Inside and Outside the Box With Bradley Garrett

Here’s a photo of a re-purposed shipping container. It has been painted blue and dropped onto Brighton seafront and it’s part of this year’s Brighton Photo Biennial, “Agents of Change: Photography and the Politics of Space.” Inside the box you can see photos taken by Bradley Garrett, an urban explorer who achieved notoriety by climbing The Shard earlier this year (long before it opens to paying visitors). Dr G gave a fascinating talk in Brighton on Wednesday evening about life outside the box as an urban explorer, including a showing of Crack the Surface Part 1. Here’s Bradley Garrett’s website, with loads of great links about urban exploring. (Second photo: Bradley Garrett).

The Shard Is Car-Lite

Interesting comment from Renzo Piano, designer of London’s soon-to-open Shard which, despite being the tallest building in the EU has just 48 parking spaces. The Shard sits next to London Bridge station, a major transport hub (so why does it even need spaces for 48 cars?). According to Piano, "It's another big shift – to tell people, 'Look, stop going around in cars.' In this city, it's less terrible, but try to do this in Milan. Try to do this in Paris, Los Angeles. Would you expect hostility? Of course. You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony. If everyone is agreeing, then you make a big mistake." 

Plus a great time-lapse video of The Shard in this article in the Guardian.

Climbing The Shard

Respect to Bradley Garrett of the London Consolidation Crew, The Man Who Climbed The Shard. (picture from The Guardian). Not just because it’s an awesome (really) and scary thing to do – at 309 metres, the tallest building in Europe and all that - but because there was a philosophy behind it. Listen to what he says about public and private space in the city, and on the necessity for us to be “citizens not inhabitants.” When it comes to seizing the commanding heights, the more vertiginous might  prefer to stick to the theory.