The RSA Blog

The importance of judgement

Blog

12 Feb 2009

My leg is somewhat like the chair I sit in: they are both constituted by atomic particles; they both occupy space-time; they are both to the East of Ireland. How interesting are these similarities? Not very.

One step at a time to saving the planet

Blog

12 Feb 2009

Matthew Taylor

If we want people to help save the planet we need to start giving them clearer signals and incentives. But the biggest obstacle might be the green movement itself.

Bankers apology - the verdict

Blog

11 Feb 2009

Matthew Taylor

My friend and blog advisor Matt Cain has come up with a visual representation of apologies scorecard. We can use this again for the current bankers being grilled by the Select Committee.

7 ways of looking at Altermodernism

Blog

10 Feb 2009

WILLIAM SHAW: Taking a jaunt around some of the discussions thrown up by Nicolas Bourriaud's Altermodern manifesto and exhibition at Tate Britain I found myself constructing a kind of Beaufort Scale of critical responses:

Sorry bankers - a scorecard

Blog

10 Feb 2009

Matthew Taylor

As befits a time of victimhood and self doubt, the demand for an apology from someone in a prominent position has become a routine news story. Today it is the turn of the bankers appearing at the Treasury Select Committee.

The fires in Australia - what they say to us

Blog

09 Feb 2009

Matthew Taylor

Early on a January afternoon several years ago, I set out with some friends for an ill-advised walk up Scafell Pike in the Lake District. The weather was cold, with snow on the ground. To say we weren’t well equipped is an understatement (as I recall, one of our party was wearing brogues!) but it was clear and sunny, we could see where we were going and a couple of us were determined the make the peak.

Altermodernism at Tate Britain

Blog

07 Feb 2009

Off Voice Fly Tip by Bob and Roberta Smith 2009

The clumsy progress of the NHS

Blog

06 Feb 2009

Matthew Taylor

People often ask me (OK, someone once asked me), ‘do you have any examples of clumsy solutions?’ A clumsy solution, as you will recall, is one which engages the active paradigms (egalitarianism, individualism and hierarchism) of cultural theory (as well as being aware of the ubiquity of the fourth paradigm, fatalism). In his book ‘Organising and Disorganising’ Michael Thompson offers the example of the successful relocation of Arsenal football club, involving as it did an alliance of the hierarchical actor (Islington Council), the egalitarian (the local community) and the individualist (the Club itself).

From the RSA to the RCA

Blog

05 Feb 2009

Just a quick post to say that, after a tip-off from a colleague, this evening I dropped in to the Royal College of Art's interim show. Running from the 5th to the 11th February, the show features work from the RCA's Architecture, Innovation Design Engineering (used to be Industrial Design Engineering), Design Interactions, Printmaking and Animation students.