Recently I made the trip of a lifetime to New York and California for my honeymoon for 3 weeks. I’ve never been to the USA before and so it was all the more exciting.
One of my interests is looking at the future – this fascinates me not only on a contemporary level but also looking historically at what we thought would lie ahead of us. I like to see what is going on and one of the ways I do this is by joining forums such as the Technology Strategy Boards’ “Knowledge Transfer Networks” or “KTN’s” essentially a knowledge forum.
The Technology Strategy Board is a government body that promotes technology through businesses in the UK. It links the public sector to private companies small and large to work on live projects together in an innovative way. Forums or “platforms” as they call them have different themes such as Low Impact Buildings or Assisted Living. Within these platforms lie the KTN’s (knowledge forums) such as Modern Built Environment. Read more here
http://www.innovateuk.org/ourstrategy/innovationplatforms/lowimpactbuilding.ashx
A programme called Catapult Centres is also fascinating; these are technology and innovation centres which aim to bring the best of the academic research world and join it with industry, promoting the UK to gain business here and abroad. One of the most exciting is their Catapult Centre entitled “Future Cities” – the location is still being decided. Read more about the Catapult Programme here:
https://catapult.innovateuk.org/about-catapult
Another of my passions is the 1920’s and I have collected a few interesting things in Paris from the 1920’s such as postcards from the original Art Deco exhibition in Paris in 1925 and a fashion newspaper also printed in the 1920’s. Imagine my joy when I found these postcards depicting the New York World Fair of 1939 – a vision of the future as they saw it then the Trylon and the Perisphere on these postcard drawings were actually built . The fair was “Building the World of Tomorrow”. Even better the guy that sold them to me was a young child and saw these very buildings at the fair himself!
Read more on the World Trade Fair here:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/display/39wf/frame.htm
What do you collect and why I’d love to hear from you – please post pictures of things you have collected to my facebook page here http://www.facebook/spinriverdesign
