I’ve just updated the tag-line for this site to: ‘Living space, working space, public space, private space. Can the spaces where we live, become places of well-being?’. This is my latest attempt to pin down the mission focus of The Centre. I thought that it might be worth tracking how this mission statement has developed […]
Those of us who live in small areas of dense population with diverse inhabitants, we imagine, perhaps even congratulate ourselves, that our lifestyle is cosmopolitan. Thanks to national and global mobility, people of different ethnicity, nationality, language and faith live side by side in a huge, life-enriching melting pot. But is it melting? Surrounded by […]
I’d like to put forward a theory. Our beloved corporations, which exist to feed themselves, which are fiercely self-protective, which despite being abstract entities, can effectively steamroller over the feelings and rights and of individuals and indeed, of whole communities, which are a force composed of human will, but which do not have a pro-human agenda, are […]
These are the government’s road safety guidelines for setting a good example to your children: You can set a good example by: explaining road safety and getting them to talk about it using the Green Cross Code encouraging your child to notice and discuss what they see around them on the road always crossing roads […]
Today all at the centre attended the March for Hope, to celebrate what would have been the fourteenth birthday of Hope Fennell, killed on a pedestrian crossing by a lorry last year. The campaign website is at www.liveinhope.net and a Birmingham City Council e-petition is here Although the reason for this event was a tragic […]
I didn’t plan to spend yesterday out in Kings Heath talking to people, but it turned out to be hugely useful and rewarding. I read through my mission statement at the end of the day, this would be the mission statement that I wrote on Day One and revised on Day Two, and I realised […]
How many times a day do you talk to a stranger? If you work in a shop, a bar, a call-centre, a hospital, (and the list goes on) if your role at work is public facing (bus driver) then you will speak to strangers all the time, and they will speak to you (tour guide) […]
On Sunday I was on a train, travelling back to Birmingham from The Centre for Alternative Technology where I had been attending The Emergence Summit 2012. I was talking to a fellow delegate, who’s name I wish I had asked, who told me that; ‘Ideas need to be cut down regularly, like weeds.’ This was […]
This is my first day as Head of Science here at the centre, although to be honest I’ve been told that my job title is a work in progress and may be revised in the near future. The role is somewhat daunting, not only because my job description my vary wildly as a function of time, but […]
We are interested in investigating what spaces we require for survival, fulfilment and happiness. Specifically, we are challenging our own assumption that as a family of five, we NEED a four bedroomed house. We are not developing any kind of vehicle or device for observing or traveling beyond our natural habitat and we would welcome […]