Today I'm going to list and explain some of the things I would like to do, given the time/money/support, in an ideal world. Some of them are obviously more realistic than others, some are only slightly possible and rely on a whole load of things out of my control being possible. These are the things I dream of doing if I had essentially infinite resources...
Design a Better House
I hate modern houses and pretty much any type of house that's part of a wide-scale affordable housing project. They all seem to be based around some kind of one-size-fits-nobody design; inappropriately sized rooms, awkward layouts, poor lighting, looks boring, generally as energy inefficient as they're allowed to make them.
Outside:
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What I would like to do is get together a group of people/companies and design a new template. The brief would be; it needs to be modern and stylish - I want something that looks like a modern bespoke style-led house. It needs to have good lighting design, that's also efficient (my job - I'm a lighting designer). It needs to be cleaver on the inside, so the space is well used (basically, no rooms partitioned off with hallways etc - these take up space that could be used otherwise - and rooms appropriately sized). I would like some kind of micro-generation. I would like super-efficient insulation and a new kind of central heating. It would need to cost about the same (or even less) than existing projects. It wouldn't necessarily take up the same amount of land though - if we could spread them out a bit for the same budget that would be good.
I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure that if someone really tried they could make this happen. There just isn't the incentive though - designing and planning something new takes time and property developers just want to put up whatever they can make the most money out of as quickly as possible.
Start A Youth Centre
Where I live in Hastings. I would base it around the adventure playgrounds so prolific around where I used to live in West London (Fulham, Holland Park and Battersea were the ones I frequented regularly). It would be a not-for-profit co-operative. It would make income from membership fees (with means-tested free memberships), and also supplement this with adult/corporate hire - laser-tag/paintball type of thing. Also with some kind of simple studio and other hi-tech kind of stuff that disadvantaged kids don't always get to enjoy (another revenue steram from those that can afford to pay to hire). Cheap, but nutritious, meals.
Develop a New Graphene Processor
I am sooooo excited by graphene!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9491789.stm
I would love to lead a research project to develop the material into the next generation of CPUs. They wouldn't necessarily be faster/smaller/better - I would aim for cheaper. I would also aim to keep the manufacture within the UK and make patent use approvals based on working standards equal to our own.
Set Up a 'Khan Academy' Free School
I love the Khan Academy videos (thank you Robert!). Then I saw this video of how they're making it work in the states:
I would love to set up a new free-school, using the method in the video - I would have all the 'lessons' and tutorials set as homework in the form of videos. Activities would be available online for home pratice if kids want to. Then in the school time what teachers would do is discuss any issues the kids are having, do the 'homework' of doing problems, where the teacher could then (being freed of having to lecture the class) spend a small amount of quality time with each pupil, answering their unique questions and problems. I do believe it is the education of the future - let's get there first!
Someone did point out 'what would families without access to computers/internet do?'. Well, all the videos are available for download for free and these could be distributed. Then facilities could be provided after-school for any remaining kids that have no DVD players either. They manage to teach children in third-world villages this way.
Start a Cafe/Restaurant
Since it would be vegetarian, this is possibly the least likely! Not enough veggies, too many meaties are put off by vegetarian-only eating-out. I do think it could be possible though - especially if the food was well cooked, reasonably priced and interesting. Hugh Fernly-Wittingstal managed to go veggie for a year, so maybe the time of veggie-friendly rhetoric amongst non-veggies is upon us! However, it would not simply contain a proliferation of veggie-alternatives to meat. Except maybe sausages - what the hell is the difference to animal protein mashed up with bead and flavourings in a tube and vegetable protein mashed up with bread and flavourings in a tube anyhow?!
