"Designing Movement" with Robert Jamison

Join me in a conversation with Robert Jamison, a pioneering architect known for the BBC/Netflix show “Your Home Made Perfect”. Robert offers an insight into his life, and how yoga plays a central part of his daily routine and well-being. And we talk about how the convenience of 21st century building and architecture is engineering movement out of our lives, and the various ways we can address this (including the squat toilet!). Robert has a unique perception of space, which inspires possibility, and challenges the norm.

Produced using funding from NHS Tayside Educational Fund and the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Find us at https://themovementprescription.co.uk/

Transcript

Callum: 0:00

Welcome to the Movement Prescription Podcast. I'm Callum Lees and I'm delighted to have Robert Jameson on today's episode. Robert Jameson is a pioneering architect with a Netflix show called Your Home Made Perfect. We recently met at a wedding and I asked him at the time if he had an unlimited budget, how he would design healthcare settings for movement. His His answer was great, and so I decided I wanted to ask him it again on the podcast. Robert and I process the world quite differently, not least spatially, which is one of the reasons I find a conversation so stimulating. I don't agree with him on everything, but his take on things often made me view things differently and offered a fresh perspective. I really hope you find this conversation enjoyable, stimulating and enlightening. And if there's two things you take away, hopefully, one is how we can design buildings differently, particularly to increase movement. And the second, to avoid me at weddings. Hope you enjoy. Hi, Robert. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Robert Jamison: 1:12

Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Callum: 1:14

Pleasure uh no worries it's uh it's exciting conversation to have so uh i just i i wanted to start and and i think you know often it's it's it's a kind of a helpful place to start it's just knowing you know where people have come from and and what their background is and particularly on a you know podcast about physical activity and i i kind of wanted to start by by asking you a bit about your your background and your upbringing and uh wondering kind of what that was like regarding physical activity and health in general.

Robert Jamison: 1:49

Um well it's a very interesting question and it's one that i've reflected on much you know over the past years um just in terms of where i am at now in my career in fact last week i just turned 50 so it's like in around you know that first half century um it actually started uh you know i grew up uh with a family of nine i have six siblings and we lived in um, rented accommodation, social housing, if you like. It was rented accommodation. It was actually an experimental post-war housing development, concrete floors, concrete walls, single glazed windows, no central heating. I still think the floors were asbestos, but it was a very kind of, I would say it was a hard enough environment to live in, particularly without kind of central heating. You know and even to this day I still brush my teeth with warm water because often that was the only heat apart from the closure war that you know um would would provide that comfort but anyway it was a you know it was a wonderful kind of um you know uh upbringing you know with um you know within a big family but you know it's that kind of um setting that really I feel established my passion for architecture and to understand how people live, you know, and of course architecture is such a broad subject that, you know, kind of encompasses all subjects, I would argue, you know, philosophy, psychology, the sciences, you know. And, of course, even the idea of physical activity is really interesting because in my most recent teaching in Masters a number of years ago, I had a Masters unit in Queens, Queens University in Belfast, and I'm really interested in what's called the apparatus of living and how our homes actually are quite unhealthy spaces to live in. They make a sedentary you know chairs like this this set is an interrupted squat for example I feel as a you know as a as a phrase that I use often is life happens on the floor and you know so um yeah so but to get back to my upbringing you know it was in this kind of like you know social housing it was a it was a it was an interesting kind of um journey and then um you know actually Actually, at the age of 11, I met now a good friend whose father was an architect. And that also kind of really inspired my journey. But, you know, physically back then, you know, it was like we were walking to school. You know, school, I mean, today kids are kind of lifted and laid, you know. And back then, you know, we would march to school every day. And even like going back other generations, my father, he's 90 this year. And he talks about you know his walk to school which was you know at a young age on his own you know um 1940s late 30s early 40s you know and he would um he'd be walking this three miles to school and back every day you know i mean i was walking maybe a mile when i was i was maybe that age but you know at the end as you kind of you know grow and and you know and time is all the technology changes and cars become more widespread and you know people have a totally different way of engaging with their with their physical realm you know what's.

