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Ian Theaker here, posting from Amsterdam, where I'll stay for a week or so. I actually wrote most of this letter on the ferry "Princess of Scandinavia", in transit from the Newcastle to the Norwegian port of Christiansand; and the hostel ship "Gustaf af Klimt" in Stockholm; and in Copenhagen.

Having sorted out 'Net connections in Amsterdam, I've finally been able to get this off. So, here's my second long post, covering the balance of my travels in the UK. Coming soon - Goteborg and Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

This one is in three parts - first, this intro; then the tech stuff on green building and planning efforts (safely skimmed by non-techies); and finally, non-building news. Pick your poison....

Thanks to those who replied to my last email - it was very good to hear from friends in Canada and the States. And for those of you who were concerned (several), not to worry, I *am* relaxing. Can I help it if I find good buildings fascinating, and walking & talking about them fun? And, contrary to appearances, I do make time for fun and sightseeing.

Special thanks to those who've been keeping me up to speed on Vancouver City Councils' July meetings on Southeast False Creek. The area is still very much on my mind, and I greatly appreciate hearing of your efforts. Keep up the good work, folks! I urge anyone else with an interest in creating a model sustainable neighborhood in Vancouver to write, or make a presentation to City with your suggestions and support. The current version of the policy paper is available on the City website, and makes for some fascinating reading - for what is and is not included. I've written a letter to Mayor and Council with my thoughts; if you're interested, let me know and I'll send you a copy. Council will be meeting again in September - and a green SEFC is *not* yet a done deal.

Those of you with a feeling for Euro geography, and a memory of my last email, will realize that my itinerary has evolved somewhat. I started Europe with Sweden, visiting my friend Asa in Goteborg, and I 'm now in Amsterdam, after some time in Stockholm. Then, a week in Copenhaven, and now a week or so in Amsterdam.

Since my last email, I've had a relaxed, then active few weeks, between family time in High Wycombe (with my brothers) and wandering about London and northern Britain; and then R&R time in Sweden than Denmark.

People and places covered since my last post: - conversation with Susan Roaf, researcher at Oxford Brookes University and owner of the Oxford solar house - tour of Edinburgh Gate, a naturally-cooled and ventilated, daylit office building in Harlow, Essex - meeting with Koen Steemers and Nick Baker of Cambridge - tour of Wycombe Caves - meeting with John Berry, project engineer at Ove Arup & Partners - visit to Heritage Open-air museum in Buckinghamshire - photos of Parliament House, by Michael Hopkins & Partners & Ove Arup - meeting with Ken Shuttleworth, architect for Greater London Authority building, with Norman Foster - meeting with Guy Battle, of Battle McCarthy consulting engineers, London - tour of Nottingham University campus, under construction in Nottingham - tour of Queens' Building, at De Montford University in Leicester - visit to Leicester Inland Revenue Centre complex - wander about Staithes, my father's birthplace, and origin of the Theakers worldwide. - meetings with Joe Clark & Jon Hand of Energy Systems Research Unit in Strathclyde University, Glasgow - tour of Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings in Glasgow - visit to Asa Jonsson, and a visit to a new ecovillage outside of Goteborg. - meetings with Erik Hansen (client) and Henrik Torkelsen, architect of Denmarks' entry to GBC, the "Hojstrup Norreplatz"

Whew! It really hasn't been as hectic as it may sound - but it certainly has been educational, and a good time.

Oxford Solar House I had a chance to talk to Susan Roaf, architect and researcher at Oxford Brookes University, just before she took her own vacation. She is the owner of, and resides in an extraordinary house in Oxford.

The Oxford Solar house demonstrates building-integrated photovoltaics and energy-conserving construction for UK single-family dwellings. A 4 kW PV array replaced the masonry standard roof tiles on the south exposure, and is connected to the grid via dual meters. The house has high insulation levels (for the UK), with tight construction; is designed for passive solar heating; and has a solar DHW system for hot water preheat. The performance of the 233 sq.m house and its systems have been monitored for two years now; and requires only 10.7 kWh/sq.m/year on average for heating and DHW. The house is a net annual *exporter* of electricity to the grid - yet the loads include charging of an electric vehicle in addition to household electrical loads.

