ColumnHave you ever intentionally engaged in a mind-bending, dizzying, life-changing cultural experience? Have you self-induced what we call hyperkulture? Consider the idea that you can purposefully step outside your comfort zone to shift your perspectives—and that time traveling is not required to put yourself in swoon’s way.

A sudden, icy sweat. A spinning sensation. The immediate need for a chair. It took more than a few minutes to regroup—perhaps because that necessary chair was nowhere to be found—but I had some experience with this feeling. The race back from 1564 to 2013 seemed to take longer that it actually did, but that’s understandable: Time traveling has a way of knocking you off your rails.

The venue for said swoon was Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon—in the actual bedroom where it’s said the great Bard made his grand entrance. As a writer and fan of his work (how could that not be an understatement?), a lot had conspired that afternoon to leave me leaning against a wall, struggling to take in air. What was initially an earnest, if touristy, moment was transformed by a blood-to-the-brain rush of understanding that this now-visualized birth so many centuries ago was critical to not only my choice of profession but to my intellectual and emotional vocabulary—this screaming (of course!) infant would eventually teach me how to think and inform who I am. And not only me. All of us. It’s Shakespeare, for god’s sake, born here—right here—and destined to change the trajectory of our culture. Yes. For this writer… some air, please.

I know Shakespeare isn’t everyone’s life-altering cup of tea, but I’m sure many of you are familiar with the phenomenon I experienced that day in England. We all have had interactions with discrete articulations of our human culture—in the realms of art, literature, travel, food, history, technology and media (or, in my case here, that bedroom)—that overwhelm us. These are personal growth moments and, I think, by definition positive. They are instances where we’re touched deeply, beyond the intellect, so that our soul spins and we can distinctly feel our emotional anatomy change. And these moments even have a name (a few names actually). To varying degrees, these states of mind are sometimes referred to as Stendhal or Florence syndrome—or Hyperkulturemia.

According to one medical dictionary, the syndrome is defined as “a psychosomatic response—tachycardia, vertigo, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations—when the ‘victim’ is exposed to particularly beautiful, or large amounts of, art in a single place—e.g., Florence (Italy), which has a high concentration of classic works; the response can also occur when a person is overwhelmed by breathtaking natural beauty.”

For this discussion, I think we can safely broaden the causes beyond art and nature to include other cultural encounters (read: that bedroom). I also think we can leave the veracity of the notion that this is a cap S-Syndrome to specialists above my medical pay grade. But in any case, regarding the times in my life when I have experienced such a state, the French author Stendhal was spot on in 1826 when he wrote about it in “Rome, Naples and Florence” (from a 1959 translation.):

Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, I could perceive its very essence close at hand; I could, as it were, feel the stuff of it beneath my fingertips. I had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intentions of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion. As I emerged from the porch of the Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (the same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of the nerves); the wellspring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.

I don’t want to take lightly what some might call a severe mental-health event. (Hallucinations?) But I also want to be clear that these happenings are more than just “oh my!” moments—they are true swoons, in every sense of the word, save perhaps hitting the ground. (Thank you nearby chairs, walls, et al.)

Making It Happen Not long after returning to the U.S. late last year, as I looked back at my journey and Shakespeare reaction, something occurred to me. Up until then, this kind of thing had happened maybe once every few years since my late teens. Yet this trip had somehow produced five such episodes in just four months. Though I still consider these instances rare and unexpected, something was going on that triggered these experiences—or at least allowed them to take place.

Here’s some context: I had left California for extended travel overseas for the first time in years, making good on a promise to return to my globetrotting ways after Things 1 and 2 had left home for university. I made the trip with my girlfriend of eight years, Mihaela, and like my days traveling as a youth, had a fairly slipshod approach to time and money planning. We formulated the trip as we went, discovering along the way that my primary editorial client would be withholding payments in unpredictable, seemingly sadistic ways. Though punctuated by a few lovely moments of luxury, our journey—including time in Eastern and Western Europe—would feature some good ol’ down-and-out, cold-water-flat time, with me slamming away at my keyboard (she says I type like Jim Carrey answering prayers via email in “Bruce Almighty”) while she went out in search of cheap veggies to stew for dinner.

