After leaving the Yellow Peril in Duisberg in the care of the splendid Herr Schneider for brake cylinder surgery, James took the train the last 1000k to Copenhagen…no arrests were made. What’s next for the Yellow Peril? Find out what happened…

Duisberg. 2am. Major wheel wobbles on an accelerating lane on the E25 motorway. The middle of nowhere. Using great business ingenuity to get out of a hole. Yellow morph suits are a useful visability aid….1.5 hours of waiting for Herr Mechanic.

Brake cylinder failure on rear wheel. Off to a Ford garage in Duisberg and a few hours kip to wait for opening at 0800. Looking at a 3 hour repair, a bit of Bratwurst and see where they go from there. Some business charm may be required. James heads onwards to Copenhagen on a 9 hour train trek across Europe whilst Richard stays with the Yellow Peril.

Mr Schneider at the Ford Garage says he can get all the parts and will offer them at a great discount to help the Banana’s cause. May take 3-5 hours to fix so with 9 hours of driving ahead of Richard, he hoped to join the rest of Cathedral at around Midnight.

He made slightly better time then that arriving just in time to join the rest of us for our main course. The Copenhagen Conquest foursome were in great spirits to celebrate their achievements, despite any decent sleep in the past 48 hours! Well done gents. And a very well done for raising £2.5k for KIDS. 

Anyone know a decent mechanic? 

Another 2 miles later….

Dan and the yellow man. Finally sorted, mechanical failure fixed. Bananas en route. Vive la France!

Ranst, Holland. Bananas catch the Green Goblin at a coffee stop after initial breakdown. James’s acid house tunes encourage excessive speed through Holland. 9 hours to go…

Oh dear…

In the meantime, the Green Princess is racing ahead and already on the way through to mainland Europe…with a very interesting take on a personalised GB sticker.

About 10 minutes ago, four intrepid adventurers – Nick, Fergus, Richard and James – began their race against the rest of us to arrive in Copenhagen tomorrow lunchtime. To raise money for KIDS, the foursome will be driving their ‘cars of character’ across Europe in an attempt to beat the rest of us to our final destination. They’ll also be doing a number of challenges along the way… 

James, ready to roll.

There’ll be no monkeying around by Fergus.

As well as navigating their way through the 750 mile journey (without the use of a sat nav) in 22 hours, they have been set challenges by friends and colleagues to complete along the way to raise money. One challenge includes getting a photo of the famous Little Mermaid statue off Langelinie promenade which includes at least one of the group in a bikini and a long blonde wig (thank you Jon Carter of PH Warr). 

Richard and James taking the yellow theme very seriously…

If you would like to set the guys a challenge, all you need to do is donate £400 and let them know what you want to them to do. You can email Nick at n.harrison@cathedralgroup.com.

Nick, the 1980′s footballer – a nod to the nostalgia of their Rover which was probably used in that decade.

Good luck guys! We’ll see you (in one piece hopefully) in Copenhagen tomorrow.

Although, we are already a little worried…..

We beat off stiff competition from Nike and other big international projects to take home a Design Week Award  for our much loved Movement Café last night. The judges said ‘We like this because it creates a real event out of literally nothing. It embraces hospitality in its true sense – a warm welcome, a meeting place, a sense of togetherness, a team effort. It’s dynamic and it works.’ We couldn’t agree more. We worked with an amazing team to deliver the café and a massive thank you goes out to all those people involved who helped make it happen. 

At 4.15pm on Friday 28th May, Richard and the 10 day team arrived in Land’s End after their epic 1,050 mile adventure from John O’Groats. We are extremely proud of Richard who, to date, has raised over £15k for KIDS, Dementia UK and Land Aid. It’s a huge achievement, one which we are all a little bit in awe of here in the office. You can still donate here, we’re sure Richard (and his sore legs) will appreciate anything you can spare in recognition of this amazing achievement.

We’ve been shortlisted in two categories at this year’s New London Awards. The Old Vinyl Factory is in the Masterplan category and The Movement Café in the Temporary category. Both projects will be showcased in a year long exhibition in the NLA GAllery at The Building Centre. See the full shortlist here. We’ll find out on the 11th July if we’ll be needing to make a bit more space on the award shelf… 

Yesterday we announced our project to sign up a 20-strong squad of star UK architects and designers to design a dolls’ house as part of our plan to raise £100,000 for disabled children’s charity KIDS.  Zaha Hadid, Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners, David Adjaye, MAKE, AHMM, FAT (sketch above), Studio Egret West, ShedKM, dRMM, Duggan Morris, Morag Myerscough, Glenn Howells, Mae, DRDH, FCBS, Guy Hollaway, Amanda Levete, Phil Coffey, Amodels and HLM are all participating in the project will will culminate in an auction event on 11th November in London.

The project was inspired by Edwin Lutyens’ 1924 dolls house for Queen Mary. More than 1,500 artists, designers and craftspeople contributed to Lutyen’s 4.5-tonne display, which the venerable architect described as ‘a flagship of endeavour to ease the nation’s woes’. In the same spirit, we have challenged the 20 architects to work with their own artist, designer, and furniture-maker collaborators to make the end products even more special. Gavin Turk and Grayson Perry are two of the artists collaborating with the architects.

Each dolls house – suitable for a 750mm x 750mm plinth – will also include one unique feature to make life easier for a child with a disability. The completed dolls’ houses will go on public display ahead of a fundraising event. Development Securities, Domus, Marley Eternit and Alno are backing the project with the AJ as media partner.

Sketch by Mae Architects

Here is a snap from our time lapse camera at Bromley showing the top level of Westmoreland Road car park being dismantled, marking the official start on site at Bromley South Central. Still a long way to go yet but great to see some exciting activity on-site.

Richard set off on the Property Jogle John O’Groats to Land’s End bike ride on Sunday, a gruelling 1,050 mile cycling challenge. 3 days in and he’ll be cycling through Glasgow today, gradually getting closer to England. You can follow Richard and the 10 day team on their blog here. If everyone who reads this pledges a tenner for Richard’s efforts to support our chosen charity KIDS we would raise a lot of money.  Go on.  You know you can.  You can do it here.  Thank you.