Post by Will Arnold

Five of the coolest things I got to see and do while researching for Future Build: 🏠Visiting Amsterdam's floating houses with their 'architect'🏠 What struck me about Marthijn Pool is that he is more entrepreneur than architect. While his firm Space&Matter might be known for delivering the architecture at Schoonship, I was taken by his passion for values-driven business ventures - custom housing software, biobased material supply chains, and a regenerative city developer. ⏳️Interviewing the world expert on sand, in my pyjamas⏳️ I was deeply struck by Kiran Pereira's Sand Stories - tales of sand mafias, of growing up in Bengaluru through the construction boom of the 80s and 90s, and of the ways in which countries like the UK are still not protecting wildlife against sand extraction at source. I just wish I'd found time to stop writing to get changed ahead of our Zoom call... 🏢Touring Kings Cross with its visionary developer🏢 Many Londoners know this area for its handful of bold architectural interventions - things hang from the sky and lean out dramatically. But when David Partridge and I toured his stomping ground to debate the architectural approaches on display, our discussion quickly turned to value and values, and whether something needs to be eye-catching to bring love and joy to a place. 🔮Stepping into the future in Switzerland🔮 Francesco Ranaudo's was clear that his form-found structures follow principles that are as old as life itself. But, standing on top of his optimised VAULTED AG flooring system (as part of an office where a drone startup was now working), I realised how cumbersome and archaic the flat slab really was. 🧭Taking an imagination adventure in Lewes🧭 I had travelled down to visit the site of The Phoenix, Human Nature's most regenerative housing development plans yet. Work still hadn't begun, but the interactions with locals spoke to their desire to see this estate realised. Festivals of design had allowed locals to sculpt this vision, proving that a new way of planning and designing was possible, and inspiring other parts of the country to do the same. As Michael Manolson put it to me at the time: 'This is not a building project, this is a campaign'.