All of this is not to complain, by any means. The trip was glorious and brilliant and in almost constant high relief. But we for sure had left our relaxed Bay Area comfort zone and, back to our story’s syndrome of interest, this was a good thing. I firmly believe that being on our heels opened the door to the above-mentioned byproduct—and again, not once, but five times.

Aside from the Stratford-upon-Avon experience, it happened in Spain in the Plaza Mayor, where one evening I could not keep my hands from shaking when attempting to take a photograph. It happened in Florence while taking in Masaccio’s masterworks in Santa Maria del Carmine. And then twice in Paris (but of course)—once in the Pompidou in front of Joan Miró’s Bleu triptych and another time during the first of two visits to Atelier Brancusi. Then there was London, where I happened upon Jack Kerouac’s On the Road scroll temporarily on display at the British Library. I’ll spare the details of these events (each one a story), but suffice to say that I do not diminish my many experiences during these months by saying these five quite literally floored me, each in their own way changing the way I think.

For me, having done the math, there’s a great takeaway here. I think we can increase the chances of such life-changing cultural experiences—call it hyperkulture—occurring in our lives if we take risks. This is not to say that you need to go time traveling, or out on some financial edge or upend your life. Nor do you have to be in Florence—or Paris or London or even Kathmandu—to access those things that will push your personal envelope. But rather and more simply, if we purposefully and actively take ourselves outside our comfort zones, we’re more likely to have encounters that will shift our perspectives. It could be as easy as turning off your phone and getting lost in a museum. Or hiking into the forest with a tent but without a plan. However we wish to do it, to initiate personal change and growth, we can, in fact, put ourselves “in swoon’s way.”

Scott Adelson is EcoSalon’s Senior Editor of HyperKulture, a monthly column that explores opening cultural doors to initiate personal change. He is also the author of InPRINT, which reviews and discusses books, new and old. You can reach him at scott@adelson.org and follow him @scottadelson on Twitter.

Top image: Wikimedia Commons

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InPRINT: One the Road – Again: Revisiting Jack Kerouac

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A collection of famous sayings that celebrate (and poke fun at) London.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. -Samuel Johnson

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air – or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. -Arthur Conan Doyle

London, thou art the flower of cities all! Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie. -William Dunbar

I don’t know what London’s coming to — the higher the buildings the lower the morals. -Noël Coward

One of the the things she most liked about the city -apart from all its obvious attractions, the theatre, the galleries, the exhilarating walks by the river- was that so few people ever asked you personal questions. -Julia Gregson

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, / Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye / Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping / In sight, then lost amidst the forestry / Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping / On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; / A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown / On a fool’s head – and there is London Town. -Lord Byron

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. -Oscar Wilde

It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. -Arthur Conan Doyle

The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. -Jane Austen

In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea. -John Osborne

This melancholy London – I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air. -William Butler Yeats

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. -Stephen Fry

Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It’s the second biggest cause of death amongst the English in general. Sheer boredom. -Alexander McCall Smith

If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting. -Peter Shaffer

Nothing is certain in London but expense. -William Shenstone

You will recognize, my boy, the first sign of old age: it is when you go out into the streets of London and realize for the first time how young the policemen look. -Sir Seymour Hicks

I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity? -Charlotte Brontë

There’s a hole in the world / Like a great black pit / And the vermin of the world / Inhabit it / And it goes by the name of London. -Stephen Sondheim in Sweeney Todd

I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining. -Groucho Marx

London, London, London town / You can toughen up or get thrown around. -Kano

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one of the curses of London. -Ambrose Bierce

It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed. -George VI

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income. -George Bernard Shaw

There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear — the city of London and the South Seas. -Herman Melville

The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are now / In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow / At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore / Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more / Yet in its depth what treasures! –Percy Bysshe Shelley

London is a modern Babylon. -Benjamin Disraeli

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Images: Caitlin House, Adrian Clark, Gabriel Villena

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The Stealth Barn is a beautifully simple structure, both inside and out, located in rural windswept Norfolk.

