BBC Radio 4 Interview: Chris Wise by Roger Law
Categories: published work • Tags: broadcasts, creativity, emotion, fun, role model
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Designing for the Great Recovery
On the train I overhear 3 old blokes talking: “I can’t get too excited about the Olympic swimming ‘cos you can only see their heads”….and I think of the captain of the Titanic saying something similar about icebergs. From the Titanic, it’s a natural jump to hear the construction industry saying the same thing about its use of materials. Watch out for the bit you can’t see, I want to shout! It’s gonna get you! Now we have Sophie Thomas […]
Categories: published work • Tags: astronomy, design, education, experimental, fun, mass product, role model, sustainability
Why the Millennium Bridge plays Bossa Nova…
In my innocence I agree to speak on the cultural crossovers between Engineering, Architecture and Music. I will be in a trio with Ranulph Glanville, architectural theorist, and Michael Bochmann, violinist. Michael will bring his string orchestra, the Water City “band”, so we dovetail together into quite a posh concert. But my little part causes me considerable soul-searching. For this is all to take place as part of the cultural embrace of the London Festival of Architecture in the Great […]
Categories: published work • Tags: architecture, art and scupture, emotion, fun, mastery, nature
Engineering, bloody hell
So, at a time of great national misery as once again the Aussie cricketers are putting us to the sword, I find myself reflecting on how useful a sporting education is for Brits working in architecture and engineering. When I was at school I was fortunate to play cricket and rugby in teams which only lost about once every two years. Winning became an inevitable consequence of just setting foot on the field of play. Although we were only a […]
Categories: published work • Tags: emotion, fun, skill
How Stockton came out of the wilderness
One evening last week I was in Stockton for the opening of our Infinity bridge across the Tees. As it happens, the bridge crosses the river more or less at the spot where Maggie Thatcher went for her infamous “Walk in the wilderness” in 1987. There she met, unscripted, an unemployed man called Eric Fletcher. Barging through security, he waved a folder at her saying he’d made “over 1,000 job applications in this area alone” in 6 months. Mrs Thatcher […]
Categories: published work • Tags: competitions, creativity, design, emotion, experimental, fun, nature, skill, users, value
Egg Zeppelin
John Prescott recently said he likes the “bulge factor” in architecture, a statement which ought to consign the old flat “roof” and “wall” to history. But in the world of bulgy things we haven’t really moved on since Brunel’s curvaceous iron ships of the 1850’s. Prescott likes Future Systems’ Selfridges, which he calls a “biowhatd’youcallit” building. The fabulous look-at-me Selfridges might be his role model, but should it be ours? Its roof smerges into a melted marshmallow which hops past […]
Categories: published work • Tags: architecture, fun, nature, performance
The exhibition “Panamarenko” at the Hayward Gallery….and my impossible bike
Once upon a time, I designed a bike which would enable me to break the land speed record. It was a long time ago…. I think I was about eight. The idea seemed so simple….just join a series of bikes together so that the small cog at the back of one powered the big cog at the front of the next. The more times you did this, the faster the back wheel would go. I planned to make the bike […]
Categories: reviews • Tags: art and scupture, creativity, emotion, experimental, fun
The birth of London’s Millennium Bridge
A few January’s ago, I was standing in the middle of Cornwall on a very cold, but very sunny afternoon. It was so cold that the ground was frozen, which is a rare event for those parts. There is a ridge running down the middle of the county, which lifts the fields high above the sea which flanks the peninsula on both sides. As I stood up there I found myself profoundly moved by the situation and, in particular, the […]
Categories: published work • Tags: art and scupture, competitions, creativity, design, emotion, experimental, fun, nature
chris wise engineer 