Subterranean Cities

Architecture, ornament and excrement: the Crossness and Abbey Mills pumping stations

“…24 Such a sense of monstrosity might, like the sublime, equally be part of an old mode of representation of the underground -that is, as an organic space intimately, yet grossly, connected to the body. 25 The attraction of repulsion experienced so strongly by this visitor was, like the sublime, another common trope in descriptions of nineteenth century industrial spectacles. 26 Yet, this ambivalent mode of experience did eventually give way to the new rationalising discourse.…”

Co-creating Innovative Learning Environments: LEaRN’s Decade of Discovery

“…This digital and Socratic (re-)evolution was specifically targeted by Australia's Victorian Department of Education when the Blueprint for Government Schools was developed in 2003 (Pike, 2005). Since then the Department has invested some AUS$4 to 5 billion in new school designs, many-if not all-being innovative and bespoke to their local community following the previous Premier Jeff Kennett's launching of self-governing schools, whilst also cutting 7,000 school jobs and closing 350 schools (Knight, 1998).…”

Lighting the Underground: London, 1863-1914

“…The experience of operating and travelling on the Underground in London prior to the opening of deep-level tube lines was, therefore, fundamentally different from that of the Paris Métro (1900) or the New York Subway (1904), both of which were powered and lit by electricity from the outset, a power source that had already been proved by two decades of above-ground tramways, elevated railways and street lighting 5 . Remarkably, in the entire period from 1 863 to 1905, there were no fatal accidents on London's underground railways attributable to the hazards of either steam traction or gas poisoning, while the first major disaster on the Métro, at Couronnes in 1903, caused by a prolonged electrical fire spreading smoke into a station plunged into darkness by the knock-on effects of the fire, demonstrated the fragility even of supposedly safer, cleaner electricity 6 . It was an accident which might have been expected if the system had involved a mixture of steam power and gas, where sparks from the locomotive could have ignited leaking gas or a collision or derailment might have caused the puncture of a gasbag ; but it was not what was anticipated with electric trains and electric lights.…”