Callum: 5:21

Interesting about that and i think it my next question was going to be did you play sport as a kid but actually i think before that it's really important to recognize what you said about walking you know that your commute to school was a walk it wasn't something that you necessarily labeled as exercise or physical activity it was just part of the day-to-day which is which is something we've lost in in in the 21st century.

Robert Jamison: 5:43

Yes i mean because it's i mean back then you know not everyone had a vehicle or you know and particularly when there's nine of us you know i mean there's seatbelts weren't a thing back then and you know there'd be three in the passenger seat and, you know five five in the bag you know so it's kind of a it's a different way of of um traveling and journeying and living you know um you know in in terms of you know you're coming there sports sport happening in school because you know school was focused in sport um less so i would argue um today in fact you know i've got a young family and it's disappointing whenever they can't you know play in the grass or when you know in the winter when the snow falls they have to you know stay out of the snow and you know it's almost like these restrictions because of. Risk risk you know what becomes a risk aversion and impacts on you know the health and well-being of our children you know but um yes sport you know yes it was it was through school it was you know and it was opportunities for for you know to engage in in team sports um but I guess you know as well as that you know back then my health wasn't great i i i um i suffered asthma as a as a as a as a younger child you know so that kind of impacted on my my ability to kind of play sport um you know which was i mean it was what it was but i i again i put that down to environment and i'm thinking that you know but um maybe today there's more opportunity for sport as well for kids and certainly our you know you know our young family you know they play sport every with school and weekends and we kind of encourage them in the team sports you know it's very important very healthy for them you know so um i guess it's a it depends on the setting and the family and your conditions and and.

Callum: 7:38

You i know now the last time we we we talked to you you kind of really interested in in health or well-being and and you you've done a lot of yoga you you've You've taken time out and traveled around India. How did that come about? And how does you looking after your own well-being integrate into your day-to-day now as a celebrity architect?

Robert Jamison: 8:01

Celebrity is interesting when you say that i mean only because of that work which became you know kind of very well received um from netflix but it was such a small body of my work from my decades of practice you know so it's really interesting and very kind of me to kind of appreciate my work but um yeah so uh i think that you know whenever i i have my own practice so i I was kind of, you know, I always had ideas and ambition, you know, because, again, going back to my upbringing and certainly the way I kind of grew up and, you know, and I was interested in how other people lived and that kind of passion, you know, the study architecture became a real kind of passion to understand the world we live in, you know, but understand also health and well-being, you know, because, I mean, I was kind of, I abused my body, you know, in those younger years. Years I smoked I kind of you know as a you know I was kind of it was just an opportunity to kind of escape from the day-to-day normality which in my I would fail isn't kind of society isn't set up to kind of support you know kids as they grow and and that's why they turn to kind of other means to kind of you know um create their own reality you know so um yeah I I I beat my body but but then you you you realize that you know health is very important and and you know It's wonderful to be healthy. And I spent, whenever I established my own practice in 2005, I was running 10Ks every other day. I was half marathons. So I was very active because that supported my need to actually be able to think and practice and work and free myself from, essentially, allowing me to focus. I mean, you know that as anyone who's kind of, who understands fitness, understands what that does to the mind.

Callum: 9:59

It's almost a coping mechanism, isn't it? It's a processing, it's a form of processing.

