Extension at West Beech Avenue, SS11

Always grateful to expand our client base, we are happy to and enjoy working outside of London (thanks to our trusty vehicle which gives us the opportunity to explore and expand our knowledge of our island). In fact, most of our work as a small practice originally started in the surrounding suburbs of London. Sticking to our word, we have recently been appointed for a side extension for planning purposes at a semi detached house within the borough of Basildon, Essex.

Planning the route in the office.

The two bedroom property stands in a prominent position as a corner piece on a quiet 1960's residential close and features an extensive garden (and shed) in proportion to the size of the house. The client previously resided in Central London, and relocated with his family, which is now expanding, to further afield. The side extension intends to accommodate his growing family. The client original planned for a single storey side extension, comprising a larger kitchen and living area but an increased budget has provided another storey including a walk- in- wardrobe and play room.

The property in suburban context

During our first visit we observed an existing extension opposite the property which acted as an ideal precedent for planning purposes. We investigated the planning history of the locale which highlighted the neighboring property had recently been grated this extension which we referenced in our design and access statement and a small massing study model to scale 1: 100. Working and thinking with our hands through physical models is an invaluable part of the design process regardless of job type and is always a refreshing break away from CAD, as is a little time spent on Photoshop finalizing drawings.

Proposed elevation illustrating the extension in context

As per contract, the measured survey, production of all drawings and documentation was submitted to the council within a week. We are always committed to producing work on time and according to regulations and the specified contract, in this case 7 working days.

The property and proposed development with the neighboring extension in the background.

Pop and Slot!

After our recent exploits with the CNC machine we decided to approach last years Christmas cards in a similar vain. Much like last minute Christmas shopping, the whole process was rather stressful! Whilst the card was conceived in a matter of moments, the most time consuming and stressful part was spent tracking down a suitable laser cutter (which wasn’t going to charge ridiculous amounts) and then amending the file so it could be successfully read. With the mail coming to a stand till, the clock was ticking and Christmas day was nearing.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The laser cutter was eventually used to cut multiple small envelope sized cards which held two detachable tree profiles that would combine to form a small three-dimensional cardboard tree. Studio Idealyc was embossed onto the card and had the budget been considerably greater, a small message would too have been inscribed. Thin slices of trace with the printed message and a small quirky instruction manual were instead draped around the card, the result quiet pleasing!

Attaching the Christmas message

Intending to spread the Christmas cheer, we set up an impromptu email account to receive photographs of the trees in their new locations and with the hope of reaching out to some new and some long lost clients!

The assembled tree... 1 + 2 = TREE

Internal Renovation at Westbourne Terrace, W2

15 Westbourne Terrace is a listed property nearby to Hyde Park, which we are currently renovating. Our clients flat which occupies the top story space was once part of the roof structure and is considerably smaller than the flats below. A narrow secondary stair provides access to the flat as the lift terminates at the story below. This would suggest the space was historically occupied by servants, with a higher standard of living below. The narrow stair presents issues with transporting materials and all materials require cutting in half before they are delivered to the site in order to accommodate the narrow stair.

The flat is located on a private road nearby to the Lancaster Hotel.

Originally we were appointed solely for planning purposes after the client spent a considerable amount of time trawling through the planning history of the area, in search of the submitters of successful planning applications. However, our offer of a low price to take the project forward to tender was accepted and we are now acting as the main contractors, ensuring all construction is delivered to a high quality. The brief comprises a complete internal renovation, increasing the existing window dimensions and an additional door to the rear balcony.

View from the top floor balcony

A double door will replace the existing to afford greater views

More updates to follow...

Tessellation

Last year we completed a bespoke domestic renovation for a new client. He recently got in touch regarding the design of some furniture for his flat, based on specific items and dimensions. This was a breath of fresh air from the relentless domestic renovations of late!

The client was at first unaware of CNC technology and intended to use a carpenter. However, CNC seemed a perfect means of production in relation to the relative simplicity of his proposed drawings and tight budget.

For ease of construction and delivery, the two pieces, a DVD holder and side table, were designed as a series of components that could be assembled and disassembled with ease. A system of slots was designed to connect the separate components without the need for any additional attachment methods. 18mm melamine plywood was the chosen material as it provided an ideal level of thickness for sturdy connections whilst its clean surface qualities would compliment the flats existing interior.

