We won the commission to create a mountain for the Olympic park. The committee praised our bold vision, our dynamic approach and our sensitivity to budgetary constraints. There was talk of legacy, and local involvement, and opportunities for commercial partnership. Everybody was happy and we were going to be rich and famous.

We conducted exhaustive research. We compiled lists of the world’s most iconic mountain ranges and tried to isolate just what it was that made them so effective. We built models of the most popular alps and pondered them from every angle. We surveyed moraines, mesas, plateaus, crags, cliffs and ridges. We carried out field trips to heaths, moors and highlands. We considered knolls, knowes, drumlins, eskers and even an arctic pingo. Continue reading “The Everlasting Universe of Things” →