At the end of the last post I was waiting for my new flight from Schipol to Heathrow, the original having been cancelled for some reason. In the end I managed to fly out the same night: I was in a middle seat, but by that point I would have stowed away in the hold or in the toilet if I had to. Next time I need to do that journey I will take the train - I really don't know why it didn't occur to me this time.
It was getting late when I got in: I was held up in immigration because my UK passport expires in September (these days I usually travel as a Swiss person, so renewing hasn’t been a priority) which meant I just managed to miss a Heathrow Express train to Paddington. I was on the next one, of course.
I probably would have taken the Elizabeth line in, instead, but by this time I just wanted to get into town so paid the premium to save a few minutes. And then, in stark contrast to the sparkling Lizzie line, I took the increasingly crusty Bakerloo line from Paddington to Charing Cross.
Tomas was waiting for me at the Princess of Wales, just up from Embankment, so we could have a quick 11:30pm nightcap before heading to the Airbnb.
In the morning we went for a nice walk along the Thames before grabbing some breakfast.
We stopped by our Agar Street office for an hour or so before taking the Piccadilly line up to King's Cross and walking to Argyle Street, the home of Heatherwick Studio's London headquarters.
This was a follow-up visit after meeting with some of the Heatherwick team at the Venice Biennale, to discuss how our research relates to their efforts around implementing a Boringometer.
Tomas and I met Dagmara outside Making House.
The studio has many exhibits I recognise from Thomas Heatherwick's Humanise book, including some aging-friendly seating designed for London buses.
Many thanks to Pablo Zamorano not only for meeting with us but for giving us a tour of the upstairs space: we met with Pablo and his colleague Pin Liu in an area where project work was still "in progress”, so we only took photos up top.
One building I recognised was The Hive, from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Another iconic project was Google's Bay View.
The Space Garden was one from the Venice Biennale.
I went back through my blog post about the Arenale and found the full-scale version (it was photo number 77).
We then went back to Agar Street for a couple of hours to catch up with the local team, and then once again headed across London - this time eastwards on the District line to Dagenham - for an event at UCL PEARL.
PEARL is a huge research space - the reason it’s out in Dagenham rather than being more central - where UCL’s NA/ND Centre holds experiments to understand the human experience and behavior relative to space. Other people use it, too - more on that in a bit.
I had to adjust my focal length to get even the side of the building in the shot.
PEARL stands for Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory.
The inside space is absolutely huge. There was an experiment ongoing to measure how people respond to different lighting techniques/schemes on London buses.
Stephen Gage and Sean Hanna were two of UCL Bartlett School's participants on the panel.
Fiona Zisch was another.
Brett Little from Arup was sitting next to me; my colleague Dagmara Szkurlat was on the other side. Hugo Spiers - who gave what I consider to be the most interesting lecture in the Neuroscience and Design class I attended recently - and Tao Cheng were the other panelists from UCL.
Yes, we wore the tracking hats used at the 100 Minds in Motion experiment from last September.
The main purpose of the lecture was to showcase the research and findings so-far, with presentations by the panelists from UCL as well as Barbara Pizzileo, who leads the research at PEARL. Industrial partners - Arup and Autodesk - were kindly invited to comment on our interest in the research. Thanks to Tomas Lay Herrera for taking this photo.
There were probably 20-30 local attendees, with a few hundred others joining via the online webinar. Many thanks to Ashwanth Ramkumar for sharing a screenshot he took while I was talking (quite briefly - he did well to capture it ;-). Until I received it I had no idea whether people were actually watching or not.
Afterwards we had a few drinks with the panelists and attendees. It was an opportunity to have some really interesting discussions.
Many thanks to Fiona, Hugo and Sean for including us in this inspiring event: I learned a lot from hearing the presentations and speaking with people afterwards. We’re looking forward to a fruitful collaboration over the coming months/years, especially with the PhD studentship we’re helping fund starting in September.
Afterwards we headed back across to the centre of London. Here's a photo of Dagmara and Lara Gregorians - who we've met a few times online with other members of the Future Cities Laboratory - just before they went their respective ways.
Tomas and I ended up meeting with Andy, Dom and Tony - colleagues from Autodesk Research - for a last drink in The Marquis. Apparently Charles Dickens used to drink - and even write - here.
On Friday morning I took the Lizzie line across to Slough, where I met up with my old friend Simon. He took me to Oakley Court for a bite to eat before heading to Heathrow.
It's truly a gorgeous spot. A great way to wrap up a brilliant trip to the Netherlands and the UK
I'm sorry I didn't have more time to catch up more with family and friends in the UK - I was really only there for a little over a day, in the end - which is something I'll try to correct on my next trip across.The trip home was uneventful. Our eldest son had arrived home from Baltimore on Wednesday - his exchange year at Johns Hopkins is over, and he’s now getting ready for his Masters at EPFL. I was so happy to find him there when I got back.
I’m delighted to say that I have no travel plans for the coming month, which means I’ll be able to spend some serious time with my family and catch up on things that have been left to one side during a really busy period.
