I rather neglectfully didn’t post a newsletter last month. There would have been things to report on, mainly because James was galivanting down under and posting things as he went.

Like the Rainbow City installation, which he didn’t find down there, did he? And this anti-drinking-and-driving campaign – mmm, Spanish, not New Zealand either. And another interesting installation, a roof this time – wait a minute, “het dak dat opgaat in rook”? That can’t be Australia. It looks like he spent his whole trip surfing the net. Maybe he didn’t go at all?

Then Anton got in on the act, he posted this restaurant in an old banking hall and a pic of the benches that we will be using in Sharpeville. He also raved about the design review process undertaken by Places Matter in the UK, and posted a link to a Sunday Times article on green roofs in which he is (extensively!) quoted. In fact, some representatives from a German green roofing company visited us here in the office yesterday to investigate green roofing opportunities here. They mainly install green roofs on existing buildings not necessarily designed to have them in Munich, where any new building larger than fifty square metres must have a green roof. The use a much thinner growing medium layer than we have used for buildings designed with a green roof in order to save weight.

Annamari posted a link to a site that gives you a 720 degree view of the interior of the Sistine Chapel. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the view you see here is that there are no tourists in sight!

Anton has posted interviews with SHoP Architects and Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, so visit the Facebook site for those.

Oh, and James got around to posting a link to Ballast Point Park in Sydney by McGregor Coxall. I’m always showing people images of this inspirational project to illustrate everything from brownfield development to how great gabions can look.