Robert Jamison: 10:04

It's a form of crochet, I think, but, you know, if you can balance the energy of the body, the mind will follow. You know, that's the kind of, you know, and that's why, in fact, I ran my last 10K on the 15th of September 2009 because the next day I got a one-way ticket to India and I traveled as a nomad for the following kind of, you know, five, six years. And when you're traveling, you know, in rare locations in India or in Asia, you know, there isn't an opportunity for a 10K run. And I explored then other kind of forms of physical activity or practice. I'd already engaged in yoga before that, where I lived in Dublin many years before that, excuse me, in the late 90s. And it just became part of my day-to-day practice. And I started with Ashtanga yoga, and I was practicing Ashtanga for 10 years. And that was kind of like pretty hardcore. core um it is uh it is it it is a difficult practice it was created for um you know to for the release of of built-up energy you know in young men um and it can lead to all sorts of uh. Problems in joints and in fact i had the constructive surgery of my right knee you know um because i was just kind of uh focused on on these kind of um practices within the primary series and secondary series of sangha yoga i then kind of evolved and developed that and then worked in yasa um and now i practice kundalini which is again about the movement of energy but that just supports my day-to-day living practice and and you know it's in as well Well, it's not just physical. It's once you understand or grow to understand the world you live in, you really start to see how the impact of our culture on the health of our species, then you really kind of, and this is when you start to uncover what's good for you and what's not and what you should be eating and what you should and how the body operates and functions and what supports the body. And then again it's only through education learning but self-education because you need to be. Proactive and educating yourself if you want to grow old and be healthy and i want to grow old i want you know be aware of my last breath and be healthy i.

Callum: 12:35

Think it's a really interesting point you make almost you almost alluded to kind of yoga and maybe physical activity more generally almost being a gateway into into a holistic lifestyle whereby when you become more in tune with your body, you want the other elements in place, whether that's sleep or diet. Yeah, and I suppose a lot of that comes through kind of self-directed learning, isn't it? But also trial and error.

Robert Jamison: 13:02

Yeah yeah all of it but certainly self-directed learning and being kind of open to reading the body and reading self and you know understanding self and that old cliche you know we know everything all the answers are within you know and i even in my practice my working practice you know you feel your way through life i feel my my work and you know those decisions you make intuitively you know when i'm designing a building you know it's designing space it's it's intuitive it's it's it's understood through the body before it's through the mind and and you know i think that's really interesting but but these only kind of as i say you know not at every you know i'm now you know 50 years old and i think about you know first of all i've never been as healthy in my life as i am today and that's because of my diet that's because of my lifestyle that's because my choices and that's and the importance of understanding well i guess through the desire to self-educate and learn understand what is good for me and what's not good for our species and what's not you know and you know and it's controversial as well the things that you know my my kind. Of position on certain kind of you know attitudes in our cultural context you know but um it's for me there's certain practices that i you know i i have and that i you know need to support me and as i say i've never been healthier and that's just not physical that's also kind of other ways of kind of understanding the world we live in and you know it's not just this physical realm and i've been working with plant medicine for a long time and you know so it's it's and that and it's it's our culture that kind of. Or you know pushes against or you know things that when you realize that are necessary for us and and offers us kind of these you know these aspects of of living that are actually unhealthy for us you know in fact the entire or i would argue that most of our social kind of structure is either weaponized controlled or you know um contrived for the means of purpose for another other rather than self if that makes sense yeah.

Callum: 15:22

Yeah i think one of the things that that i definitely i wanted to talk to you about was was about uh you know particularly our environment what being designed for health and and and well-being there's one question i wanted to ask just before we launch into that which was you mentioned that you you you want to to live live live longer to live healthier and i i'm just intrigued earlier in the conversation you talked about abusing your body and and i've been i'm just intrigued as what your motivations are now to to want to live a long and healthy life what what are the the the kind of things that keep you on track or or is it such that it's so embedded in your routine now that actually it's just pat and parcel with who you are.

Robert Jamison: 16:08

I've got a lot of one day i mean i'll be on for me well you know you know and of a lot that i want to do and you know it's only to kind of um. Understanding it's a it's a self-directed understanding of of of you know unrealization of of maybe mistakes that have been made but um not kind of necessarily through through um my own choice but through kind of as i say what's presented to us in our in our in our kind of culture as being necessary ways of living or or being you know you know even the idea of um i mean i've recently have kind of arrived at a stage where the whole. You know um way we live it feels so unnatural to me right that i am now kind of you know you know in a place where i want to rethink and reimagine it all and i have spent the past years doing that and I want to kind of start to evolve these projects and start to refine, ways in which we should and, you know should be living for health and well-being you know and um you know even in terms of architecture which is which is my my my passion you know even how we live in these homes and that's kind of these orthogonal spaces you know i feel that that fundamentally is not how we should be living and you know rooms are 90 degrees and it's really interesting that um there's a podcast recently um on joe rogan uh it's a guy howard what was his name um i forgot, um thomas hard we can find out i think the show.

