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Proposal with Mobile Studio for RIBA’s Constructing Communitites

Photo of the Constructing Communities wall vinyl

I enjoyed working on a proposal with Mobile Studio recently for Constructing Communities. This evening at the RIBA building on Great Portland Street, Julie Cormie is giving a pecha kucha on ‘Flipping Bricks’, our proposal for an architectural intervention driven by real-time train data.

The photos above and below are from the opening of the exhibition of shortlisted proposals in Peckham Levels, on from 2-30 June 2016. The exhibition graphics are by Matias Clottu.

Panoramic photo of Constructing Communities

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Making tamales

Though it’s become a lot easier to find good Mexican food in London since I moved here in 2010, it’s still pretty hard to find tamales. I was in the mood for them over the weekend so tried making them for the first time.

Edit 14.05.16 — I’ve changed my mind, I’m not really that pleased with how these turned out. They’re too dry, and I definitely didn’t fill them with enough cheese. Also, I don’t know where the heck Sainsbury’s gets their jalapeños from but they were just about the hottest ones I’ve ever had! I think that the main issue was the fine cornmeal, so will definitely wait until I find some masa before making these again. I’ve found a good way of eating too-dry tamales though; they’re really good reheated in the oven with a spicy tomato sauce and plenty of cheese (kind of like enchiladas).

Edit 30.10.18 — A shop in Brixton Village sells masa and corn husks!!! I think it was Faiz Latin & Carribean (corner of 1st and 5th). Time for tamales v2.0.

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Graph paper used by Chana Horwitz

Chana Horwitz seems to have frequently used Keuffel & Esser Co. 8 × 8 to the inch graph paper. There were a few pieces in the Raven Row exhibition on 10 × 15 inch sheets with an orange grid. It looks like K&E was acquired in ‘87, wonder if she stockpiled a bunch of it. Also, food for thought: how do you mount+frame mylar in such a pristine way without any show-through?

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Notes from 24 Pull Requests event

See notes and further research prompts below in relation to yesterday’s 24 Pull Requests event. It was organised by Codebar, Ladies Who Code, and Your First PR, sponsored by Gitter, Shutl, and Twitter. I left Twitter HQ with my brain fizzing, always a good thing.

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Blender reference links

Black and white rendering of an 8 page gate fold leaflet done with the Blender Internal engine by Piper Haywood

Render of 8pp gate fold, done with Blender Internal engine

Been experimenting with Blender these past few months, pretty incredible free/open source 3D software. Definitely a bit of a learning curve, but very addictive and satisfying once you get the hang of it.

Links to some of the more helpful tutorials and info I’ve found are listed below. I switched from the Blender Internal engine to Cycles recently for improved results w/ architectural rendering, so some of these links are specific to Cycles.

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Dal tadka recipe

This is the recipe I follow for dal/dhal/dahl/daal tadka/tarka. “Tadka” is a tempered spice-and-oil topping that you add before serving to enhance the flavours of the dal. The ingredients and method are based on one of the dal tadka recipes on the excellent site Vegetable Recipes of India (see recipe). It would be best to use arhar or tuvar dal, but I use red lentils generally since they’re the easiest to find and still taste great. This serves 4 people and is excellent with jeera rice.

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