Cost of the PV system, as installed in 1995, cost 28,300 pounds; Susan estimates that it could currently be installed for 16,000.

Lessons learned: - overheating of the PV array reduced its efficiency, despite the array being mounted with a ventilated airspace below it. Susan would modify the mounting details to allow for more airflow and cooling. - Oversizing of the the PV system inverter resulted in unnecessary energy losses - The standard agreement for power sales to the utility had to be modified and simplified for small producers, particularly with regard to meter-reading visits. - Net metering (running the meter backwards) would result in greater capital and operating-cost savings than the current dual meter requirement

Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex John Fessey, the facility manager for Edinburgh Gate, was kind enough to give me a tour of Addison Wesley Longman's 16,000 sq.m, five-storey building in Harlow, east of London. The building is especially notable for the robustness and user-control of its energy conserving strategies. It achieved 20/21 credits under the current BREAM assessment, one of the highest assessments done to date. Architects were the CD Partnership of London, with Cundall Johnston & Partners doing the services engineering.

The natural ventilation and cooling strategy is very simple: openable windows to perimeter offices on lower floors surround three central atria, which have BMS-operated windows at the top. The atria provide the height for stratification and stack effect, and the downwind windows at the atria tops are opened to provide additional negative pressure to induce inflow through occupant-operable windows. The office casement windows are particularly well-designed, with simple, strong operators and a satisfying 'thunk' as they close. Louvred sections at the top of office windows opening to the atrium allow airflow to pass through.

The atria also provide daylight for adjacent offices, but unlike many, are provided with windows rather than skylights, for solar control. Daylighting controls are especially simple: the BMS sweeps the lights off in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening when light levels are adequate inside the occupied spaces. The occupants can override the BMS control with local switches, but seldom do. Light levels are enhanced by lightshelves located about a quarter of the way down the high windows, separating vision sections that include the operable portions, from daylight-entry sections at the top. Floor-to-ceiling distances are typically 3.1m; the lack of ductwork and a 300mm raised floor for wiring and displacement ventilation allows the high ceilings, unobstructed by services. Lamps are T8 fluorescents with electronic ballasts and mounted on movable floor pedestals, with a very low (~8 W/sq.m) installed power density, providing 350 lux on average.

The building is not entirely naturally cooled; there are two 300 kW chillers supplying fan-coils that provide cooling for the top-floor restaurant, ground-floor cafe, and meeting rooms throughout the building, with an ice storage system for off-peak operation. Three condensing natural gas boilers provide hot water to perimeter radiation and under-slab radiant heating for the atria.

Key to the comfort of the building is the large thermal mass, mostly 300mm concrete floor slabs with the underside exposed to the floor below. John emphasized this point; apparently the building maintains temperatures within comfort envelope for up to three days with no HVAC plant operation, even under outdoor conditions. As well, occupants have the operation of the building explained to them, and the need for cooperation in establishing comfort levels using windows and lighting is emphasized.

I had the chance to ask several occupants what they thought of the building, after John returned to his regular work. All of them were very pleased with the conditions provided. Two minor complaints were noise migration through openings to the atria, which has hard surfaces throughout; and 'stuffiness' at times in summer in the mail room, where airflow paths were blocked by walls and storage. On further probing, all compared it very favourably to the previous buildings they had worked in.

The building cost 1.07 million pounds, about 5% less than a typical speculative office of the same size. Higher costs for the envelope, roof garden and structure were more than offset by elimination of separate ceiling assemblies.

Lessons learned: - a simple natural ventilation strategy, with high mass and robust windows under user control, works very well in providing comfort in UK conditions. - large exposed mass of exposed mass provide a long time constant, and aid control with minimal energy consumption. - design of atria for this natural ventilation strategy should closely consider noise attenuation.

While wandering the London waterfront, I walked past the new Parliamentary building currently being built next to Big Ben at Westminster. Designed in 1994 by Michael Hopkins and Partners and Ove Arup as the building service engineers, I'd say it's representative of green design in the UK today.

The building is 7 storeys of offices, committee rooms and Members accomodations above the Westminster Tube station, which has two lines running through it. The station is being extensively renovated at the same time, and made for a challenging structure.

