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Having a lunch at Duck and Waffle, Heron Tower in London

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Looking at Heron Tower on the street (The image is taken by Networking City)


Some days ago, I went to Heron Tower near Liverpool Street Station in London.
This 46 floors and 230meter remarkable high rise building,
which is designed by KPF with structure design by Arup, was built in 2011.
Duck & Waffle restaurant is located on the 40th floor of the building.

Looking down toward Liverpool Street (The image is taken by Networking City)

The bar on the 40th floor of Heron tower (The image is taken by Networking City)

The interior of Duck & Waffle (The image is taken by Networking City)

The ‘Duck & Waffle’ at Duck & Waffle (The image is taken by Networking City)


My friend recommended this place because I can see an incredible cityscape of London, although the menu is pricey.
Not only the beautiful scenery of London but unusual food, which is crispy fried duck and fried-egg covered a waffle with maple syrup, are there.
The interior design of the restaurant is not looking good as much as some photos on their website.
It feels like rather refined, but some materials such as yellow wave ceiling do not make a nice combination altogether.  

However, looking down 30 St Mary Axe (or Gherkin) designed by Foster and 122 Leadenhall Street (or Cheese Grater) by Rogers just beside them was a strange and exciting experience. It gives a reason to go there.

Looking at 30 St Mary Axe and 122 Leadenhall Street (The image is taken by Networking City)

I recorded a film image in a high-speed elevator of Heron Tower.
The feeling of coming down from the 40th floor to ground level by the elevator is similar to that of dreaming flying dim London air but immediately returning to desert reality.

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2013, Cityscape, Herontower, highrise, KPF, london

Having a lunch at Duck and Waffle, Heron Tower in London

Posted on by

Looking at Heron Tower on the street (The image is taken by Networking City)


Some days ago, I went to Heron Tower near Liverpool Street Station in London.
This 46 floors and 230meter remarkable high rise building,
which is designed by KPF with structure design by Arup, was built in 2011.
Duck & Waffle restaurant is located on the 40th floor of the building.

Looking down toward Liverpool Street (The image is taken by Networking City)

The bar on the 40th floor of Heron tower (The image is taken by Networking City)

The interior of Duck & Waffle (The image is taken by Networking City)

The ‘Duck & Waffle’ at Duck & Waffle (The image is taken by Networking City)


My friend recommended this place because I can see an incredible cityscape of London, although the menu is pricey.
Not only the beautiful scenery of London but unusual food, which is crispy fried duck and fried-egg covered a waffle with maple syrup, are there.
The interior design of the restaurant is not looking good as much as some photos on their website.
It feels like rather refined, but some materials such as yellow wave ceiling do not make a nice combination altogether.  

However, looking down 30 St Mary Axe (or Gherkin) designed by Foster and 122 Leadenhall Street (or Cheese Grater) by Rogers just beside them was a strange and exciting experience. It gives a reason to go there.

Looking at 30 St Mary Axe and 122 Leadenhall Street (The image is taken by Networking City)

I recorded a film image in a high-speed elevator of Heron Tower.
The feeling of coming down from the 40th floor to ground level by the elevator is similar to that of dreaming flying dim London air but immediately returning to desert reality.

Continue reading »
2013, Cityscape, Herontower, highrise, KPF, london

Usability, SatNavs and Which?

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The Consumers’ Association Which? magazine  is probably not the first place to turn to when you look for usability studies. Especially not if you’re interested in computer technology – for that, there are sources such as PC Magazine on the consumer side, and professional magazines such as Interactions from Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human […]

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GIS Usability, Google Maps, Human–computer interaction, OpenStreetMap, Usability, usability of GI, Usability testing, VGI

Simulating elevation data in R

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I was looking for a quick way to create dummy digital elevation model (DEM) datasets in R, and a kind soul in StackOverload shared the following code. It is an implementation of the Perlin noise algorithm written by Ken Parlin in the early 1980s and is now widely used to create realistic looking CGI landscapes […]

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Uncategorized

Eye on Earth user conference – the need to motivate green computing

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The Eye on Earth first user conference, which was in Dublin at the beginning of March, was as interesting as the first summit in Abu Dhabi, in December 2011. Significantly, in the conference the role of citizen science in environmental monitoring and the creation of useful environmental information was highlighted from the opening address by Prof […]

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Conference, Environmental information, european environment agency, eye on earth, green computing, Social Enterprise

BSP Seminar – Compact cities or garden suburbs?