Callum: 17:55

Notes afterwards robert and and yeah.

Robert Jamison: 17:57

Very it was a very striking kind of um you know conversation about the uh higher whole all physical environments that is presentable in science, for example, is all incorrect and how a light doesn't exist and everything has a non orthogonal form. And essentially, that's what I've been kind of, you know, kind of exploring in my practice for two decades. And I can recall, you know, you know, like the first sculpture I made for an exhibition, which was exploring this idea of of order and chaos and the line and the non-orthogonal you know and and we are non-orthogonal beings you know there's no lines in nature and we should be living in environments that support our need and the energy of the body you know is impacted by the energy of the space that we occupy and if we are in boxes then you know that just impacts our health and well-being and and you know it's interesting because i grew up in belfast in the 1980s and 90s by the school and there was a time whenever you know there was a lot of. Conflict and daily you were you know it was you know when you when i look back on it it was a really strange time at then when you're going through it it was just normal but um you know i think that's what also gave me an awareness of space and environment because you had to be aware of where you were and the energies within the room or in the street you know and i think that's you know that kind of made me important to understand the energetic universe that we, live in um and again in my work understanding that you understand kind of the the disharmony that exists within our built environment you know and yeah i mean i could talk about why that is or you know why that's being perpetrated or pushed or you know but i also i'm interested in what we can do to kind of solve those problems that can just help to heal us because my architecture or my practice is about creating spaces that can heal. You know, there's a reason why we enjoy being in the forest or swimming in the ocean. We're totally connected to nature, to be totally connected to that energy that supports us, that nourishes us, that, you know, has a relationship with us. Once we're in the built environment within these rooms, they are open prisons, I would argue. And, you know, you can see even what's happening now in that adult project in Saudi Arabia. And, you know, it's going to house, it's a city that's going to house 10 million people you mean the line.

Callum: 20:34

It's called robert.

Robert Jamison: 20:35

Yeah i mean you just have to kind of think about that and you know um and you know ignore the you know just to think about it just meditate on what that building would be like you know and and really it's not what you would imagine you know and even the idea of the 15 minute city is just a way of, corralling kind of people getting them all you know into these kind of habitats which are you know forced and unnatural and there's not you know there are those people who think well these 15 minute cities are to get people out exercising on their bikes you know and but that's just one side of a story and in my opinion that was the propaganda that is kind of like forced upon us you know interesting.

Callum: 21:21

I'm not totally against the 50 minute city concept but parking that I'd love to know what your thoughts, How would you envisage a built environment or a town or a city that was good for well-being? I think you alluded to that somewhat. It's slightly less organized and lots of green space, but what would it look like?

