Rothko, Herzog and de Meuron

Herzog & de Meuron"s Tate Modern Extension

Went over to Tate Modern with my Architecture Student grand-daughter who had flown in from LA to gain an insight to English thinking. Also met up with the grandson who made the Architectural Model for the Herzog & de Meuron extension. He is making precision cabinets for me and the software on his CNC router keeps resetting. From mallets and chisels to software glitches in the blink of an eye.
Loved the perspective created by the receding brickwork planes and the juxtaposition with Rodgers, Stirk, Harbour’s NEO Bankside Pavilions.
Is the lighting in the Mark Rothko gallery more gloomy? when does mean and moody lighting distract from the art?

Rodgers Stirk Harbour + Partners NEO Bankside Pavilions

Inside Out

2016 Serpentine pavilion

The 2016 Serpentine Pavilion by the Barke Ingels Group asks interesting questions about the nature of enclosure in Architecture.

Sleeping Lions

Wanting to dent their large animal feed bill London Zoo has opened 9 Bed & Breakfast suites based on Safari Lodges. Sleeping with the London Lions will cost a couple £500 a night and the Zoo is expecting to earn £750,000 per year from the venture.
There is a sustained trend for couple orientated breaks that deliver an experience achieving healthy returns on investment.
This is not the first zoo to maximise revenues in this way, the photograph shows visitors to Bristol Zoo in the 1920’s enjoying being onboard an ark on the zoo lake.

Rooftop Pavilion

One way to give your weekend guests privacy and a view, if you want somewhere more inviting to put the welcome mat get in touch.

Sustainable Design

The increasing desire to give visiting friends and family privacy has led us to design our inviting Guest Pavilions.

We can create extra rooms for your visiting guests without disturbing your home.

Stunning, self contained, private pavilions, giving you a sense of delight and pleasure from sharing a beautifully designed home with friends and family.

Our Pavilions are striking, stand alone retreats that offer you a comfortable space to open up for guests or to use yourself when no one is staying; intimate architecture contextually connected to its site that can double as a studio or home office.

Less Stress Living

Serge Chermayeff's studio built in 1954 in Cape Cod

Privacy can be difficult to achieve in a busy modern large house. Creating a home by placing linked pavilions sympathetically in their landscape not only provide privacy but allows the sequence of interior and exterior spaces to give an intimacy with the natural world. The resulting sense of freedom enables more flexible living patterns helping to defuse much of modern stress.
The thoughts of a mid century modern Architect, one of the first to connect Ecology to Architecture.

Serge Chermayeff is best known in the UK for the listed De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, the Gilbey Building, Camden and his own home, Bentley Wood House.

Keep it Simple

The worlds smallest function room, finding room for the DJ might be a challenge too far even for us.

We try To Keep It Simple when designing our Eco Pavilions. Creating visual simplicity through a thoughtful reduction of thousands of components into a home that reinforces your connection with nature.
Liveability through simplicity, avoiding cluttered home layouts that restrict your focus and distractions reducing the flow of use. And smart efficient design is used to maximise the materials used.
We are designing for clients who do not want to go through a complex design process, design in a simple framework that's easy to understand.
If you need help in realising your eco project call us today, we would like to talk to you.

Michel Roux Jr and sustainable design

Michelin Star chef, Michel Roux Jr has recently closed his Le Gavroche restaurant for 6 weeks to significantly overhaul his kitchen, from gas to Induction cooking; a £500,000 commitment.
Induction hobs are twice as efficient as gas and consume up to 40% less energy than standard electrical hobs.
We install induction hobs in our new homes and whilst they cost more initially we are determined to find new ways in reducing our long term carbon output.

Nick Lander, Financial Times 15/2/14

Flood Proof Homes

As the floods continue it’s time to learn.
A key strategy in high risk areas is to build resilient homes.  Holland has decades of creating flood proof homes, let's learn from their success.
Our floating homes and sustainable pavilions use permeable surface infrastructures and do not require the hard surface tarmac and concrete of modern housing developments, which have proved to be a major cause of the Thames Valley floods.
The rain absorbing green roofs we use have also been shown by the Dutch to slow the amount of water reaching drainage systems and rivers.