Sketch Model Explorations

Exploded axonometric illustrating the connection process

The client’s original drawings informed the design process which was then developed through a process of sketching, 3D CAD and physical modeling. Physical modeling with card was particularly useful as it allowed us to think with our hands and make a direct physical connection with the design process; experimenting with alternate attachment methods and the composition of the pieces simultaneously. Ideas moved forward at a far quicker rate when designing through rough sketch models whilst CAD proved less useful as its virtual basis was fairly dislocating. CAD was however essential in the final stages for the production of drawings for the workshop.

Cutting commences at the workshop

As a last minute gesture, the team rapidly thought up a final piece that we could utilize in the office, made from the left over wood. This piece was probably the most successful of the three and designed in the shortest time frame! A short video was also composed from still images of the furniture holding bits and pieces found in the office. Combining the separate pieces as one composition posed potential for the design of future pieces, as well as providing a couple of hour’s fun on a Friday afternoon!

The side table and DVD partially dismantled

Detail of the pen pot holders of the last minute piece

Domestic Artifact (I)

"Art is useless; furniture is useful. This statement is a large enough 'basket' to contain the issue .... useless says it all"

At first glance, Richard Artschwager's pronouncement implies that he is solidly in agreement with Judd's segregation of art an design. However, as his work demonstrates, Artschwager is far more interested in the ambiguous, almost arbitrary, names and meanings we give objects, and how we see and interact with them in different contexts, than he creating strict categories.

In 2004 I visited Donald Judd's exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. Perhaps this was one of my main introductory shows to Minimal and Conceptual Art. A year after, whilst I was trying to decide what book to buy in an old second hand bookshop in Greenwich, the name of Artschwager came to my hands for first time. Since then, I have always been a constant admirer of his work. Artschwager's project "Time Box closed and sealed 25 years ago" is both fascinating and extraordinary.

shadow hitting another object on a brick painted wall

Regardless to Artschwager's minimal pieces, I've to admit I love coffee. I love the strong taste of black coffee, without milk or sugar; just plain, natural, with a distinctive essence and pure aroma. It is said that coffee fanatics are never satisfied, always looking for that perfect taste. My regular drink is espresso, which in certain way, it can become almost an obsession, as the route of looking for that thick texture and real flavor can became endless.

Someone who knows my attraction for this substance has recently bought me a very particular object designed in 1998 by Aldo Rossi (an architect behind some of the most representative objects of the 1980s). It is simply, a good piece of design. It is also minimal, which makes me think on Artschwager's conception on designing contemporary objects.

La Cupola, designed in 1988 by Aldo Rossi for Alessi

The domestic artifact is also known as La Cupola and it has became an essential tool for keeping me awake during long nights of work in studio. I confess coffee and radio are my two most loved items when I work on my own.

A few weeks ago, after having it all day and night on my desk, I decided to take a series of shots which could express some of my favorite areas. I have to recongise that was a serious consequence of sleep deprivation. Clearly inspired by an excess of caffeine and in need of a break from tracing endless lines on my computer.

Except the handles, the rest of the artifact is made of high-quality aluminum, a material that has excellent heat conducting properties. Built on a nice form, shape and volume, in terms of scale, the coffee maker is 180mm height and has a diameter of 70mm.

The most important: it has a capacity of 70 cl (approx. for three cups of coffee) -a production, which being loyal to my fascination for Artschwager's simplicity principles, I always tend to pull in one...

The Market Estate Project (I)

No very long ago I read somewhere in internet about The Market Estate project which will be taken action in February 2010. Fist time I visited North Road was in 2006 when I commenced to work on The Hut. The client's offices ( Islington Council ) were based in an adjacent building to the Estate.

Next to this 60's public housing development is Caledonian Park Clock Tower. Set back from the main road, the white clock tower seems to control the time and lives of everyone who surround it. It is a slim, large and elegant type of construction designed by J.B Banning in 1855. It was opened by Prince Albert with the intention of trading over 15.000 animals a day. It is also known as Metropolitan Cattle Market Tower and is all that is left of one of London's largest livestock markets which operated until it was flattered by aerial bombing in 1940 during World War 2.

Our studio, in collaboration with Richard Claridge, current historic buildings consultant and also a fellow RCA alumni have submitted an inspiring proposal with the intention of getting involve with such of fascinating project.

