Brickchat

My continuing search for the source of the Golden Thread.

Why does the Construction industry name it such? Is a thread really the strongest metaphor for the dispersed packages of information used to record critical safety information about higher risk buildings in the United Kingdom?

When the word ‘thread’ is mentioned the image is that of a strand being pulled through one or several layers of material. Throughout its life a building will be faced with times of error, complication and extenuating circumstance. No thread can truly tie these events together in the metaphorical sense.

A thread requires a knot to be tied at the beginning and the end of its stitching. Fail to do so and the work that binds the material is quickly undone. A thread is soft. Placed under enough strain it will snap. The stitches that thread links can be unpicked, or frayed.

How are we to thread a fire door inspection report to a sprinkler valve replacement? The two events are related in that they are in the same building, but they are not continuous, they are not in sequence. Should a thread of information be Alphabetical? Categorical? Chronological?

How can a thread be continuous in such a complex process? The metaphor has to be stronger than the simple act of dumping the information onto a hard drive.

A different way of looking at the recording and revising of key building information, is through the centuries old Japanese practice of mixing gold powder with a cement and using this to repair broken pottery. Kintsugi.

Using a simple concoction one draws together fractured elements. Celebrating fragility and fallibility by displaying the newly-repaired fissure with a join stronger and richer than the event that caused the breakage. We could and should approach key building information in this way.

The property and construction industries do not manage building maintenance like this. Instead we gild our buildings. Wrapping them in narratives that cloak their inner challenges. We are too quick to give them a sand down and a splash of size. We lay the delicate layers of leaf out over the surface, pressing and brushing into the folds and cracks.

A thread is planned, deliberate. It can connect multiple layers together. It can repair a gap between two separate elements. But rather than unpicking this work when an amendment is needed, in so doing creating a break in the original thread, would it not be better to open out the cracks in the surface and strengthen the joint with something fluid? By revisiting and inserting a thread is broken the moment the first amendment is made.

Structures and systems can deteriorate over time. Our approach to their maintenance must acknowledge that things can break but that there is a way to fix them. Kintsugi tells that story in a way that a Golden Thread does not.