notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

BBC Television Centre floor plan, as sold on this t-shirt by Red Bubble. Lovely.

sciencecenter:

Scientists study the phases of the moon on lunar models in preparation for an eventual manned flight to moon.

Love those circles-on-globes. Photographer: Fritz Goro.

party outings 1964 front cover by smallritual on Flickr:

‘party’ here means a group of people. this is a book of suggestions for day trips to tourist destinations

Eight years of BBC handbook covers, from 1961 to 1969. Some are from Between Channel’s three posts on the handbooks, but where his graphics were a little smaller, I headed off to Deptford Dralons and LoopZilla on Flickr.

The BBC Handbook was produced annually (with a short break) for nearly sixty years. As the British Online Archives site puts it,

Sir Ian Jacob, a former Director General of the BBC provides us with a useful statement of the handbooks’ aims:

“To provide a clear and reliable guide to the workings of the BBC, to survey the year’s work in British broadcasting, and to bring together as much information about the BBC as can be assembled within the covers of a small book.” (BBC Handbook, 1955)

Most of the handbooks follow the same template – a review of the BBC’s year, information on notable programmes, and other basic factual material including names of senior staff and governors, engineering developments, audience trends, the accounts, and a copy of the BBC’s charter.

There’s something particularly charming about the covers in this decade of change, with the Light, Home, and Third radio programmes still appearing on one early cover before television steps completely into the limelight by 1969.

To see all the 1960s covers, try Auntie’s Nuggets.

What Happens When… You Throw Things Away (via)

Aerial view of RAF Fylingdales, 16 September 1963 (via)

Gemini 6A from Gemini 7, from Remembering Project Gemini at The Atlantic’s In Focus.

Elliott 803 computer launched, The National Museum Of Computing:

The Elliott 803 was a small computer manufactured by the British company Elliott Brothers in the 1960s. About 250 were built and most British universities and colleges bought one.

The 800 series started with the 801, a one-off test machine built in 1957. The 802 was a production model but only seven were sold between 1958 and 1961. The short-lived 803A was built in 1959 and first delivered in 1960; the 803B was built in 1960 and first delivered in 1961. Elliott subsequently developed the much faster Elliott 503 computer to be software compatible.

Housing in towers, a 1964 proposal by Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao for Harlem in upper Manhattan.

(I’ve seen the proposal for a dome over Manhattan, but these cooling-tower like structures are new to me.)

The Triton Foundation / Buckminster Fuller proposal for a floating tetrahedral city in San Francisco Bay:

From The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller:

Such tetrahedronal floating cities would measure two miles to an edge, and can be floated in a triangularly patterned canal. This will make the whole structure earthquake-proof. The whole city can be floated out into the ocean to any point and anchored. The depth of its founda­ tions will go below the turbulence level of the seas so that the floating tetrahedronal is­ land will be, in effect, a floating triangular atoll. Its two mile long “boat” foundations will constitute landing strips for jet airplanes. Its interior two mile harbor will provide refuge for the largest and smallest ocean vessels.

From Cracked’s list of “The 6 Most Insane Cities Ever Planned”:

Triton anticipated a lower maximum population of just over 100,000 people, and was also to be the first fully organic city, complete with a desalination system to re-circulate ocean water. Schematics for Triton were sent to the United States Navy’s Bureau of Ships, to check it for “water-worthiness,” stability and organic capabilities, then off to the Bureau of Yards and Docks to see whether or not they could even build this thing, specifically at the cost they had projected. Both Bureaus gave the thumbs up, and the Navy’s cost estimate came within 10% of Buckminster’s. And that’s probably the craziest part of Triton: At every stage, it was going to work.

From the description of A Study of a Prototype Floating Community at Amazon:

Triton was a concept for an anchored floating city for 100,000 people that would be located just offshore and connected with bridges to the mainland. When President Johnson left office he took the model with him and installed it in his Presidential Library in Texas. This is the complete design report.

Now that’s what I call a utopian impulse.