Six Things, Volume 112

Facade | Tectonics | Paris | Labels | Max | Unzoomed

Thing 1 – Facade

“I’m not a show off, but the sculptures are”

Alex Chinneck has a strong track record of playfully theatrical public art installations, including the sliding brick facade of a house in Margate, twisted phone boxes and a hovering stone replica of Covent Garden’s Market Building. The whimsical humour of his work is underpinned by a great deal of inventive engineering and ingenious design, and his latest project is no exception.

Entitled “A week at the knees”, and installed in London’s Charterhouse Square as part of Clerkenwell Design Week, it’s a displaced and transformed classic Georgian facade made from 320 metres of repurposed steel and 7,000 bricks, and weighing 12 tons.

A fun, graceful, elegant thing that brings a smile to the face.

Image: Charles Emerson

You can explore more of his work – including A Spring In Your Step, Rock And Roll and Group Hug – on his website.

Here’s a short video about that sliding facade in Margate.

And Londonist have an interview with him about “A week at the knees”.

“I like to make sculptures, particularly in the public realm, that can be visited, understood and enjoyed by any onlooker irrespective of their age or background.”

Thing 2 – Tectonics

I really enjoyed playing around with this interactive timelapse of the movements of the continents and supercontinents over the history of our planet. Nothing’s where it used to be – MAKES YOU THINK.

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Thing 3 – Paris

Paris has introduced several measures to reduce pollution in the last couple of decades. This clever little film illustrating one of those measures – street greening – is very much worth a minute and a half of your time, and will especially appeal to fans of hit TV show Severance.

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Thing 4 – Labels

I am an absolute sucker. Wine merchants, on seeing me approach, nudge each other and exchange urgent whispers.

“Bird labels. Get the bird labels.”

Well, it turns out – if this survey by The Pudding is to be believed – I’m not quite as stupid or suggestible as I thought.

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Thing 5 – Max

This long piece by Archie Bland about the near death of his son Max is beautiful and deeply moving – as good a piece of writing about being human (and especially being a parent) as you could want to read.

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Thing 6 – Unzoomed

Unzoomed is a fun daily game (as if you needed any more of those) which has so far exposed my ignorance in the areas of both deduction and geography.

You have six guesses to identify a city from overhead photographs. You can zoom in and explore, and after each wrong guess, more of the surrounding area is revealed.