The Eiffelovercast is a regular digest of matters engineering, creativity and practical philosophy. Each episode I either interview somone to learn what I can about the themes of this podcast, or I visit an event or a destination and report what I find.
#19 - The allotment tapes - Seven variations on climate and creativity
This episode is about seven themes all related in some way to climate and creativity that keep coming to mind when I'm doing the watering, which is rather a lot at the moment:
What can we learn from the Apollo missions?
Harnessing the subconscious as a creative tool
The wisdom of the allotment
The end of sustainability
Asking difficult questions
Not seeking permission to sound the alarm
Digital models of deckchairs on the Titanic
30 Apr 2020
#18 - Hazel Hill Wood - Dawn chorus sonic lockdown therapy
30 minutes of uninterrupted dawn chorus Hazel Hill Wood, recorded at the end of March. Hazel Hill is woodland nature reserve and education centre helping frontline staff develop resilience and wellbeing through connection with nature. While people are prevented from visiting the woods during lockdown, the team are working on ways to bring the wood to them during lockdown. Listening suggestions:
Early in the morning
Over breakfast
In the background while you work
To clear your mind at the end of work
Late at night as you drift off to sleep
12 Mar 2020
#17 - Tabitha Pope - Participatory Architecture
Tabitha Pope is an architect and lecturer, with a specialism temporary structures and participatory archiecture and a passion for work that sits at the boundary of art and architecture. In this episode, produced in support of International Women’s Day, my colleague Lucy Barber interview Tabatha about:
What is participatory design and what benefits does it offer us in the climate emergency.
Challenging power in order to make architecture a more inclusive space for all under-represented groups, not just women.
How her practice of carpentry allows her to intervene in the design process in a different way.
Establishing a nature connection to help designers and citizens alike tackle the biodiversity crisis.
Stepping into a space of vulnerability in design in order to do things differently.
Creating spaces for joy and encounter to tackle loneliness and build resilience in communities.
...And lots more. Enjoy!
13 Feb 2020
Bengt Cousins-Jenvey - How to save a million tonnes of carbon
Bengt is a consultant and 're-designer', working in sustainability and circular design in the built environment. This year we are working together to create training in response to the climate emergency. In this interview I ask Bengt about his big question: what single thing can you do to save a million tonnes of carbon. Exploring this question we get into:
High-level strategies for accounting for carbon that help avoid getting stuck in the detail.
Using culture-change models to guide organisations as they respond to declaring a climate emergency.
Thinking frameworks that help consultants engage with the businesses they are supporting.
Circular design and the GLA's London plan
23 Jan 2020
Creativity, climate and clowning - Alexie Sommer interviews Oliver Broadbent
In this episode we flip the format: Alexie Sommer, Independent Design and Communication Director and collaborator on many of my projects interviews me about why I set up Eiffel Over and Constructivist Ltd, and what our plans are for 2020. We get into:
Techniques for teaching creativity
Our programme of training support people tackling the climate emergency
And what engineers might learn from clowns.
30 Jul 2019
#14 Sophie Thomas - Circular Design
Sophie is an unusual mix of campaigner, practising designer and Chartered Waste Manager. She’s been working in the fields of sustainable design, behaviour change and material process for nearly 20 years. I invited Sophie on to the show to talk about waste and circular design. In our conversation we get into:
The engineering of linear and circular products, material selection, recycling houses and oil rigs.
The creative strategies for circular designers, and in particular the idea that waste is a design flaw.
And the practical philosophy of someone who has spent so long think about waste.
21 Jun 2019
#13 - The Forth Bridge - An Engineering Detour
An engineering detour is something engineers do when they go out of their way, usually on holiday, to go and check out a piece of engineering infrastructure. In this episode I take an engineering detour to the mighty Forth Bridge. Along the way we get into
the engineering of the structure,
how taking detours can build our creative skills,
and on a philosophical note I weigh up facts and figures versus experiential knowledge.
Join me for the ride!
18 Jan 2018
#12 - Roma Agrawal - How to build a skyscraper
Don’t try to build a skyscraper yourself without listening to this first: a step-by-step guide on how to build a skyscraper with structural engineer Roma Agrawal, author of 'Built, the Hidden Stories Behind our Structures’. We get into the engineering, creativity and philosophy of sky scrapers and their designers.
