Development
The top floor attic space of a building has a certain charm – a removed and inspirational sense of ‘borrowed space’. Here, beneath the roof tiles at whitespace, there’s a sense of privacy, a certain creative freedom, and the added bonus of bird’s eye views. The dormer window by my desk is filled with the ‘companion roof’ of our neighbours opposite, almost close enough to touch, across the narrow street. Our top floor landscape is one of glinting grey slates covered with generous clean-living lichen. With, for some time now, a romantic sense of neglect – the occasional rogue weed in the soft Bath stone parapets all blown with frost damage, the moulded coping worn with time and full of moss.
Up here scuffling pigeons vie for space, negotiating the pitch of the roof. They huddle and follow the warmth of the sun, as the day runs its course. On wet days they suffer the rain in miserable sodden defiance. I’ve become a desk bound pigeon fancier. www.nationalpigeonassociation.co.uk
Up high here, they become feathered friends and lose any associations with city vermin. Roof tops, chimney pots and pigeons recall childhood picture books, for me, and have quirky associations with the French film, Amelie. (Just like this brilliant Simon de Glanville photograph of pigeons, below, which I came across recently.)
With such luxuriant rooftop plant life developing and, no doubt, some significant internal problems with damp, it was only a matter of time before our neighbours found that scaffolding had to be put up. Just outside the window, for some weeks now, we’ve had the bizarre experience of skyline builders up here with us throughout the day, pacing up and down, working away, keeping us company. Our space is invaded and office life has become a little less removed.
Opposite the wooden worm eaten rafters have been exposed to the elements for the first time in years. Steadily the moss has been cleaned back, the weeds are cleared, the coping removed, cleaned, cracks filled, the guttering peeled back to allow the rafters to be added to, patched and pinned.
I’ve enjoyed the humanity of this work. Subliminally the builders have become a point of reference for me. From our technologically based world, I have found myself gazing on their progress. Occasionally, when feeling exasperated with email impatience or a telephone answering service or, maybe, found myself without broadband connection, I’ve experienced a sense of envy for their craft. This neighbourly restoration process has been steady, even-handed and confident, unpicking and repairing. As the job starts to draw to completion, it is clear that, all along, this seemingly slow progression has been timely, skilled and purposeful and, in reality, quite swift and efficient. Skilled builders command huge trust. As our fundamental building skill base diminishes, we wait months for builders of good repute and it is rare that we question their work, or their authority. The building opposite begins to look all cared for again. I will miss the moss but will admire, instead, the clear cut lines of the blonde stone mouldings that have been beautifully cleaned up. To repair something so thoughtfully and so well is deeply satisfying. www.spab.org.uk
Web design has equal moments of triumph and satisfaction. But the technological age we live in brings heightened expectation and something has happened to our sense of skill and time scales. (Check out the BBC’s ‘Virtual Revolution’ survey to see what kind of virtual animal you are – www.bbc.co.uk) Websites must be built like any structure. A website, like a building has to be planned. A website designer, like any architect, manages client expectation, anticipates future expectation, functionality, and creates solutions. When the job is done well it invariably looks effortless!
The design and behaviour of a website is planned, then handed to the web developer who builds and creates it in complex HTML code. Fonts and colours behave differently on screen than in print and all images must be prepared. Tests must be run to ensure that each search engine displays the website correctly. In recent years our day-to-day technological capabilities have grown beyond all measure and, increasingly, as universal button pushers, we are all inclined to give little thought to such exacting work. We have quickly become so accustomed to the glossy screen images of our daily lives that we fail to account for the skill of good website and software design.
Minor ‘tweaks’, logos added in, animation alterations, bands of colour ‘dropped in’ can require deceptive amounts of time, skill and logic. Any project will require amendment and development, often through various stages. With guidance from the designer, the web builder must effectively take down the coping stones of his original work to expose the rafters to make these changes. It is not simply a case of more roofing tiles, quickly ‘patched’ on top. Incorrectly, it is often assumed that software simply ‘does the trick’, that the design and build process is merely a question of ‘cut and paste’ – pushing a few command buttons. Consumer friendly software abounds, like the DIY tools and equipment found in any hardware outlet. This gives us a sense of accessibility which is often liberating. But few of us completely understand buildings, let alone websites. We inhabit and use them daily, enjoying a strong sense of those we prefer; the ones we like and use with ease. As with buildings, there are websites which are indifferent but do the job, and there are those which are simply brilliant. Is your website worthy of archiving? www.webarchive.org.uk
Posted by Katie Barr-Sim 5 months ago in
About Katie Barr-Sim
Katie is a business development director. She still wonders what she’ll be when she grows up but has always had a keen eye for design and a way with words.