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British Airways dedicates itself to great cheese from the UK and beyond

The great cheeses of the world are made by passionate artisans who have learned the craft of transforming milk and cream into one of the most sought-after delicacies. Marking an important component to their recently launched Height Cuisine program, British Airways has made a clear commitment to offering a carefully selected assortment of cheese on their flights. The British Airways chefs that create Height Cuisine in-flight menus work with Tom Badcock of the Cheese Cellar, who directs the cheese program for British Airways. Tom provides access to some of the best cheese available—from local, UK-made products to international imports.

Badcock grew up on a farm in Warwickshire, England where, he says, “My mother taught me to milk goats and to make cheese.” Later Badcock earned a degree in food technology and dairy technology from Seale Hayne agricultural college in Dartmoor, and his technical expertise is matched only by his deep-seated passion for the craft.”I get quite keen on trying to support cheese makers, to keep this very small and fragile industry going,” he says. “Often you find cheese-makers just with one or two people making the cheese, and they need all our support. I make sure that people like British Airways are aware of their existence. They are dealing with something utterly unique. It almost takes food into an art form. I deal with something very precious, very rare, and rather wonderful.”

British Airways has been working with Cheese Cellar for more than 20 years. When it comes to the airline’s dedication to cheese as an important part of their culinary program, Badcock suggests, “I think they have caught this provenance bug, just like I have. It endears you to the product. You see the people behind the food. We try to put in artisan cheeses that have got the highest provenance.”

Among the current cheese offering on British Airways flights is Barber’s 1833 Vintage Reserve, a cheese with a rich history from the UK. “Giles Barber’s work is making cheddar and he is the guardian of British cheddar bacteria,” says Badcock, enthusiastically describing the Barber legacy. “That might sound a bit odd, but he has the starter culture of the definitive English cheddar. How does a cheese-maker tell the world that his bacteria is best? Taste the cheese. Barber’s 1833 is a fantastic two-year-old vintage cheddar.”

The altitude and special environment on an airplane affects your ability to taste the cheese, and it affects the cheese itself. All of these factors must be taken into account when curating the selection. “When you are up in the air, you can’t really serve mild cheeses because the flavor disappears,” explains Badcock. “Your hand is kind of forced to select stronger cheese.” At the same time, strongly scented cheeses aren’t always a welcome addition in closed quarters, so careful consideration must be made to strike the right balance.

Serving cheese in-flight presents certain challenges, and Badcock supervises the proper packing and portioning of cheese. “We have the dubious pleasure of cutting cheeses that were never designed to be portioned into little 25-gram servings,” he says. Cheeses are fed into ultrasonic cutters to cut servings with minimal waste, and his team needs to prepare them in perfect condition often at very short notice. Cheeses being prepared for flight are stored under a gas that stops fungus from growing. “In another world they might have frozen the product, Badcock adds. “In my world the gas is used to keep the cheese fresh and beautiful, just as the day that it left the dairy to get to British Airways.”

To learn more about British Airway’s Height Cuisine program visit their Facebook page

Is inside out? Or is it not? Perhaps both? This is an Amphora from another space-time. An ancient object which we knew had to exist. And after years o..

Chilean architects Surco Studio have completed a rusted steel and concrete entrance and administration block for a school in Chile that was severely damaged by an earthquake.

Sheets of weathered steel overhang the concrete exterior walls to frame the entrance to the building, which leads in towards the school’s reception, as well as to new classrooms.

Located at a crossroads in the city of Linares, the school is named Liceo María Auxiliadora and the new building displays a statue of the Virgin Mary in the window above its wooden entrance.

Exposed concrete walls also feature inside the two-storey building, while large areas of glazing separate rooms from the double-height foyer.

Other projects we’ve featured in Chile this year include a house made from prefabricated modules and a library filled with daylight.

See all our stories about Chile »

Photography is by the architects.

Here’s some more explanation from Surco Studio:

Administration Curricular Building Liceo María Auxiliadora de Linares

The project is part of the reconstruction of a building belonging to “María Auxiliadora High School” who was seriously damaged by the earthquake of 27 / F. It was located on the corner facing the main square of Linares, Seventh Region,Chile, in an important position within the city.

The opportunity to rebuild on the same site enabled with the sort proposed building a facility that grew without apparent order program according to the years; In this way was concentrated in the new building all the administrative and curricular program, before dispersed in school, as well as wards of agents and the main entrance to the school, thus replacing poor access and a few classrooms, for a more public one condition under its own logic to where it belongs.