Loosely inspired by Plato’s Allegory of Cavern where references of people is played out in a transient narrative of shadow, our proposal aims to investigate the architectural patterns between existing and proposed Market Estate in the form of artificial or natural day light and shadow. We enjoy the way that fixtures and fittings, products and personal items are left abandoned in corridors and staircases – places which are transient by nature and therefore reflect the space between private and public, destination and arrival - as ghostly memories of former inhabitants: a slow erosion whereby the place takes on a new life and offers visitors a new and poetic inside to and otherwise forlorn space.

In our work we want to imagine a group of individuals who have lived their lives in happy and sad; positive and sometimes reflective or negative states of mind, perhaps lonely at times with the comfort that they can afford: comfort in the form of their possessions which over the course of the departure from the building have been discarded through neglect or want, all that is left is the rhythms of the past and the ephemeral decay that is its future. However the beauty of the work and the free spirited form of the discarded object is achieved with shadow as its next life, similar to how in Plato the observer is released of their chains through the metaphor of darkness over light.


We propose a series of installations fixed to the ceiling, wall or floor in corridors, landings, staircases and stairwells. The work will take the form of existing architectural fixtures and fittings, or installed pieces that refer to where original fixtures and fittings were once housed but have been removed (eg: light bulbs and electric fittings, fire prevention equipment including hose, bell and extinguisher, balustrades, occupant doors & windows and related furniture including door numbers. These and other fixtures and fittings will be presented with the aid of both electric and natural daylight, the effect will be shadows and play of light on adjacent surfaces

The work will be presented in such a way to encouraged audience participation, not necessarily to encourage tactile investigations but exhibition of objects seen at different positions, angles, heights and light qualities. Although we envisage each installation to be presented unframed as scale 1:1 pieces in addition we imagine a series of secondary works that illustrate in architectural scale diagrammatic explanations that for instance take the form or aesthetic of an electric diagram.

The objectives of our installations are for former residents and strangers alike to look at every day objects in a different light - literally and metaphorically – to react and examine otherwise discarded remnants of the Market Estate.

Mediateque

Michael Chadwick, one of my former tutors during my post graduated studies at RCA has recently contacted me offering the opportunity of teaching at the School of Architecture in the University of Brighton.

The course will be called 'Mediateque'. It will take the form of a workshop in which a series of different materials will be used with the intention of studying some of aspects of the early Russian Constructivist Theories. The course will be mainly focus to a group of architectural students from 1st and 2nd year degree. The starting date is January 2010.

At this stage, I have been asked to supply an image which might represent the contents of the course as well as a brief description of the objectives and aims. Because I had to do this with a very short notice I opted for selecting one of the many photographs I took during my birthday's visit last month to the old Kent & East Sussex Railway, defined as 'the country's finest example of a rural light railway.' The line gently wends its way from Tenterden -"The Jewel of The Weald" for ten and a half miles, though the unspoilt countryside of the Rother Valley, to terminate in the shadow of the magnificent National Trust castle at Bodiam.

The image illustrates a closed ticket counter from Tertenden's train station. Even I found the capture being quite vague (without any apparent indication of the course aims) in the other hand, I also think that - for many reasons, graphically it makes a clear reference to the starting point of a journey. Firstly, because that is the place where the traveler obtain a fare, but also it is the relevant door that allows you to apply for new experiences. The fact this service is unattended refers to an element of surprise. A capture with a considerable grade of poetry but also, - I have to admit, with certain levels of frustration.

My main intention for the course is to present a workshop which would explore the following 6 materials in their own isolation.

Stage 1: Paper and Cardboard
Stage 2: Wood and Balsa
Stage 3: Wire and Perspex

Once the 3 initial sketch prototypes have been completed, then students will be asked to create a higher level of complexity model during the last 2 stages. The final requirement is to design a Hybrid.

Stage 4 & 5: To create a Hybrid with the above 6 materials; an additional item such as Resin or Latex will need to be included

The purpose of the Hybrid is to explore the tangibility of the chosen materials (identifying the properties in relation of how they work with each other) e.g. Students will be asked to study a series of architectural qualities such as:

Cohesion, Transparency, Elasticity, Separation, Volume, Light, Mass, Shadows
and many more