Robert Jamison: 21:50

I think about the village kind of concept and the idea of community. Well first of all i mean there's it's a bigger it's a whole shift it's a sad side of thinking it's a whole shift in social structure you know it's getting back to um extended families or certainly small communities you know that can help and support one another so it's it's it's environments it's the village type environment you know and these parts of villages could exist um you know and have the right amenities to support them the school that you know uh once you start to kind of i mean certainly you know there's a place for a city that you can you know it could be a working environment or a social environment but home is a different place you know it's home is where we spend most of our lives it's where we need to. Be a healing space it's really interesting whenever you know i have a book on the architecture of the animal kingdom you know it talks about bird you know the structures that kind of bird build or you know nests or you know whatever these might be in the animal kingdom and and you know and how they're built and and but yet these kind of animals kind of explore their their terrain for their purposes you know so it's a bigger kind of you know if you want to take it to that extreme of kind of idea and i'm thinking it becomes community like community focused organization of of people you know um who are living on the earth they're actually touching the earth they They aren't, you know, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, they are living in high rise. They aren't kind of, you know, living in ghettos, which is kind of just what streets can become, you know. But they're living in these environments that are holistic, that are supportive, you know, and even just in the home, for example, it's living in natural environments. Like when I look back to projects or people who come to me and, you know, and what advice on their plans say. And that's where I've set up this masterclass, which starts very soon. And that's really to explore how people or problems that people are having with their living environments, right? And, you know, existing buildings, you know, The existing building stock is what we have to live in, and we have a shortage of housing, right? So it's a conversation that ideally must be had with people who are in a position to start creating these new solutions of ways of living. And it's not developers, and it's not government officials, and it's none of that because they have no interest in doing that, And, you know, they have other kind of ideas and needs. But I think as a people, for example, you know, we start to live in, you know, environments that are, that sit outside the conditioned self, right? So we are conditioned to think that we need to have, you know, a three-bedroom house with two en-suites and, you know, a front door to the street. And it's important how the building looks from the street and all these ideas. And these ideas are just kind of adopted, you know, kind of, you know, unaccepted norms or conditions, right, that we accept at birth because they're part of our culture. But it's only when you start to kind of critique all of that and think about it, then you think, what do we really need, you know? And I speak to people, you know, maybe there's a couple who want to have a three-bedroom house. My question is, well, why do you want to have a three-bedroom house when there's only two of you, you know? But what do you really need? And what they only need is one volume. So maximize, for example, if they're building a house, maximize the volume. And then over time you start to live in it and grow within this larger volume that you can then start to subdivide internally.

Callum: 25:52

Can I ask what you mean by one volume, Robert? Is it kind of like a vaulted space?

Robert Jamison: 25:58

You want to space a large room, right? Just a volume. But what I'm also interested in in my work is getting rid of those labels, right? That we have bedroom, bathroom, living room, bedroom. They're all rooms for certain functions. Living room, I mean, we live in an entire house. If we're in the bed, we're still living, but we're actually asleep. So start thinking about a space to sleep or a space to eat. And then you start to think, well, we don't need... You know, a couple of thousand, you know, square foot? Or even do you need, you know, well, what do you actually need and what's important? Are you just kind of wanting to go on the property ladder because that's a cultural kind of, you know, push or a cultural norm, you know? But ways of living, you know, in the simplest terms is about kind of breaking the orthogonal for me, right? And not just, you see, you know, in my work in Netflix, your homemade power fight, in those projects, it was kind of creating new ways of living, you know? So it's breaking the volume you know to create another geometry to kind of you know to allow the energy to flow through the house or indeed creating simply you know adding a second staircase can create an energetic flow through a building that is different than one route that takes you upstairs for example to bedroom and back down again the same route you create a second you know a second staircase and you transform how the occupants kind of live in that home you know so i mean it's just like.

Callum: 27:28

I was gonna ask in in terms of kind of movement in the space particularly you know as someone who's passionate about getting people moving more is it the the energy design itself which inspires movement or are there things in those spaces that themselves can create people to move more.