Moreover, the building seeks, through architecture, a reading of the next emblematic elements that may influence your decision, where a rusty steel pediment stands up to the patina of brick Cathedral of the city and, on the opposite axis, a deciduous plant wall accompanies the green of the Plaza de Armas. The intersection of the two fronts forms a double height access that holds a picture of the virgin becoming a kind of urban cave.

Thus, the corner has been dematerialized in access with double eaves height, welcoming to pedestrians and mediating between the scale of the city and the gymnasium. On the other hand is looking to continue with the axes of existing buildings hiding, somehow, the trapezoidal layout of the city of Linares, which prevents the pursuit of orthogonality at the apex.

The double-height access to and qualified in turn penetrates inside the building, creating multiple views among the various levels and venues, also becoming the gateway to the former chapel.

The solution also had to fit a limited budget for government funds allocated to reconstruction work, for which completion tasks eliminated, making the expression of each raw material, concrete, steel and wood, along with the design structural building, equip themselves with the work atmosphere and thus the final image.

Click above for larger image

Name of the work: Administration Curricular Building Liceo María Auxiliadora de Linares.
Authors: Surco. Juan Paulo and Felipe Alarcon Carreno
Location: Linares, Maule Region, Chile.

Promoter: Hosted by the Ministry of Education Reconstruction Plan. “Breakdown Plan 1″
Land: 367.7 m2
Constructed area: 735.4 m2

Click above for larger image

Year of project: 2011
Year of construction: 2011
Predominant materials: Reinforced concrete in sight, Steel, Glass DVH, Corten steel and radiata pine wood.
Photographer: SURco.

Click above for larger image

While the Cannes Lions festival is largely about celebrating what’s happened over the past year in advertising and design, it also aims to help agencies and brands seek out new talent. Of the various programmes set up to help this happen, one of the most established (now in its seventh year) is the Future Lions. Here are the results of this year’s competition…

Set up by AKQA, the Future Lions is open to students (of all disciplines, not just advertising). Entrants are asked to submit work that responds to a simple, if tough, challenge: Advertise a product from a global brand in a way that couldn’t be done five years ago, to an audience of your choosing. Five projects are chosen as winners each year. Here are this year’s winning projects, all of which show how brands can use technology to make life easier or more fun for their customers:

Made By Waves by Patrik Beskow and David Lunde of Berghs School of Communication

Made By Waves is a proposal for Quiksilver. Beskow and Lunde suggest that the surfing brand install a set of waverollers at Huntington Beach, CA, where a major Quiksilver factory is placed, and produce a product line from the wave power produced by the rollers, which will literally be ‘made by waves’. The film above explains the project in more detail.

Penguin Soundtracks by Lisa Zeitlhuber and Nicholas Partyka of Miami Ad School Hamburg

This project proposes that Penguin join forces with Spotify to create a series of soundtracks for its books that can be listened to when the book is being read on an electronic device. Users can also create their own bespoke book soundtracks via Spotify.

Blackout Recorder by Florian Weitzel and Yvonne Truun of Miami Ad School Berlin

The Blackout Recorder app can be set up before a big night out, so that you can retrieve your lost party memories the next day. It can also prevent you engaging in any drunk dialling, by allowing users to block use of certain phone numbers.

Bing Automatic by Chris Shelfon and Marybeth Ledesma of VCU Brandcenter

One of those ideas that feels like it should already exist, Bing Automatic is a search engine that tracks your Word documents, Power Point docs, Outlook and so on as you work on them, offering up suggestions of searches that you might need so you don’t need to switch to a web browser to find them. The film above explains the idea in more detail.

Post from Japan by Kristofer Salsborn and Rickard Beskow of Berghs School of Communication

Post from Japan is a project that aims to encourage visitors to Japan to share their images during their stay there, in order to encourage tourists back to the country. Using the application Post from Japan, which is connected to the government network, visitors would be able to upload their photos for free, and then would be given free internet access to use while abroad, depending on the amount of likes each image receives.

For more info on the Future Lions, visit futurelions.com or the facebook.com/futurelions.

Talking about “kids these days” is a popular cliché, and not often a positive one, but over in the discussion forums, we have seen an uptick in passionate, dedicated, and talented youngsters who are beginning their journey to becoming a professional designer. The most recent is example is Mason Watson. For a high school student, Mason has a great portfolio, and he is always looking for feedback and trying to improve. These are great traits to have as a designer. We probably have not seen an aspiring designer this good in the discussion forum since Andrew Kim posted a conceptual LG phone in 2008.

Kids these days indeed. I only hope they continue to grow and reach, while remembering to give feedback, support and guidance to the generation that will follow them, which will be kids born in the 2000’s!

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