No excuse for getting up late

You won't have to worry if your watch stops or your phone battery runs out, if you are staying in this special hotel room in Ghent, Belgium. Called the Hotel Gent, it is a project by Japanese artist Tazu Rous, who has constructed a temporary room around the clock tower of the historic station. Presumably the clock doesn't strike, or visitors would have to be issued with ear plugs.
These temporary hotel rooms are all the rage. David Kohn's 'Room for London' in the form of a ship is perched on top of the Hayward Gallery for the whole of this year.

Both would be fun to stay in, but I think that Kohn's is superior, as it enhances the building on which it stands. Ghent's clock tower appears to be wrapped in temporary scaffolding. And is there nobody in the town who actually likes to consult the station clock? Rous may be responsible for a few missed trains.

The periphery becomes central

I was talking to a designer yesterday about Le Grand Paris, President Sarkozy's ambitious project to improve the troubled periphery of his capital. Paris will get two new metro lines, and a major extension to a third, linking peripheral areas as well as giving them better links to the centre. There will be 53 stations, and 95% of the construction will be in deep tunnels. Truly a Grand Projet!
It is interesting that these links are going to be made at a time when the way that we use our cities is changing. As more people work from home at least some of the time, there is also a growing interest in 'third places', whether coffee shops, satellite offices or shared serviced spaces, where it is possible to leave the chaos of home without trekking to a city-centre office. This could change the pattern of occupation of our cities, with more activity in out of town centres than usual, especially near those new transport changes. And, of course, people will want to make more journeys in a circumferential rather than a radial manner. Le Grand Paris could just be the future.