h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great! I await them.

I have one to nominate from the city of Philadelphia - the giant statue of a closepin near the City Hall.

Well, I nominate the swimming pool I'm supposed to be replacing.

What are you supposed to be replacing it with?

I vote you add nymphs and cherubs.

A new swimming pool.

Our profs want us to do raw concrete, so cherubs are an interesting touch

You could design moulds for the concrete in interesting shapes.

Is the pool municipal or for a school?

municipal, olympic size, room for 1800 spectators!
google "schwimmoper" if you want some pics of the existing one...

What an interesting building! Are you supposed to improve on the exterior design?

I had the thought that the children who use the pool could suggest designs to be pressed into it.

Nah, our profs wouldn't want us to get creative... It's not that well built, if the pools is drained and it snows, the roof will collapse because the weight of the water helps keep the roof up! And the 10m tower is built under the lowest bit of the roof, they've hollowed it out to make standing possible!


Not that ours is looking better, mind, now that they've made us do only concrete and steel and toss out all wood...

That's terrible! This swimming pool is definitely on the short-list for the BS Johnson Award.

I'm sure you guys will improve it.

Isn't it, now... And they just found asbestos in it too! Still, for some odd reason it is the example given for pools in the Neufert!

This sounds like a case for industrial action. Somebody should picket, or something.

No, it's just been declared protected by Denkmalschutz! They now just want to replace the blind windows...

You're making this up!

Unfortunately no! They had big citizens' marches for it and everything! It's even listed among the tourist attractions on wuppertal.de!

They ought at least to move the 10m tower, but I suppose they can't, since it's over the deep end.

For your next project, you ought to redesign the Maerchenwald.

Well, so far our projects have been:
a bus stop
a sheep stall
a bath house
a kiosk (mine turned into a floating cafe)
and now the pool

as well as the offices, houses, cinemas etc. we did but not as detailed in other subjects

What a list! (A sheep stall?!)

We're going to get in trouble for all this: we've gotten completely off the subject of Terry Pratchett. Back to the BS Johnson Memorial Award.

To all TP fans: Either submit an entry design, or nominate an existing structure for the award.

What trouble? in TP's best tradition, this has been an elaborate footnote!

Yes. Don't ask, I don't know. but at any rate, it wasn't allowed to resemble a functioning stall, the one we built ended up not having any right angles at all, the prof wanted it that way. The shepherd looked at it once and said "how do you muck out the corners?"

That's why engineers love architects.

Also, that's a terribly TP remark.

A design contest! Great idea!