4 Jan 2018
#11 Jack Bardwell - Spine-tingling creativity
I recorded this episode last summer with my colleague, graphic designer Jack Bardwell just before he left to puruse new adventures in interior architecture. It has been a pleasure therefore to listen his voice in the edit, and to hear the many fascinating things he has to say about his creative process, what he has learnt from working with engineers, and, most intriguingly, the spine-tingling effect other people's creativity can have on him.
I've got a feeling this going to be one of those episodes I keep coming back to when I need angles for looking at the world. Enjoy!
27 Nov 2017
#10 - The J-P Flintoff meta podcast - saving the world one creative project at a time.
Journalist and author J-P Flintoff is this person who inspired me to start this podcast. He talks passionately about how to get people started on their creative projects and the positive impact their creativity has on the world. This interview gets very meta: a podcast about the creative process of podcasting. We get into all sorts of great techniques for creative projects, including:
Improv games
Valuing what you are good at
Not losing track of what is working well already
The importance of getting started
Not worrying about whether it is going to be good.
Shared space in the creaive process
Why we need to keep noticing
But beyond any particular tactic, it is J-P's warmth and encouragement that I find so inspiring. I hope it inspires you too.
24 Nov 2017
#9 - Andrew Koskinski: Engineering transport in San Francisco
I can’t think of metropolitan landscape that offers more varied and exciting opportunities for designing transport infrastructure than San Francisco, with its steep hills, its bay, its rapidly changing economy and its tantalisingly separated land masses. In this episode I catch up San Francisco-based transport engineer and old friend Andrew Kosinski and we geek out on transport-related talking points including:
Bridgoff: Bay vs. Golden Gate
Tearing down freeways
Bringing cycling into San Francisco
Is driving a right and it is a freedom?
The phenomenon of ‘parklets'
Tunnelling through ships
Building towers on weak and shifting sands
The creative bubble of silicon valley and the unintended consequences
Autonomous vehicles
Using firms like Uber to replace under-productive bus routes
Becoming passive consumers of cities
12 May 2017
Eiffel Over on tour in San Francisco
Ditching google maps + riding the bart + cycling downtown + Golden Gate Bridge + big trains + hidden cognitive demand of team work and collaboration + measuring student brave waves + what is reality + the latest from Paolo Alto
24 Apr 2017
#7 - Ellie Westgarth Flynn - Creative strategies, instruments as extensions to our bodies and the importance of feedback
Song writer and piano player Ellie Westgarth-Flynn and I talk creative musical strategies, instruments as extensions of our bodies, the tension between technical mastery and creativity and the importance of audience feedback. We also have a jam.
Show notes and more details available from the blog: eiffelover.com
3 Apr 2017
#6 - Riding the Northern Line ghost train
In this episode I attempt a sonic recreation of a part of the London Underground that never got built, a stretch of the Northern Line that would have run from Moorgate to Alexandra Palace. En route I reflect on the transport infrastructure shapes our experience of the city and the difference between what engineers plan and what actually gets built.
2 Mar 2017
#5 Nick Cobbing - photographing the Arctic
Photographer and photojournalist Nick Cobbing talks about photographing the Arctic, what happens to photographic equipment at minus 38 degrees, using drones to take photos, the role of the audience in the creative process, being reduced to tears by the beauty of the planet, the best places to swing dance north of the Arctic, life hacks for creative people working on their own and whether penguins tango or waltz.
12 Feb 2017
#4 Crossing France very very fast - a paean to TGVs
Ever since I saw my first one zoom past as a boy I’ve loved TGVs. In January I travelled from one side of France to the other and back by high-speed train to get to a conference, and used the chance to try to capture some of what I love about fast trains in France. It’s a mash up of travel diary, interviews and engineering history, all stitched together with familiar SNCF noises. Close your eyes and bon voyage...
25 Jan 2017
#3 Andrew Scoones - Is there such a thing as engineering culture?
Andrew is a filmmaker specialising in the built environment. Andrew seems to have interviewed or met almost all of my engineering design heroes (except Eiffel), and so I was equally delighted and nervous when he agreed to let me interview him! In this podcast we explore one of Andrew’s passions, the identification and celebration of engineering culture. Along the way way we get in to some great stories about designers, what they design and how they do it.
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