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Refurbishment of a luxury apartment in Knightsbridge, London. We renovated the whole house and added a glass box extension to the rear to link the kitchen / dining room with the garden.
Aviary, London Zoo, 1962-65
Designers; Cedric Price, Frank Newby, Lord Snowdon.
More on Cedric Price here.
For Konstantin Mel'nikov's iconic design, with numerous photos, sketches, models, and reconstructions, please see: wp.me/pgGDG-2Tk
For Konstantin Mel'nikov's iconic design, with numerous photos, sketches, models, and reconstructions, please see: wp.me/pgGDG-2Tk
Architects; Terry Farrell & Nicholas Grimshaw, late 60s.
(Farrell Grimshaw Partnership 1965-1980)
Younger generation may not know that these two architects started their joint practice in 1965 which lasted till 1980. They also worked on ‘service pods/clusters’ for London housing. Their work was innovative and high-tech, very much in the traditions of Archigram.
It is obvious now that both architects had their own routes plotted which they wanted to follow separately. Grimshaw continued with high-tech approach while Farrell was more eclectic and toyed with the post modernism for a while.
This apartment scheme was one of their earliest projects. The central load bearing core and perimeter columns allowed great deal of flexibility of floor plans. Ribbon windows with rounded corners gave good views over the Regents Park. Nick Grimshaw lived in one of the apartments for six years. This building was listed as Grade II in 2001.
Architect: Martin Richardson, Mid to late 70s.
Martin Richardson (1929-2001) worked in LCC on schemes like Roehampton in late 50s and then moved on to design prefabricated large concrete slab housing schemes including the disastrous consortium housing scheme at Hunslet Leeds (demolished a while ago), using large concrete slabs.
This must have proved a shocking experience for him, since after a brief absence, he returned to housing with some sensitive urban designs for social housing in Milton Keynes in early to late 70s.
His first scheme at Great Linford (1973-77) was an important contribution to the housing debate and development within Milton Keynes and the country.
The second scheme at Bradwell Common followed soon after, made a great contribution to future schemes and to this day remains “happy but not clownish”.
In my opinion he was one the few British architects who saw the wrong turn the housing design had taken and within his lifetime sat down and ‘redefined’ objectives. His designs started to move towards ‘everyday’ housing closer to users' aspirations, producing schemes which looked ‘ordinary’ but were architecturally intelligent and remained quintessentially British.
He once wrote; “What is attempted is something which is reminiscent, not reproduction, expressive but not expressionistic, intelligent but not intellectual, happy but not clownish, sensible but not prosaic, functional but not functionalistic, useful but not utilitarian, economical but not mean.”