Designed to look “like it is there and not there,” the Stealth Barn in the Norfolk Fens (coastal flatlands) was remarkably inexpensive to build, costing under $50,000 – although, of course, the budget is helped when the owner can design it too. The architect, Carl Turner, who built it for his own personal use, bought the black-stained timber shell, and fitted the windows and interior himself.

It may look like the inside of a packing crate, but this interior is continuous wall-to-wall OSB (oriented strand board, which is compressed wood stuck together with wax and resin). It’s a low-priced material, durable and resistant. Against the neutral but interesting background, the owner-architects have used clean, unfussy furniture, in monochrome, wood and metal, such as Arne Jacobsen and Bertoia chairs.

The colour and coverall nature of the chipboard (affixed to the walls, floor and ceilings) is designed to mimic straw bales, which often divide spaces in barns on working farms nearby.

The barn can be used as a guest wing, or as a studio and meeting space. Just what everyone needs attached to their house, for the in-laws to stay in, noisy children to play in, or work projects to be pondered on in peace.

Stealth Barn was designed as an extension to a (more conventional) larger brick barn conversion, Ochre Barn, situated next door.

Photos: Carl Turner, Tim Crocker and Jeremy Phillips.

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Stealth Barn, Norfolk, England appeared first on EcoSalon.

The aftermath of a very high tide, or a superbly-located artistic installation for rent?

A Room for London is a wooden riverboat balanced on top of a building in the middle of London. This is a boat with a bird’s eye view, sitting as it does atop the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the south bank of the River Thames. The vista includes the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel just up the river (whose passengers can also see the boat), and beyond, to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

In the other direction sits Olympic Village in east London.

The one-bedroom Le Roi des Belges is an artistic installation named after the riverboat captained by Joseph Conrad in the Congo in the 19th century. This journey won’t be quite as (melo)dramatic as Heart of Darkness, though the views are – especially from the boat’s viewing deck.

The Roi is lined with painted wood and has abundant natural light. On board is a bedroom (the bed slides on rails enabling passengers/guests to choose their view), bathroom, kitchen, and an upstairs library and viewing platform – as well as a crow’s nest, to keep watch  for marauding pirates. There’s a logbook on the upper deck for guests to record what they notice during their one-night stay be it wind speed, cloud formations, other vessels, and strange behavior by passing pedestrians.

Those who don’t have a head for heights or a taste for the unusual won’t enjoy this. It’s 82 feet above the ground. Those who do can watch life floating by on one of the most famous waterways in the world.

This project is by Living Architecture, which commissions architects to design properties for short-term rentals around the UK. It will be perched atop London for this year only and the first six months of bookings filled up in 12 minutes. Staying in this temporary landmark would surely be the height of the London 2012 Olympics experience.

Rates from $186 (stays are limited to one night), including tax and 360-degree London views.

Photos: Charles Hosea

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London’s greenest hotel has fabulous river views and cutting-edge energy-saving features.

In 2012, much international attention will be focused on London with the Olympic Games and all its attendant activities and events, including the cultural programme. If you want an eco-bed to lay your head on, the Rafayel may not be not central, but it won’t dent your wallet as dramatically as the hottest tickets to the athletics finals will.

Right on the south bank of the River Thames, this hotel offers a ringside seat for the historic 1,000-boat flotilla, which will go past as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (60th anniversary) celebrations in June – one of London’s other major events of 2012.

Among the hotel’s eco-features are a no-plastic policy, LED lighting, efficient air-conditioning and ventilation, and rainwater harvesting and recycling. It’s estimated that its carbon footprint is 20% less than other hotels of similar size; guests can check out their own consumption, thanks to the energy monitoring system (can you manage an A grade?). You are also offered digital versions of newspapers, thereby cutting down on waste paper.

Most of the 65 guest rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows looking over the river in this modern steel, glass and timber building. Design is space-age contemporary, with some rooms offering jetlag recovery light treatment – handy if you’re fresh off a transatlantic flight and suffering. Wood is synthetic and leather recycled, while mini-bars have only organic and fair-trade goodies.

While views are premium, the hotel’s location is not ideal, so it helpfully provides a shuttle service to the closest underground station, which is well-connected with central London; if you’re more of a water-baby, then river taxis can speed you eastwards towards the Olympic action in Stratford.