Robert Jamison: 27:46

Well i think um okay so again you know as i mentioned there earlier earlier, the sit is an interrupted squat, right? And I think that the three-piece sofa is the, travesty of our current kind of you know way of living right and you know it just the you know the idea that it's placed in front of the tv and often you know i can't say well where's the tv going to be placed you know and it's you know anyway but the sofa is for i mean a three-piece suite you know the three-seater is comfortable for one and maybe two you know the two-seater is comfortable for one and the one-seater isn't comfortable at all and and then it gives you this upright position where your feet are on the floor and really our bodies do not want to be doing that they want to be kind of moving and resting and reclining you know or or like just comfortable in a way that feels comfortable you know and that's why in my work i talk about the daybed. And it's going to depth to it it's about 1.2 meters deep it's a surface these surfaces that i call them you know kind of you know you know surfaces for occupation right and what that means is you're kind of changing floor level so it allows you to kind of move and be on the floor or an elevated floor which is kind of a deep sofa or a day bed you can sleep on it but this here starts to get you mobile right because mobility is so important and all we need to do is look to the east and look at the at the how mobile the eastern populations are and that's because they are mobile they are moving i mean the classic or the most important or the most ignored or overlooked is the toilet right the toilet is so unhealthy the thrown toilet is an invention that comes down from the monarchies from those kind of oppressors right that we've accepted as this is how we use the toilet and it even has infected now the actual eastern kind of you know um locations and places you know so i remember i was in singapore when i was traveling and there's an expo i was I was an architect from Expo, right? It was all products. And I made a beeline to the toilet section because I was expecting to see all these squat toilets. And, you know... And it was Western toilets, and there was one for toilet. But the toilet, right, the Western toilet, you know, it's known to kind of, you know, it's bad for our biomechanics. You know, it can create IBS. You know, it can create cancer. And it's known to kind of, it's so unsupportive, it leads to all sorts of issues in the bowels. Whereas the squat toilet, there's a reason why we squat. And even the squat, in fact, my boys, you know, So I get them to squat often barefoot on the grass, and we're on the grass because it's healing. Being barefoot on the grass is healing, but being able to squat is such an important kind of activity. And most people can't squat. I mean, actually sit comfortably on their feet. So they're sitting on their – and I think this is really important, and that's why I've been exploring this idea of the east-west hybrid toilet, it, which is kind of it understands, the western kind of body and how it's been conditioned to kind of sit on a seat, but it then lowers that and lifts the heel because you know if you lift your heel it's easier to squat down, it's that kind of, calf that has a good outline so if you can address that then you can kind of create a squatting position which is better for the bowels, it allows you to kind of you know, defecate you know, and it's.

Callum: 31:21

Really interesting and.

Robert Jamison: 31:23

It's the cleanest way to actually go to the toilet you don't need to touch anything you don't need to sit in anything, and it's good for you internally and for me that mobility is so important and then once you i mean once you start to realize that and i mean there's only kind of a start to understand things that are also more important you know flexibility mobility you know and the joy of being flexible the joy of running up a staircase you know a lot of people can't do that you know who you are i mean i mean At my age, the older you get, less people are as active as they used to be. I'd say that it can be transformed through just these moments in the home. Also, another thing is people say, I would like to retrofit, or I would like to future-proof my home, so I'd like to have a bedroom downstairs, and so I might use your staircase. I'm like, you want to use your staircase, continue to use your staircase. Case if you know what's that expression um if you don't use it you lose it you know kind of thing so if you're if you want to stay downstairs you're going to be downstairs if you want like go go walking in fact i was on a flight there and last week and i was at a guy who was 87 or whatever very fit, I mean, and I asked him, you know, he said, he looked very effective, you know, he's trim, you know, and we're chatting away, he was in Belfast, he was traveling on to London, and he was from, he grew up in Belfast for a few years, and then he lived across the world, but he's Californian, and he walks every day. He walks he says 15 000 steps a day and he's active i mean it's so important i mean these things are so important you know and if you realize that when you see people of the older generation who are fit and healthy and you ask them you know you ask them about their health and well-being they will talk about walking they will talk about the need for movement you know all of that and.

Callum: 33:28

It's these people you know and i think my grandmother was the same she lived to her mid-90s and you know she wouldn't do traditional she wouldn't go for a run she never run in her life but she she walked everywhere she um i i she had a traditional toilet but, but you know she did uh you know she well i say traditional uh uh uh like a thrown toilet but uh but yeah look i i i think it's so interesting you talk a lot of the movements she talked about like the squat the step up or or i think that's a lunge you know there's a few foundational movements we do day to day that or or we need to do squatting lunge the push the pool uh i'm trying to think of any others but yeah maybe the lift as well but you know there's kind of five foundational movements and you know if we can build them into our into our day-to-day routine just by the stuff we have to do then you know we'll we'll have a big impact i.

