ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
Chortlon Picture House
This project was initiated by Chorlton Community Land Trust in a bid to buy a prominent local landmark in the centre of town to avoid the land being developed into soulless retirement flats. The building has an unusual history, built in the early 1920s as a cinema, it’s tiered seats are currently occupied by the coffins of Co-op Funeralcare. The original neo-baroque facade was wrapped in a brick skin in the midst of minimal ‘60s modernism.
Our research sought to provocate local residents and reveal the potential of the structure hidden within. The clay model evokes the current fragility of the existing structures fate, whilst new elements are added to signify its return to public life - a balcony overlooking the street and a large opulent roof light above the new community hall. The project was part of a funding campaign which raised £350k.
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Editional Studio
Our Studio! We converted a much loved balloon shop into our studio space on Beech Road in Chorlton. Stripping out the old fittings, uncovering windows and restoring the original charm of the shop. We designed the frontage and interiors, working in a frugal way, leaving the old floor boards and the white plaster exposed allowing the new insertions and furniture to speak.
As well as serving as the studio, we want to be part of the community in which we live and to make architecture more accessible . We are (normally) open and you’re most welcome to drop in to view the ever changing display of work-in-progress.
Photography by Zora Kuettner©
Brookhouse Kitchen, Kent
The design of two interiors in a picturesque Grade II listed tudor cottage for a cookery writer. Originally built as four workers cottages, the house has gradually merged in to a rambling sequence of rooms. The project reinforces this process, removing a wall between the kitchen and hallway opening up the space at the heart of the house. Two offset chamfered timber posts were inserted and a thin, red concrete floor cast. Bespoke oak panelled kitchen units were designed to meld around the crooked interior.
Collaborators : James Hills
Photography by James Hills©
William Sutton Prize
The Roving Retrofit Workshop
A project that aims to work with housing associations and residents to retrofit and upgrade their homes by providing access to knowledge, skills and training from an expert design and build team. Through hands-on workshops, residents can reduce their carbon consumption and energy bills and go on to train to undertake construction work and qualify as green retrofit contractors.
Highly Commended 2021
The Roving Retrofit Comes to Town!
Antepavillion Competition Entry 2019
Cast in pewter, the sculpture borrows from functional forms of the industrial past repurposed into a delicate, decorative crown above the wharf. It is a monument to the way the aesthetics of industry are harnessed by the forces of regeneration, a fragile display of a broader political nostalgia.
The sculpture is made on site; the crucible lit, the pewter melted and the modulated structure cast. It acts as both a beacon and a celebration of making. The beauty of the material is that it can be endlessly re-cast and an integral part of this proposal is its re-making. Each month, one segment is transformed into tablewares or souvenirs for sale and so the antepavilion continues.
The installation is only complete when it’s no longer there. The proposal revels in inevitable temporariness, celebrating making, disassembly and dissemination, as much as the installation itself.
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Artist Co-Housing, Yorkshire
The design of six studio houses aiming to attract young creatives to a remote area of the Yorkshire Dales to live and work collectively.
Located on a prominent corner, a small shop acts as a grand front door to the building and exhibits the work of resident artists & makers. Ground floor work spaces open out through tall workshop doors on to a communal yard between the two buildings; a sheltered space for large scale working and an area for collective celebration.
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Rough rubble stone walls, typical of the locality create a sturdy base ready for knocking around in the workshop, whilst above a timber frame structure sits, left exposed, adding a lightness for living in. The living rooms in the high roof structure look out over the hills.
Barbican Exhibition, London
Outreach + Education
As part of an education outreach programme the exhibition ´Towards the Mean : Sampling Britishness Today’ was designed for Barbican Centre, London.
Inspired by the work of Francis Galton, photographic portraits were taken in the photobooth and projected as a layered composition on to the wall of the entrance foyer. This striking collage of portraits allows the viewer to consider the image of what it is to be British today. The work was produced in collaboration with the artist Marianne Holm Hansen and electronic score accompanied the piece by musicians of The Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Garden Room Extension
A modest extension to a private house, improving the organisation of the ground floor and its relationship with the garden. Inspired by the client’s fondness of an existing serving hatch, the garden room retains as much of the existing structure as possible to reduce material consumption as well as costs, but in doing so creates intricately woven spaces and layered look-throughs. A large opening is made in front of the cooker that steps down to form a bench for sitting and eating whilst enjoying the view.