In addition to the Spa, which offers Asian treatments; brasserie,  champagne bar, and a riverside roof terrace restaurant on the 17th floor; sweet hankerings will be satisfied by the bakery from New York’s “Princess of Patisserie” Michelle Husseri, with her colorful, creative cupcakes. There’s even a florist – everything you need to put together an impromptu birthday celebration should the need arise.

Rates from $169 including tax, fabulous river views and pre-Olympic and Jubilee buzz..

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The Grand Tour and beyond.

We’re all familiar with the rolling hills of Tuscany, the cliffs of Santorini, the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But Europe is so much more than classic postcard images. As the continent’s Eastern half becomes more accessible, spots like the ports of Dubrovnik, the caves of Slovenia, and the Renaissance towns of the Czech Republic are becoming more popular as travelers venture off the traditional backpacker’s route. As everywhere, sustainable tourism practices are needed to protect this region’s intense natural beauty.

(above) Appenzell Innerrhoden, Switzerland

Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK

Telc, Czech Republic

Cyprus

Bua, Sweden

Reykjavik, Iceland

Istanbul, Turkey

Mariazell, Austria

Kiev, Ukraine

Crete, Greece

St. Petersburg, Russia

The Pyrenees, Aquitaine, France

Wick, Scotland

Aalesund, Norway

Berlin, Germany

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland

Capri, Italy 

Karkonosze, Poland

Postojna Cave, Slovenia

Paris, France

Margam Park, Wales, UK

Dresden, Germany

Barbarin, Spain

Berg, Austria

Florence, Italy

Copenhagen, Denmark

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Luster Kommune, Norway

Porto, Portugal

Boka Kotorska, Montenegro

Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Lanzada, Spain

Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy

Moscow, Russia

Skradinski Buk, Croatia

London, England, UK

Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia

Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Santorini, Greece

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The Scarlet is a super-chic eco-retreat on the south coast of England.

England isn’t known for its good weather, so its beaches can get overlooked by overseas visitors. The south-western county of Cornwall (as in Camilla, Duchess of), however, enjoys a micro-climate, meaning it’s (mostly) mild and sunny thanks to the Gulf Stream that flows past its shores.

The Cornish Coast is also hugely fashionable with Brits, and their chosen escape is The Scarlet. This luxury eco-hotel with spa is located on an isolated clifftop overlo0king the sea; children aren’t allowed, ensuring a peaceful, grown-up ambiance. Owned by three sisters, who conceived and designed it as “the place we would most like to be and want to share,” the hotel is hard to fault on either eco or design grounds.

The Scarlet has a solar-heated indoor pool, natural outdoor pool (supplied by rainwater, using a reed bed filtration system); an air-tight timber-framed building, reducing heat loss; a green roof planted with sea thrift (a native plant) to aid insulation; a biomass boiler using wood chips; natural ventilation; grey and rainwater harvesting; and even an electric car-charging point.

The decor is a perfect expression of funky chic – no cold, minimalist tones here; colorful prints complement rich colors, with wood floors and soft, curvy shapes (round tables and seats) adding to the warm feel; all 37 guest rooms, which come in five sizes, have sea views with outside space – balcony, terrace or garden access, complete with design-statement moulded plastic chairs.

Spa treatments use ayurvedic, organic seaweed and house-brand (ingredients: local clay, salt and herb) products. The relaxing atmosphere encourages you to hang out – literally, in pods suspended from the ceiling; there is also a couple’s suite, with double bath – say no more.

We like: the bright red log-fired outdoor hot tubs overlooking the sea; the mud bath, where you get messy slathering yourself and partner in mineral-rich Moroccan rhassoul, for that extra frisson; and the free meditation classes, a new addition to the yoga and pilates already offered.

If you can bear to drag yourself away, nearby activities include tree-climbing (discover your inner child), surfing (inner dude), wild swimming (inner adventurer/naturist) and basket-weaving (inner crafter).

Rates start at $260 including tax, breakfast, inner calm and (with luck) fine weather.

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: The Scarlet, Cornwall, UK appeared first on EcoSalon.

Scientists in England have discovered the key to making the perfect cup of tea.