The general plan is one of narrow perimeter offices surrounding a courtyard with a glazed roof at the second floor. The ground level of the courtyard houses restaurants, shops and common facilities; the upper floors house offices for the Members of Parliament. These typically flank a central corridor, with an exposed frontage of 3.6m to the outside, and 5.4m deep to allow daylighting, which is aided by internal lightshelves and external shades on the bay windows. Windows facing the streets are not operable to reduce noise; but those facing the courtyard open for natural ventilation. Stairs and elevator shafts are located at the corners of the building. Construction is stone veneer over a structural concrete frame.

The HVAC system is designed to facilitate natural stack flows, with vertical bronze air shafts expressed on the exterior of the building, and separating each office, rising to 14 air exhaust chimneys, each serving 8 shafts (four facing the street and four facing the courtyard). Each office has inlets to the stacks; and the exhaust chimneys are reminiscent of Victorian industrial chimneys, projecting some 10-15m above the roof, and are a dominant feature in the roofline.

The roofs and floors of the member's offices are similar to those at the BRE Environmental Office and the Inland Revenue complex (discussed next): pre-cast concrete barrel arches span the rooms, with the underside exposed to the room below, and the voids above used for underfloor air distribution and night cooling. Each void is fed by air drawn from a heat recovery unit fed from an annular inlet below each exhaust stack; the void air is exhausted by an airshaft leading to the roof outlet.

Inland Revenue Complex, Nottingham The Inland Revenue complex was a design-build project, completed in 1996. The budget was tight, and so was the schedule; but even so a design competition resulted in selection of the team of Michael Hopkins and Ove Arup. While in Nottingham, I took the chance to wander around the complex, and get a feel for the designs.

The concept extended the pre-cast barrel vault concept first used in the BRE Environmental Building. Precast vault components, matched with prefabricated brick/concrete piers, aided greatly in keeping to budget and time constraints. The comfort strategy had four legs (common to many green designs): - high-performance envelope (good insulation, low-e, thermally-broken triple-glazing) - structural thermal mass for heat storage - careful design for daylighting, thermal and glare control - natural ventilation, supplemented by mechanical systems.

Stairwells in these buildings were used as solar thermal chimneys, with movable fabric roofs intended to induce air exhaust at the top, and fed from lower-floor corridors acting as airflow channels from the offices. Computational fluid dynamic modelling, confirmed by saline-tank studies done at Cambridge University, helped determine opening sizes and geometries for airflow and temperature. The modelling revealed that this strategy was sensitive to open windows close to base of the stairwells, which would short-circuit the flow and limit that from more remote rooms. To overcome this effect, small fans were located under each window to provide outdoor air to the offices.

Testing done after occupancy, during one of the hottest summers the UK has recently experienced, revealed the design's success. Lower floors had temperatures ranging from 22.5 to 26.5 deg.C, with outdoor temperatures peaking at 30 for over a week. Top floors, which were separately ventilated by ridge vents and operable windows, but did not have the concrete ceilings, were warmer.

University of Nottingham, Nottingham Mike Brizel, landscape architect from Battle McCarthy, and Glen Irwin of Ove Arup kindly gave me a tour of the Nottingham University campus, currently under construction. Due to be open for September, the campus has 6 buildings with a green agenda on a 1.8 ha site: - 3 classroom / office buildings - a post-graduate residence - a learning resource centre (what we once knew as a library...) These were designed by Michael Hopkins & Partners, and I talked with Jan Mackie, who was involved in the design from concept through to construction.

Several features of the site are of note; Battle McCarthy was responsible for the landscape design, and worked hard on integrating it with the neighborhood, protecting the existing nature vegetation, and to ensure no export of fill or topsoil from the site - a tough task on a tight site.

A wildlife belt of existing mature beeches on the south & west borders of the site was retained as wildlife habitat, and two new lakes are designed to buffer the area from pedestrian traffic, as well as providing creating a cool microclimate with evaporative cooling of the prevailing southwest breezes. Protecting the mature trees during construction was, as always, difficult; while the contractors were particularly warned that the trees were to be maintained, portions of the root zones were not fenced off, and were covered with subsoil removed to create the lakes. The trees also suffered minor damage from excavators, but Mike feels that they should recover.

The lakes are an integral part of a surface stormwater management strategy, acting as retention ponds to slow stormwater release to the municipal system. They are fed by all site stormwater including that from the roads that lie to the north and east of the buildings, which front onto the lakes.