Robert Jamison: 34:18

Mean i mean that's really interesting kind of just saying that it makes me think about how do you build these movements into the architecture of the space right however we have building control control of our buildings right which impacts on our opportunity to actually live in spaces that are more dynamic or you know offer more opportunities so for example you know, handrails are necessary yeah and there's even you know i've met clients whenever here like you know so there's a step down from the garden or to the garden maybe 500 mil and they're like handrail there yes building a troll will require a handrail 600 mil but kids will not want to have a handrail your kids it becomes a playground the home becomes a playground for kids and like and i think that's really important and i and you know in my work there's always that change in level i think it's very important that we change the level steps up steps down you can see it you know in my work you know there's a project it was in sterling i think it was series, series um two episodes one memory of series one episode one studying in scotland and it had this here kind of circular route but these steps and i was able to kind of you know, it was accepted by building control because it was an alternative route that there could be a larger step and two smaller steps except I mean you need to see it but again the night after. The filming of the reveal of that project I got a video call from the client who was absolutely delighted and sent the video of the cage just running round and round and up these steps and it was such a small space but it became a playground you know and playgrounds don't i mean it doesn't need to stop at kids if you have a high level and you can lie on it you know as an adult and and you're mobile and fit you'll lie on it you will you will and that gives you opportunity as well when you're older and you if you be young family or grandkids you can play with them you know we're always we're all kids you know we just get experience no.

Callum: 36:20

And you've i have no no you'll i've had a lot more interaction building control than i ever will and you know i'm sure they have a role but i love that that concept of having different size steps because i think joe if you've got smaller ones you know they they basically work muscles in in different ways or or in in different capacities so yeah there's a you know another really interesting kind of concept in design a couple more things just just before we finish robert i wanted to ask was a lot of the listeners to the podcast are health professionals in some capacity and i remember at the wedding when we met my question to you which is why i wanted to get you on was do if we were to redesign health spaces and gp practices in particular that's my interest what would they look like you give a really fascinating answer which uh involved the eden project but uh i'm gonna i just uh such was the answer i wanted to to re-ask that question and then see uh see if you've got the same answer or a different one.

Robert Jamison: 37:20

I mean it's just the aspiration you know as an architect and what you know you have to think what is that project or what how should we be living on the land you know where and it's not even just you know yeah gp practice and hospitals and i mean hospitals are not very inviting places you know they're you know i mean and they are what they are but they're they're usually big deep plans and it's fluorescent lighting and you know because it becomes a cost, right?

Callum: 37:49

And functionality as well, I suppose, to some extent. Yeah.

