse. We sit on the hill there and watch kids play fotball. They are maybe 7 or 8 years old and way more serious about the game and better at it than I expected!
Then, we continue on to see what else is here, and we see where a canal brings longboats right up to a quaint Chinese restaurant! That'd be a fun way to go out to eat.
There are also quiet waterways where ducks swim about, and the bridges make them quite picturesque.
We decide to check out the mosque across the park next.
Then, it is time to find dinner and our next appointment - Michael Hopkins Architects. This is a 100 person firm that focuses mainly on pre-manufactured construction and mass production. Even their office building is built in this style.
It starts with a structural frame of modular dimensions and then the enclosure is created with modular panels, either solid or glazing, and there you go - a building! They work with multiple materials to create walls, roofs, etc. and although the buildings are clearly modular, they do not all look the same. Inside, I am greeted with a strange sight. Multiple floors are created here, with people on computers on each level, but what they are working on and under looks like warehouse shelving! It is like a big open room with oversized shelving plunked in the middle. And, the acoustics are not what I'd expect for an office. I can hear every airplane, car, raindrop, etc. on the outside and the little laser printer at one end makes it hard for us to hear our tour guide! When asked about the noise outside, he says "it's actually nice knowing what's going on out there." That's one way to look at it!
When it's time to go home, I pair up with Keith and Satara again for the 15-20 minute walk, and in that amount of time, we are treated to quite a cloudburst that sends us running for cover with some friendly strangers, and then a beautiful rainbow. And, somehow our soaking wet heads and the sight of the rainbow makes us giddy and we can't help but skip some of the way home.