A growing number of architects and construction companies are embedding activism into their practice, some of them engaged in building projects with the sole purpose of upending the hypocritical policies that are preventing Norway from taking a proper stand against climate change. The world is literally at stake; at this moment California is burning a slow but inevitable death. Last night, another tsunami took out an entire city on the other side of the world. Norway, a country formed by numerous Ice Ages, is on the verge of yet another.

The thought of this makes him think about the river. He could write a book. How Damming a River Ruined My Life. He chides himself for being so melodramatic. Be rational. It was an oversight on his part to think he could easily redirect something that had flowed naturally for hundreds of years. He read something recently about the role a single river, even a very small one, plays in supporting ecosystems, and he felt very naïve. The engineer Ragnar had been right. He really should have foreseen the effects it would have on the landscape, even the animals.

‘Knock, knock.’

Clive comes in. Tom continues to draw on the easel. He’s rethinking some of the elements of the build – he’s never been one to care too much about getting the design carved into stone, as it were, preferring to remain fluid about the final product right up until the last minute, and usually after.

Clive, though – he’s a planner. He watches Tom make changes to the plans, the plans they’ve already approved with the surveyor and construction team, the plans for which they’ve got actual consent and to which they are legally obliged to adhere. He shakes his head with a rueful sigh.

‘So what you changing now, then?’ he says, picking up Tom’s glass of wine and sipping from it, just like they did as postgrads at Glasgow School of Art. Tom draws two lines down through the cliff and adds a box. This famous lift they’ve been discussing for all eternity. It’s one thing to decide your new home is going to be built on the side of a cliff, quite another to figure out how you’re going to get groceries down there. He’s keen to see how Tom’s going to hold on to his principles with this one. His guess is – he won’t.

‘You’ve got to install a lift into the cliff in order to reach the new house. How you’re going to do that without explosives, hmmm? Unless you’re planning on parachuting down there? Maybe a laundry chute?’