Each of the classroom/office buildings have two blocks that flank an atrium, which has motor-driven glass louvres facing the lakes, and on the opposite sides, to allow cross-flow natural ventilation. Sealing of the louvres are some of the best I've seen; each blade has a double rubber seal on the three lower edges.

These 3 storey buildings show the tight integration of architecture and mechanical systems, and how Hopkins' and Arups' thinking have evolved over the years. Each has classrooms flanking double-loaded corridors, and are equipped with occupant-operable windows. Large, acoutically-insulated transfer ducts from the classrooms to the corridors allow cross-flow in the rooms, while reducing cross-talk. Windows are equipped with lightshelves and shades; like all others I've seen here so far, they are fixed metal louvres; but in this case four of them reduce the extension required for shading.

The concrete slabs are exposed to the classrooms below, to act as thermal mass; but rather than the barrel vaults used in other projects, a raised floor above is used for displacement ventilation. The envelopes have high insulation values: 0.29 & 0.22 W/sq.m K for walls & roofs respectively; double that required by code. Wall panels are prefabricated offsite, and sheathed with clear western red cedar; Hopkins sent an architect to North America especially to source sustainably harvested wood, in the absence of credible labelling schemes. I've seldom seen such nice cedar; the intent is to allow it to weather to the familiar silver-grey.

The HVAC systems, designed by Ove Arup, are especially notable. Intended to require no net annual energy for fan power, they have been carefully designed to minimize static pressure losses, and to take advantage of wind pressure to assist the fans. The most visible features on the rooflines are large rotating wind cowls mounted at the top of each stairwell, which act as return air passages from the corridors. These cowls are designed to induce air exhaust, supplementing the high-efficiency axial fans; and after CFD modelling, a full-size prototype was tested in Farnsworth's large wind-tunnel facility. Supply air shafts flanking the stairwells, and the underfloor passages that feed the classroom plenums are very large, by conventional standards, and the entire airflow path was designed for extremely low static pressure losses. These extraordinary fan systems are designed to have their power supplied by photovoltaic atrium glazing, sized to provide all the fan power needed over the course of the year. The 54 kWp PV arrays (made by BP) also shade the atria, providing dappled light.

The buildings are expected to consume ~83.6 kWh/sq.m each year - about half of the typical "good practice" consumption (191). Further, it is intended to emit 27 kg CO2/sq.m, as compared to 96 kg for "good practice". Of note is that every building I've seen or read of to date publishes their CO2 production. Very nice....

Queens Engineering Building, De Montford University, Leicester What can I say about the Queens Building that hasn't already been said elsewhere? Not much, I suspect - it's been very well documented, and is the subject of ongoing performance evaluation and monitoring. Jim Bisgrove, the University's energy manager kindly donated an afternoon to touring me through it - and then was late getting home, answering my questions. (Thanks much, Jim!)

Briefly, for those unfamiliar with it, the building is a landmark in natural ventilation in an urban site, halving energy costs at no additional cost. It's a thermally massive brick building, with natural ventilation elements such as inlets and exhaust towers integrated with the architecture, and used as features that echo and complement the Gothic design characteristic of historic Leicester. Several different natural ventilation strategies were used for different areas, and the two lecture theatres are particularly interesting in this respect, with acoustically-baffled brick inlet louvres leading to an underfloor plenum, introduced to the room behind the steeply raked seats, and exhausted by 13.3m high dedicated towers. In winter, hot water radiators in the plenum are used to preheat the air; and a "Bogart fan" is installed in the towers to supplement the wind- and buoyancy-induced flow as necessary. Salt baths to simulate buoyancy (done at Cambridge) and computer thermal simulation modelling were used in design for the natural ventilation strategy.

Daylighting is used extensively throuhout the building, with spaces primarily sidelit with many small punched windows with deep reveals for solar control. The central concourse acts as both a exit path for hot air, and for daylight entry to the lower floors of the 10,000 sq.m main building.

The separate mechanical laboratory and workshop is designed for cross-flow ventilation, with brick inlet louvres leading to occupant-operable doors opening to the space, and the air exhausted at high level on the opposite side and in the skylights, which also provide daylight. High gable glazing also allows light entry, controlled with interior lightshelves.

