small ritual

hook on guardian cities

one of my hook new town flickr images is featured in this article on the guardian cities website about unbuilt london schemes. really it's pushing it to call hook a 'london' scheme - even though it was produced by london county council.

who owns the copyright for 'the planning of a new town' now is not clear to me. the original copyright was wholly owned by the LCC and then the GLC, which published it itself with no other involvement eg from HMSO or government agencies. the GLC was famously abolished in 1986 with no direct successor, and its assets were parcelled out to various bodies and the remains sold off by the london residuary body which was itself wound up in 1996. so where did the ownership of a then 21-years-out-of-print urban study go? it's now 50 years since 'the planning of a new town' was published. is it in the public realm now? did it fall into the public realm in 1986? where did the ownership of other GLC architects department stuff like the standard house plans go? who, before the internet, cared?

as found

was in pretentious coffee shop in bermondsey wondering how to move on from this 'as found' aesthetic which has become ubiquitous and artificially created ("curated"). from a green point of view it's great that we know how to make acceptable interiors by reusing things, but if that's the ideal it's worse than pointless to buy new 'old' furniture and strip the walls of a 20 year old building to look like a 19th century warehouse.

to keep:

• reused furniture
• comfort
• informal
• found finishes
• what to do with suspended ceilings? screen print tiles? stick-on graphics?
• a toy on every desk!

to lose:

• precious
• cutesy
• self-congratulation (the unintended irony of modern 'hipsterism' is that it is never hip to appear to be trying hard)

do not ever put the words 'ethical coffee' and/or 'dare to dream' on your walls.

a definition of hip with an eye to the original version:
living a life
with a critical attitude towards conventional value systems
and a love of creative self-expression, especially in pursuit of alternative and richer ways of life

iteration

iterative church
iterations of faith
iterative theology
iteration:
repeated experimental statements/variations in search for solution
an initial guess to generate successive approximations to a solution
an understanding that current formulation is temporary and contingent and will have to be revisited
"good enough for now"
good enough for now theology
good enough for now church
iteration is the act of repeating a process with the aim of approaching a desired goal, target or result.
iterations are used to describe the process of teaching or guiding students to repeat experiments, assessments, or projects, until more accurate results are found, or the student has mastered the technical skill.
theologies of incompletion
unfinished theology
collective theology
"iterative" is defined as the "process of learning and development that involves cyclical inquiry, enabling multiple opportunities for people to revisit ideas and critically reflect on their implication."
unfinished church
infrequent church
revisited church
generative church futures
inexact church
imprecise church
approximate theology
hopeful church