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Dr. Nicolas Falk presented for Bartlett School of Planning. Image is taken by Networking City
In this year, Bartlett School of Planning run BSP seminar series over the semesters. On 6 March 2013, Dr. Nicolas Falk, Director of URBED (Urbanism Environment Design), provided a presentation the title of “Compact cities or garden suburbs?” at Central House of UCL.
Because I was bit late, I could not watch all his presentation. He suggested simple but well-summarised planning keywords and showed relevant examples over the European cities. For example, he argued there are five key elements to reach Smart Growth. The five keys can be represented as 5C: community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration. And he mentioned the meaning of the community with examples such as  ‘Schools as community hub with Houton, NL’ and ‘Places for all ages with Reiselfeld, Freiburg, Germany’.
Connected city, Five finger strategy and Redefining Greenbelt were mentioned as the future direction for smart growth in the UK as the conclusion of the lecture. In particular, he had expressed the negative feeling against current Greenbelt policy. According to him, the greenbelt of London is little bit old-fashioned and the greenbelt has been a strong obstacle to expand development areas and connecting between London and other cities. Although he said Redefining Greenbelt as one issue of the future direction, all three items should be accompanied with the reorganisation of London’s greenbelt. 
During his lecture, some questions were emerging by myself. Is really Green belt the obstruction of smart growth? Is there smart growth? If possible, how are different process and method needed compared to typical urban development? How can it work in high density?
I think there are two reasons why the questions were come up.
In the first, he emphasised the term of ‘smart’ and ‘smarter’ several times in his lecture. However, the term, smart, has been considering with the development of technology in our built-environment while his suggestions and examples were more familiar with sustainable urban planning and design.
Secondly, the key issues what he argued are too abstract and vague. We know community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration are crucial factors. People might want to listen from him how we can achieve those factors, what kind of process, the roles of stakeholders and so on.

One of his lecutre slide. Image is taken by Networking City
There are good materials of urban design, field research and regional study on the homepage of URBED. They have run urban design and architectural design studios at University of Sheffield, so we can find the links of interesting students’ works. Also, they published ‘Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood’ in 2010 what includes some contents of today’s lecture.
 
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london, seminar, urban design, urban planning, URBED

BSP Seminar – Compact cities or garden suburbs?

Posted on by

Dr. Nicolas Falk presented for Bartlett School of Planning. Image is taken by Networking City
In this year, Bartlett School of Planning run BSP seminar series over the semesters. On 6 March 2013, Dr. Nicolas Falk, Director of URBED (Urbanism Environment Design), provided a presentation the title of “Compact cities or garden suburbs?” at Central House of UCL.
Because I was bit late, I could not watch all his presentation. He suggested simple but well-summarised planning keywords and showed relevant examples over the European cities. For example, he argued there are five key elements to reach Smart Growth. The five keys can be represented as 5C: community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration. And he mentioned the meaning of the community with examples such as  ‘Schools as community hub with Houton, NL’ and ‘Places for all ages with Reiselfeld, Freiburg, Germany’.
Connected city, Five finger strategy and Redefining Greenbelt were mentioned as the future direction for smart growth in the UK as the conclusion of the lecture. In particular, he had expressed the negative feeling against current Greenbelt policy. According to him, the greenbelt of London is little bit old-fashioned and the greenbelt has been a strong obstacle to expand development areas and connecting between London and other cities. Although he said Redefining Greenbelt as one issue of the future direction, all three items should be accompanied with the reorganisation of London’s greenbelt. 
During his lecture, some questions were emerging by myself. Is really Green belt the obstruction of smart growth? Is there smart growth? If possible, how are different process and method needed compared to typical urban development? How can it work in high density?
I think there are two reasons why the questions were come up.
In the first, he emphasised the term of ‘smart’ and ‘smarter’ several times in his lecture. However, the term, smart, has been considering with the development of technology in our built-environment while his suggestions and examples were more familiar with sustainable urban planning and design.
Secondly, the key issues what he argued are too abstract and vague. We know community, connectivity, character, climate and collaboration are crucial factors. People might want to listen from him how we can achieve those factors, what kind of process, the roles of stakeholders and so on.

One of his lecutre slide. Image is taken by Networking City
There are good materials of urban design, field research and regional study on the homepage of URBED. They have run urban design and architectural design studios at University of Sheffield, so we can find the links of interesting students’ works. Also, they published ‘Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood’ in 2010 what includes some contents of today’s lecture.
 
Continue reading »
london, seminar, urban design, urban planning, URBED

LAST OPPORTUNITY for submitting papers to the International Conference on Rural Tourism – ORTE 2013, to be held 5th-7th of September 2013 in Aveiro, Portuga

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TweetLAST CALL FOR PAPERS 15th March – LAST OPPORTUNITY for submitting papers to the International Conference on Rural Tourism – ORTE 2013, to be held 5th-7th of September 2013 in Aveiro, Portugal.   Taking into account that we received some requests for extension of the deadline for short full papers’ submission, we inform that you […]

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Conferences
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