The HVAC plant has two high-efficiency boilers, and a condensing boiler used for modulating heat control. A combined heat and power unit was installed, primarily for teaching purposes; but is designed for peak shaving (and is seldom run). Perimeter hot water radiators and convectors with local thermostatic valves are predominantly used, except for some high radiant panels in the mechanical lab.

Lighting is primarily compact fluorescent lamps and T8 tubes, with HPS in the concourse. Passive infrared detectors tied to the building energy management computre were used for occupancy control; but the lamps are not switched or dimmed with higher daylight levels.

Lessons learned: - indoor air temperatures in the lecture theatres were found to be stable and comfortable between 20 & 23 deg.C, with outdoor temperatures up to 32 deg.C outdoors. - annual energy consumption is less than half of a comparable building, at 114 kWh/sq.m for heating (gas) and 43 kWh/sq.m for electricity, and CO2 emissions of 53 kg/sq.m. This was acheived at a cost of 855 UK pounds per sq.m (~214 CDN$/sq.ft.). Cost savings due to reduced mechanical equipment were ~9% of the contract value. - commissioning is (again!) critical; schedule pressures lead to acompressed commissioning, with the result that one of the roof ventilator openers was omitted in construction; and a broken heating water valve was omitted, preventing isolation of the heating circuit. - there were *no* complaints of overheating by occupants during the summer of 1995, one of the hottest on record; in fact, the Chief Engineer found it to be his favourite building on campus to escape the heat. - design of skylight operators should be simple and robust. Current operators for gang skylights have broken several times, and repair and routing maintenance is difficult. - skylight opening mechanisms should be installed so they are visible by the operators, a limit switch or a local position indicator installed to prevent overwinding. - doors for natural ventilation must be placed so they do not interfere with occupants daily tasks. The doors in the mechanical laboratory are located so that they interfere with equipment on benches, so they are seldom opened - defeating their purpose. - access to air distribution plenums must be provided to ease regular cleaning. - industrial health and safety regulations prevented the use of electric lamp dimmers in the mechanical laboratory. - the occupancy sensors controlling the HPS lamps were often overriden by occupants, due to the delays in firing the lamps and in the BMS.

Meetings with UK Designers and Researchers I took the opportunity to meet with several designers and researchers in Britain, including - Koen Steemers and Nick Baker of Cambridge - John Berry, Ove Arup & Partners, London - Ken Shuttleworth, Norman Foster, London - Guy Battle, Battle McCarthy consulting engineers, London - Joe Clark & Jon Hand, Energy Systems Research Unit, Strathclyde University, Glasgow

General impressions I've carried away from talking with these people: - aspects of green design, while not completely dominant, are now part of the program for 30-40% of new buildings in the UK, and growing. The most common aspects are energy-efficiency (in most new buildings); and selection of materials for lower ecological impact. - daylighting is a central program element in most practices; with use of heliodons and artificial skies quite common - the designers I met with are often using Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's "Radiance" as a daylighting design tool, even with its input difficulties - natural ventilation is incorporated in most 'green-field" building designs; and in many designs in city-centres - the most common HVAC system designs for green buildngs in the UK are mixed systems, that allow natural ventilation and cooling thoughout most of the year, but have mechanical systems that assure ventilation and cooling under peak conditions, or when stack and wind are insufficient. - natural ventilation design is shifting emphasis to wind effects; with design for stack effect for those few times when there is no wind. - natural ventilation design in city-centres is seen as the next challenge, especially how to deal with noise attenuation and air pollution due to street traffic. - night ventilation of thermal mass incorporated in the structure is becoming a common cooling strategy, having been found to be effective in many buildings.

One of the reasons for my visit to the UK was to see the state-of-the-art in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as applied to building natural ventilation and cooling; several of the people I met are leaders in the field, and I wanted to benefit from their experience.

I found that CFD is not yet commonly used by the general design industry, except by experienced consultants and researchers with particular problems to solve. There are two main reasons for this: - current CFD programs require a great deal of input to create useful models, and detailed understanding of underlying algrothims to ensure the results are meaningful and trustworthy - there is still a great deal of uncertainty on "boundary conditions" for CFD models, due to the lack of local, site-specific wind data, especially on the effects of surrounding buildings and topography. This requires educated guesswork on wind patterns and speeds at the building walls, or wind tunnel testing of models to establish pressure coefficients.

