Just 24 hours after getting back from my trip to Toronto and Banff, I was heading back to Zürich for a flight across to London.
It was really hot, so I waited in the tunnel at my local station for a good 10 minutes before heading up to the platform.
The trains in Switzerland are generally quite comfortable even in hot weather.
Normally I have to change in Neuchatel to get to Zurich airport, but at this time of day I also had to change in Bienne and Zurich main station.
Going past Swiss lakes on a hot day sometimes makes you want to pull the emergency brake.
Thankfully I could head to the lounge at Zürich airport, where (just inside the door, on the left) they have a fridge full of Mövenpick ice cream. This is literally the only frequent flyer perk that matters on a day like this.
The flight to London was delayed by nearly an hour, in the end, which meant I had to skip meeting London colleagues near the office and went straight towards UCL.
I'd flown into London City Airport, so this meant hopping on the Docklands Light Railway towards Stratford. It was air-conditioned but you could see people were fighting the heat.
I ended up changing to the Hammersmith & City line in West Ham, heading to Euston Square.
The UCL main campus on Gower Street is very close to Euston Square tube station. I met up with some of the folks from Autodesk and UCL who were involved in organising our first London Festival of Architecture workshop. I'd missed the opening of the Summer show at The Bartlett - I'd have had even less time at home between trips if I'd made that - but it was really nice catching up with people ahead of the workshop itself.
The evening party was largely an awards show - for the UCL students - and a fun celebration. It was too hot to dance, although frankly I'm not sure I've found a temperature where it's comfortable for me to do so.
After watching Germany lose to Ecuador (I caught the last few minutes in a pub near Warren Street tube) I took the Northern line down to Charing Cross.
I was really glad to be staying close to the office: I somehow got a decent price for my 1-night stay at the very comfortable Wilde Aparthotel, just down the Strand, so I could walk in at 8am without getting sweaty. Here's me in front of the Agar Street office. It's just across the street from Charing Cross Police Station.
Lily, who works with us on communications - and was feeling a bit under the weather - had been to the pharmacy, who suggested a rare cocktail of hayfever cures.
There was quite a lot of setup to do.
We had a few seats set up for people to watch videos about The Bentway project and 100 Minds in Motion.
We had two mannequin heads to hold headgear from each of these projects.
Aside from anything else, it was really valuable to have some additional time with James, Daniel and Sean, all of whom are involved in 100 Minds in Motion.
Here are the hats for the two projects. The one of the left Tomas had carried across from Toronto, while James and I had put the one on the right together over lunch.
An interesting idea was to have people answer a few questions and we'd then print out 5 stickers that were unique to them that they could use to participate in different exercises.
For the first person who entered we manually chose "5 copies". It turns out that this had been set by default, so we ended up with 25! 🙂
The 2-3pm and 3-4pm slots were quite lightly attended, but this gave us time to talk and to iron our any wrinkles ahead of the larger group coming in at 4pm.
Here's a photo from the entrance to the space when we had a good number of people milling around.
Considering the crazy temperature in London on Friday, I was very pleased with how many people made the trip to Covent Garden to participate in the workshop.
It was a great opportunity to discuss our research with people inside and outside of the profession. We had people from larger firms such as Foster & Partners (thanks for coming, Vittorio and co.!) but also from smaller practices, too, as well as quite a few students. We even had several people attend who were just curious about architectural design software.
We had an informal debrief across the road at The Stranded. It was great to catch up with Kris, who was formerly with Forma!
Thanks to everyone who put in so much time from both Autodesk Research and UCL to make this event a success. It was a great experience, and we now have some fantastic material that we intend to use at other events in the future (watch this space, or please do reach out if you have suggested locations for future workshops).
Tomas had left promptly at 5pm to make his flight back to Germany, but had Heathrow Express cancellations and replacement bus services on the Lizzie Line to contend with. Luckily he made it.
My own trip from central London was out to Slough and then Eton, where I met up with Simon, an old friend.
After watching a bit of the football on Eton High Street we walked over the bridge to Windsor.
It was a lovely evening.
We had another drink by the river and then went for a bite to eat.
Even after the sun went down the view was gorgeous.
Windsor Castle was lit up, too. All very pretty.
On the Saturday I'd planned to head across to Bath to have lunch with members of my family, but we decided the risk of delays and cancellations was too high. It was a shame but I think for the best: I'd scheduled my trains based on "things working", and that's not the case in the UK at the moment.
My flight back from Heathrow to Zürich was again slightly delayed… plus they made the decision to park the plane at the E gates to give the long-haul connections a better chance of working, which meant that those of us wanting to leave the airport had to take the "Heidi train" (as I call it - if you know you know) to get back to immigration and baggage claim. I was through just in time to catch the train I was targeting - this one via Bern - so I ended up being able to watch England vs. Panama on the train home, getting back at half-past midnight.
It's been a rollercoaster few weeks, but now I'm home. With a cold I believe I picked up at the airport restaurant in Calgary, where someone on their way back from their holidays was coughing openly in my direction, but at least I'm home.
And I'm very much enjoying being reunited with Daisy, who is suffering from the heat but still loves a walk through the forest by the lake.
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