Josh Ritter – Love Is Making Its Way Back Home from Josh Ritter on Vimeo.

We Love this new video from the great Josh Ritter. It would be amazing to animate a new project like this!

Video produced by Erez Horovitz of Prominent Figures.

The stop-motion animation for “Love Is Making Its Way Back Home” uses photographs culled from over 12,000 pieces of construction paper to animate a nighttime drive. A team of nearly twenty artists, editors, directors and product assistants ushered the video into being. The group started with storyboarding and computer animation before converting the digital graphics to paper cutouts (frame by frame), photographing those 12,000 cutouts and then stitching them together into four minutes of paper animation. As production designer Sam Cohen said, “We had to determine ahead of time which images to cut as positives or negatives, how to anchor the cutouts to the paper frame that surrounds it so the pieces wouldn’t fall out, as well as a host of other problems. It was definitely the most labor intensive video we’ve been a part of.”

Marine Hall Gardens was looking great in the sunshine yesterday. Miami eat your heart out. The art deco style is coming together and planting will take place as soon as this ‘slight chill’ passes.

Little Bear lost in the woods…

The stats:

Best jumper – Ben Green

Most guilty pleasure songs guessed – Steve Dunne

Worst song – Josh Woods without a doubt. ‘You’re a Pink Toothbrush’

Looking hairy the next day – James Watts

Too many great Secret Santa presents to choose the best!

Finished bronze central piece – SKY!

A sneak peek at the bronze centre piece mould for the sea circle at Marine Hall Gardens, Fleetwood. This will be set into a 5m diameter terrazzo circle.

Sky mould.

The first Pre-cast Terrazzo Unit image arrived today from Toffolo’s in Hull – we love it. This is from SKY - the first of two 5 metere dia. Terrazzo carpets we have been designing and detailing with Smiling Wolf and Lesley Fallais.

More to follow – when we get piccies!

Here we go – UPDATE!

Draco

Cephus

Andy’s heading to Cardiff for the RSAW [Royal Society of Architects in Wales] autumn/winter conference on Friday Dec 9th where he will be a speaker at ‘Practice Makes Perfect. He will be  examining the complex process of design and how ideas follow many paths before finding their resting place [on the ground or sometimes in the bin]. Using completed case studies, work currently under construction and on the drawing board – he will examine how collective notions of  identity are notoriously tricky to pin down.

Here’s a link for more info.

Emblem of my [our] work @ Cube Gallery.

BCA Landscape and Hope University have had a very successful year rewarded again for Angel Field last night at the Landscape Institute Awards. We came top of the  catagory “Design Under One Hectare” .

Angel Field has picked up a total of 4 awards this year and has been the location of many outdoor events and ceremonies. [The awards: Roses Award, Civic Trust Award, Landscape Institute Award & we're still chuffed about our Ibstock brick from RIBA Red Rose for Project of the Year] Well done to all involved.

The team – We-ef and BCAL

Tim Smit at the awards.

Darrell and Mike [BCAL] attended the annual Armistice Day ceremony at the Bury Fusiliers Museum this morning which coincided with the opening of Gallipoli Gardens.

A bit of background to the naming of the Garden – On the 25th April 1915 a joint British and French force landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.  The aim of the operation was to capture the capital of the Ottoman Empire Constantinople, open up a supply route to Russia and encourage the Balkan States to join the allies.  The campaign lasted from April 1915 to January 1916.  It was a failure for the Allies with heavy casualties on both sides.

To this day Gallipoli is not forgotten in Bury and annually on the Sunday nearest to the 25th April a church service and parade to commemorate Gallipoli take place in Bury.  The day not only includes members of the Fusilier Family but also members of the local community, thus binding together Regiment and Community.

The Fusilier Museum in Bury tells the exciting story of one of Lancashire’s most famous Regiments. The Regiment of 6VCs before breakfast at Gallipoli, indeed the regiment that earned more VCs in the First World War than any other infantry regiment in the British Army. The archive and displays illustrate the stories of famous members of the Regiment from Wolfe storming Quebec and Ross burning the White House, to the Regiment’s connection with Napoleon and Tolkein and the creation of Lord of the Rings. The regimental library and archive are on site and may be viewed by appointment. The museum has moved from Wellington Barracks to the centre of Bury, and opened on 27th June 2009. The museum has a new collection, that of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Although the Regiment was formed in 1968, this is the first time the Regiment has had its own museum and place to commemorate its history – from the streets of Northern Ireland to Afghanistan, the Regiment’s most recent operational deployment.

Two Minutes’ Silence

(Armistice Day, 1925)

Not mine this year

To keep the silence that I hold so dear,

Since I shall be with you,

My little son too small to understand

Or keep you still,

Being only two.

So, I take your hand,

And bring you to the grassy, wind-swept hill,

Where I stand and am quiet,

Your baby words

Will chatter still of the cows and trees and birds.

They will not mind.

They loved the country, and children, and sun, and wind.

My little lad,

They gave their life to keep you safe and glad,

That you might grow – a heritage, a trust,

A man to play the game when they are dust.

Teresa Hooley.

Just got back from Newcastle and the RIBA Northern Network Awards 2011. We had an amazing night and we were honoured to scoop  the top Landscape Award and also the overall Project of the Year: Red Rose Award for the North West [including architecture,landscape and interiors].

Judges comment:- for Angel Field

[client - Liverpool Hope University]

‘The Creative Campus has been completed by this outstanding public space which links a series of otherwise disparate buildings across a serene and playful garden. Conceived by a determined and knowledgeable client with a clear vision, it has been realised by an imaginative designer determined to deliver on that vision. Built to an exceptional standard of finish, it is a soft and welcome delight in an otherwise harsh urban setting. A place you will want to return to again and again.’