Further, current CFD models are typically static situations - "snapshots" - not dynamically changing with time as real winds do. Dynamic modelling is a great deal more complex, and thus time consuming and difficult.

While CFD is not currently widespread, rapid progress in the usability and power of computers makes most users I met feel these programs will be far more useful in a very few years. With easy programs will come the ability to create and model at a neighborhood scale, and to run many models to bound performance and airflows in a wide variety of wind conditions. Dynamic modelling, however, will require another order-of-magnitude advance in research and tool development.

The trick currently is to match the tool to the need. In most cases, network airflow models, such as COMIS, CONTAM and in ESP-R, can establish general cooling effects of natural ventilation for rooms within a building. For larger spaces where stratification is intended, such as atria, or wind & thermal chimneys, CFD may be a better tool.

However, lack of skilled and sophisticated designers and analysts is likely to limit their application - and may lead to their future misuse. Guy Battle noted that Battle McCarthy is continuously looking for skilled staff, both at entry and senior levels. (Note that "entry-level" for CFD use is typically a Masters in Engineeering....)

Yes, I have indeed spent much of my time *not* thinking of buildings, but simply enjoying my travels.

Spending time in High Wycombe with my brothers and nieces was fun - I may have managed to hook two little girls on frisbee. As well, we went to see the UK debut of Star Wars (they *made* me do it, dragged me kicking and screaming all the way - honest....) Actually, if you view the Star Wars series as modern fairy tales, complete with ogres, giants, dragons and a moral kicker, they're pretty good (or am I just rationalizing?)

I did get a few chances to see the surrounding countryside. Especially memorable was a walk in the Chiltern hills overlooking the Thames valley, through meadows, fields, pine and beech forests. An excellent afternoon, punctuated with a ploughman's lunch and a pint at a pub built in the 1600s.

While in Wycombe (and Britain, for that matter) the weather has been excellent - sunny, hot, and sneezy. The pollen counts were such that I was often simultaneously weeping and blowing my nose - a very good way to make an impression on people you've never met before. After several weeks of enduring this, I broke down and resorted to antihistamines on the worst days.

We also explored the Wycombe caves, dug (by hand) into the flint and chalk of south England. These were created as an unemployment relief effort by the local lord in the Regency era, when a depression caused great unemployment in the area. He hired (at his own expense) several hundred unemployed furniture makers and peasants to excavate chalk to make roads. The caves run almost 100 meters deep below a hillside, cut out of the wet chalk with picks and shovels. The chalk is very soft - I could pick it with a fingernail - but was interspersed with flint, hard and glass-like. And if you think soft chalk is easier to dig, you should understand that it doesn't break off in chunks, but must be extracted spoonful by spoonful....

Lest you think that the local gentry was completely benign, the same lord was also founder of the "Hellfire" club, which held its meetings in the caves complete with costumes, paid female sexual entertainment, gambling, and much drinking. A wine cellar log displayed in the caves records some 17 bottles of wine of various sorts consumed by two(!) peers of the realm in one night.... The Earl of Sandwich is reputed to have invented his handfood at one of their gambling parties; which also entertained Benjamin Franklin while he was in England lobbying for tax relief.

My many trips to London from Wycombe were a treat - not enough megalopolis to stale, but sufficient to sense the energy of the place. London is booming, with a self-confidence that can be smelt (along with the diesel fumes). Of course, it's a tourist town - in the streets I walked on, the chance of any random stranger on the street being from somewhere else was about half. And it's a tourist town for good reason - it's an exciting place to be, but one that is sucking the economic life of the country toward the southeast.

All of the surrounding counties are experiencing very fast growth, and the housing prices show it. As does the transit - I was often late to meetings due to breakdowns or delays on the long-neglected subways. They're now paying the price; the Circle line and part of the Northern line are shut down for maintenance and renovations, adding to the chaos in the roads above. Apparently, average trip time in London is now the same as in the 1800s...

