The dark art of project management

Richard Oliver: In the wonderfully weird American indy movie, Donnie Darko, a cool American high school teacher informs the film’s teenager hero that one phrase is objectively the most beautiful in the English language. No, it’s not ‘I love you’. It is ‘cellar door’.

Do we get the buildings we deserve?

Richard Oliver: The beginning of year two of my foundation degree in sustainable communities finds me in familiar territory.

A balancing act

Richard Oliver: The summer term at Sheffield is over, so by my reckoning that’s one year down, two to go. Well, not quite. Although we had our last teaching session in July (with none pencilled in until October) there was no quick end in sight when it came to studying.

Finally facing my Waterloo

Richard Oliver: My second blog comes to you from the south bank of Lake Mälaren in Stockholm; the city known as the Venice of the north. It’s my first visit to Sweden and I have been struck already by an immediate affection for the place.

Places, architecture and Yorkshiremen

Richard Oliver: I’ve only been on ASC’s Foundation Degree course a few weeks but I’ve already been asked a rather strange question by one of my peers. Over dinner, I was asked to consider this: do you think of yourself more as a man or a Yorkshireman?