An issue of great national concern has been resolved thanks to the University of Northumbria’s School of Life Sciences. Here’s a hint: Lionel Richie has everything to do with it.

Per The Telegraph, scientists clocked in more than 180 hours of testing and made more than 285 cups, thus determining that the optimum cup of tea should be brewed for exactly six minutes before drinking, a little more than the length of this stimulating video.

Moreover, it must be served at a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees C) to allow the flavors to flood out without scalding the tongue.

Tea left beyond 17 minutes and 30 seconds is absolute rubbish and should, therefore, be defenestrated or otherwise. I pity the fool who drinks his tea lukewarm.

This and the Lionel Richie mug above are handcrafted by LennyMud.

To make the perfect cup, add boiling water to a mug (with tea bag) and leave it for exactly two minutes. Then remove the bag, add the milk and leave for six minutes until it reaches the ideal temperature of 60C.

Should the temperature drop below 45C, all is lost, thus destroying the “all round sensory experience.”

The research, commissioned by British milk company Cravendale, flies in the face of earlier findings by Loughborough University’s Dr. Andrew Stapley, who has lectured on the topic of tea for the better part of a decade. He surmises that pouring milk into a cup after the boiling hot water has been added “denatures” the milk proteins, producing a most unpleasant stale taste.

Being American, I have no clue which scientist is in his or her right mind. Luckily, I have the good fortune of being married to an Englishman who makes me copious amounts of tea. Coming from a formidable tea drinking culture wherein 165 million cups of tea per day are consumed (my theory is that the English use tea to fill in awkward conversation gaps and mark time before a guest leaves), he is my resident expert.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “What makes the tea brew?”

Um, the hot water? I guess.

“That’s right. If you put the milk in first and then add the hot water, are you not lowering the temperature of the water? The fallacy that you should add milk first is preposterous! The science doesn’t add up.”

His words to a (cough) “t.”

He also informed me that we employ the method of halving our brew time by doubling the bags. Another consideration in our household is the width of the mug. If it’s a fat mug you have to preheat the cup as a wide mug runs the risk of producing an inferior tea if left at room temperature.

An innovative way to double, even triple, bag. By Monica Tsang via designboom.

Interesting.

Ian Brown, senior lecturer at the University of Northumbria, relayed to The Telegraph that the complex taste of tea is what makes it so delectable. “When enjoying a cup of tea, our palette requires a balance between bitterness and sweetness. You might not expect to find toffee flavour in black tea, but by adding milk, toffee and vanilla flavours are intensified while the wood and grassy notes are reduced.”

That is why 98 per cent of Brits prefer milk with their tea, exactly 10 ml for every 200ml of water.

Proper dunking of biscuits, meanwhile, is still up for debate.

The FaceMug, available for purchase at Uncommon Goods.

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Narrow houses once filled the gap between urban overpopulation and practicality. They’re still practical, but also sleek, sexy, and very in.  

In a sobering departure from McMansions built on mini-kingdom parcels of land, the narrow house is enjoying a renaissance in both urban strongholds like London and Tokyo, as well as width-hoarding suburbia.

There’s even been a book written about the svelte architecture movement. Avi Friedman, author of Narrow Houses: New Directions in Efficient Design, explains that while narrow homes have been part of the urban landscape for centuries – for reasons including a tax breadth for wider properties and dearth of space in walled medieval cities – they’re once again being sought after for their environmental advantages, including greater land-use efficiency, less building material, lower utility bills, fewer infrastructure costs and an overall smaller footprint.

“Since the beginning of the housing boom of the 1950s, the size of the average North American house has steadily grown, while the size of the average family has decreased,” Friedman explains. “Today, a growing number of home buyers seeking smaller, more efficient residential designs are rediscovering a centuries-old housing prototype.”

Measuring a petite 25 feet wide or less, Friedman profiles 28 “infill” or “skinny” houses in cities and suburbs around the world. Meanwhile, here are eight innovative skinny minis that we found. After this, you’re going to want to put your house on a diet.

The Silver House in London measures in at 10 feet wide and 26 feet high. It was once a wine vault, which served the pub next door.