I often felt a bit strange in the UK, since all the faces were white. I've become used to Vancouver's and Toronto's visible ethnic mix, and I felt very comfortable in London's Camden Town (visiting the offices of Ove Arup) where there was a very dynamic mix of races and classes. That being said, it suffers from all of the problems of modern megalopolis - focus on money (it's *very* expensive), conspicuous consumerism = status, air pollution, and grey, stressed faces on the Tube - but for all that, it's a damn exciting place, with incredible diversity and much excellence.

After finishing in Wycombe, I headed north toward Staithes, on the Yorkshire coast; stopping at Leeds, Leicester and Nottingham along the way to see some buildings. Each of the cities had a common, very welcome, feature - a town centre created for human beings, not for cars. That being said, these areas were almost entirely devoted to retail, business and entertainment, with very few (or no) places for people to live. The result is very convenient for pub-crawling, since you can walk from pub to pub. Of course, this makes for a pretty rowdy downtown at closing time, as you might imagine.... Better than having them driving all over town, I suppose - but a mix of uses would keep some more civilisation in the streets, perhaps.

Nottingham's town centre in particular is excellent - the entire district is closed to cars. The streets are winding (not a grid in sight in the UK, as far as my travels went), and lined with 4 to 6 storey buildings of red sandstone and brick. Oddly, the entrance to the downtown district from the rail station is through a mall that would look quite at home in Surrey or Mississauga.

Leeds is shopper's heaven, the result of a conscious revival of the downtown streets, and their closure to car traffic. Leeds seems to be the retail centre of Yorkshire, with the usual high global culture: the Gap, MacDonalds, Yves St. Laurent and Gucci, along with a massive Marks and Sparks that spans several blocks. It's not all modern consumer heaven (hell?) however: I was most impressed with several covered shopping streets, and the City Market, dating to the Victorian era with stained glass and cast iron roofs over old shops and cafes. Very reminiscent of Milan. (Damn - see, I do enjoy buildings and urban form - can't get away from it.)

Staithes was a trip to roots for me. This tiny fishing village on the north Yorkshire coast is where all the Theakers in the world hail from, as far as I can tell. It's divided into two parts: the upper village, created in the 1800s to house miners of coal and shale; and the lower village, encrusted on the rocks surrounding the Beck. This is a tiny harbour formed by a creek; the village was founded in the 1300s by fishermen, and seemingly unchanged since. Most of the houses date back several hundred years, and remind me of a Greek coastal village, tumbling down the hills, and dominated by two cliffs on either side.

Most of the 600+ inhabitants were Theakers, Featherstones, Verrils or Coles - and has been for several centuries; but now the population is rising with refugees from city life, with their summer cottages and bed & breakfasts. However, when I enquired at the Cod & Lobster (the third since the 1700s) for people who might remember my grandparents, I was referred to Margaret Theaker. She served me tea and reminiscences of her husband in the RAF, and then passed me along to her brother Eddie and his wife Dorothy; who then referred me to Eileen Huby, who's been researching genealogy; who then... well, you get the picture. Within three days, I met half the Theakers and Verrils in town, with somewhat overwhelming hospitality and much tea.

As a child, I was raised with a model of a wooden fishing boat with beautiful lines that lived on the mantelpiece, which I was strictly forbidden to play with (a great temptation...). It was a 'coble', an extremely seaworthy sailing/rowing boat, evolved over the centuries to be beached on the Staithes beach in high seas, and to bring in a living from the North Sea. While in Staithes, I had a chance to take the tiller of Steve Cook's coble, one of the few left still being used for fishing on the coast. They're no longer being made, another victim of offshore trawlers and depletion of the Atlantic cod - a tragedy, I think, since cobles are part of the best heritage Britain has produced.

I've now gained some insight as to my roots on the English side - and this trip should give me a chance to explore my Chinese side as well. That alone makes this sabbatical worthwhile....

After Staithes, I headed off to Glasgow, to meet with the Strathclyde folks, and to worship at the Glasgow School of Art. Charles Rennie Macintosh has always been a demi-god on my pantheon; and I had a chance to see not just his art school, but several of his other buildngs as well. His touch with light and decoration is incredible - words cannot do his work justice. I hope my slides turn out....

Glasgow was about the end of this experience in the UK, and I then took the Newcastle ferry to Goteborg, and Scandinavia. More about that in my next letter....

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