Robert Jamison: 37:53

But you still have functionality and you get natural lighting, but cost, to get natural lighting is a cost. The cheapest building you can build is a cube. And then once you start to add surface area to elevation, it becomes more expensive. But anyway, so hospitals are depressing places. And I often think about hospitals, But I also think about, you know even school buildings or or you know homes you know what what can the home be what can a school be what can a hospital what can a gp practice be and a gp practice at a school it could be the same thing so i often think about what is that because i'm interested in the model building or that unit building right it could be repeated and we talked about the aiden project because the aiden project allows you to have shelter from the elements and touch the ground and be within a natural environment and we love being in natural environments right so it's about And that's why we kind of holiday in warm climates where we can be outside and be connected to the environment. We can't be connected more to the environment than when we're swimming in the ocean, you know. But anyway, so I think that, you know, the idea, and I mentioned this on a, I mean, I remember when I was on Twitter and, you know, that account since closed, but I, you know, this idea, I pinned this idea about, you know. That in the holy grail of architecture is having a transparent insulated um net to be like or you know foil that you can drape over any structure so it gives you shelter within the natural environment you know you then you know but of course to actually make that a reality you're talking about a geodesic structure that becomes you know the eden project you know and i say that because i have this idea as well but building a you know the idea of a school or a building or community hall you know for a group of people that is essentially if you imagine q gardens the glass house in q gardens so it's that at a scale that gets the light in you know it's got a filigree structure it's transparent it's got a natural you know environment within so you're within the garden you know you're within the garden and you can you can sit comfortably you can converse comfortably and you know of course well you know the idea is well this costs money but you get it right once and you don't have to kind of you know it can become a model it can become something like a vehicle it can be um production line technology where you kind of can reduce the cost of the building of this idea because the model building and just kind of you know replicate that same model because all you're doing is creating a garden enclosure now of course you'll they'll say, well, actually, there's a need for administration spaces, a need for spaces off that. So then put those to the edge. So it's almost like, think about a Gothic cathedral that gets all this wonderful light coming in and has these chapels along the edge. So they become the spaces that are the... You know, the treatment rooms or the classrooms of a larger, so you can take this idea, and the idea as a concept, if you look at the monastic setting or the monastery as a model kind of building typology where you have a large collection space and smaller rooms for retreat or for sleeping or sales for, you know, prayer, whatever it might be, or for working, sales for working, or a dais, whatever those words you might want to use, without putting prescriptive names to the rooms, you can then start to think about what architecture can be. It can be totally undefined. And that's what I enjoy. That's what I like to get to in my work, where you're not defining the spaces, but you're actually creating the environment. And as a species, we know naturally how to occupy it, right? Because it's in us, it's innate. We migrate towards the light. So if you have this kind of miniature Q Gardens glass house environment, maybe 10, 12 meters tall, it could be 10 meters wide. It's transparent, it's glazed, there's mature landscaping, and it's a wonderful space to be in. You would want to be in that space in the light. Then when the light fades and you want to retreat, or you retreat to smaller, more enclosed, more protected, cocoon-like spaces. But we do that naturally. But that same idea, that concept of that environment, it could be a home. Where a collection space or you treat your bedroom it could be a school assembly space or retreat to smaller classrooms it could be a you know um an at you know home for elderly living you know where there's a meeting space in the central queue gardens and then you retreat into these side annexes which is a sleeping environment it could be a gp practice where the meeting space or you know is this central space and the jeep you know and the practice you know rooms are around on the side so it's just it's just that idea like and it gets me back to you know to this notion of um you know the the the buildings of a architecturally animal cave them you know it's like how should we be living as a species you know and that's what that's and that's why i'm really interested yeah.

Callum: 43:13

I think that's really lovely and and the kind of the the the imagery is powerful and i think the other thing that is really powerful is it's such a dramatic reconsideration of the spaces that we work in and what they look like and actually you you've given one example but you know i'm sure listeners might have many others and you know if you do please write in or or comment uh on the podcast we'd love to hear what some of those other ideas are well look robert that that's been you know it's been really amazing and loved having you on and and definitely there's been some some really amazing kind of thoughts you've shared and you've definitely made me think a bit differently so yeah i really value your time yeah i know you're busy so thank you so much.

Robert Jamison: 43:55

Well thank you colin for the invitation and it's you know it's wonderful to have a chat with me again and i really appreciate your your time as well cheers thank you.

Callum: 44:08

You can probably tell from previous episodes I'm passionate about how we can adapt our built environment and I found Robert really forced me to look at house and environment design from a totally different angle. Our discussion around toilets and particularly the squat toilet was really challenging. Although I can't find any evidence linking the use of thrown toilets to cancer there's growing evidence to support squat toilets to ensure complete evacuation of the bowels and in the prevention of hemorrhoids. Advocating for healthier houses and environments, often at the detriment of convenience, is always going to lead to some difficult and hard conversations. But I believe these conversations are worth having and we must start having. We briefly discussed the five foundational movements and on reflection I'll probably add out of sixth the twist i know there's much debate around this and i'd love to hear from you if you disagree offline robert and i discussed designing a house to incorporate all the foundational movements so watch this space and if you've made any changes to your home environment to facilitate movement i'd love to hear from you with home and work environments often merging small steps like like investing in a standing desk, can have a big impact on sedentary behavior. And if you want to save some money, you can do what Susie does and just use an ironing board and a load of old textbooks. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode and that it's reframed the way you think. And if you have enjoyed it, please share it with someone else.