This jack-in-the-box in Antwerp, Belgium is 7’ 10” wide. It was created by architects Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Martens of Sculp(It) as a multi-functional work/play space, with mutually exclusive spaces for working, eating, living and sleeping.

The exterior of this Tokyo home bears a striking resemblance to a flat-screen television. In order to utilize the itty-bitty lot without squashing the house against the street, the façade has been tilted 63 degrees as a welcome change of perspective, while remaining typically Japanese in its minimalism.

This almost-anorexic apartment by architect Jakub Szczęsny is too-thin-to-be-true, for now. It’s still in the concept stage, a cold-cut sandwiched between a hulking tower and an old tenement building in Warsaw, Poland. It will be 60 inches wide when completed. That’s just a taste of what promises to be a very rich and stimulating project. Visit Home-Designing for the full scoop.

I’m 99% certain that I saw this home during a canal tour of Amsterdam, though I was in Amsterdam. You can never be too sure. It is the narrowest in the city, maintaining a rather strong, albeit willowy, presence among more stocky neighbors.

In this neighborhood, the “half” in its address (75 ½ Bedford Street) makes a minimal impact on the price of this house. Given the lineage, too, this lithe Greenwich Village gem is almost priceless. It was a carriage entranceway until it became a cobbler shop, candy factory, and eventual home to actor John Barrymore and poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The Sliding House is a truly stunning and daring slice of reedy architecture. You must see it to believe it. The house – built in the far eastern reaches of Suffolk County, England – has movable components that insulate it during the cold winter months, and slide open to drench the residents in the warmth of the region’s oh-so-fleeting summer sunshine.

The Holly Barn in Norfolk, England has a narrow base, but was built as a voluminous, fully accessible two-level space. The husband in the family suffers from chronic arthritis, hence the rooms and hallways are wide enough to accommodate the turning circumference of a wheelchair with subtle curves throughout. In all, it gives the illusion of width, but is less than 25-feet wide.

Images: Home-Designing; Boyarsky Murphy Architects; Luc Roymans; Home-Designing; craigatk; Karlinksi73; DeZeen; Architecture.com

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A centuries-old mill gets back to work at last.

When you’re on an urban hike around your own neighborhood, you don’t expect to find a windmill being built in the middle of the road. Holgate Windmill was here before this area of York (England) was smothered in housing. Long before. This humble brick tower is older than the United States of America, and it milled grain into flour for a century and a half before a storm damaged its sails beyond repair and it was shut down for public safety.

Modern housing developers crept into the area, but by joining the ranks of Britain’s Grade II Listed buildings, Holgate Windmill successfully fought them off, forcing the builders to divert around it. Scarred and crumbling, it has stood derelict for 70 years as sign of a technological age we’ll never see again.

The windmill is not only a beautiful piece of historical architecture, it’s also a highly unusual one.

It had five sails, a design by John Smeaton of Eddystone Lighthouse fame. It’s the best choice for maximum efficiency of converting wind power to mechanical energy, yet rarely used because one broken sail could have shut the whole mill down. (Windmills need balanced sails: if the same happened to a four-sail windmill, it could be stripped down to two sails and still keep working). Coupled with the fan projecting backwards off the roof that kept it pointing into the wind at all times, you have a unique piece of engineering.

Because of recent efforts by The Holgate Windmill Preservation Society, this mill is being restored to working order. The walls have been repaired and rendered, the stone floor relaid, the ground floor machinery (above left) cleaned, repaired and reassembled, and locally-sourced materials have been used to replace perished materials including the millstones (below) and the windmill’s colossal upright shaft (above right).

By 2008 the Society had secured £250,000 in grants, prizes and donations – and in winning the People’s Millions award in November 2010, they finally have the money to rebuild the sails.

After decades of neglect, this mill will mill. Using locally produced grain, the Society will provide bakers with specialty flours milled in the traditional way, allowing them to make specialty breads with a 250-year-old heritage. Any profits will be reinvested in the mill so it pays for its upkeep by doing what it does best.

Factor in the educational value of a fully-functioning windmill (the last of York’s 20+ working grain mills), and the tourist-wowing sight of its white sails turning gorgeously against the skyline, and you have something very special indeed.

Images: Mike Sowden; Holgate Windmill Preservation Society

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