TCA Featured in Monocle

Its great to see TCA's @chapterldn Kings Cross project featured in @monoclemagazine 's May issue. The article 'Brave New Dorm' outlines the recent boom in the student-housing sector and how architects and designers are rising to the challenge of creating 'sleek spaces designed to foster connections'. The prominent narrative of the scheme, highlighted in the article, is one of finding a sense of place and 'soul'

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTHUFRcjC4P/

TCA Kew House Extension

As part of my role at Tigg Coll Architects I have been developing the design for a house extension in Kew. Please find the link to the TCA blog below and please feel free to comment.

https://drawinspiration.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/kew-house-extension/

Tigg + Coll Architects Competition Entry

As part of my role as an architectural assistant at Tigg + Coll Architects I was part of a team of 3 to produce a competition entry for a cafe and function space in Seaford.

Please follow the link below and feel free to comment...

https://drawinspiration.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/seaford-competition-entry/

https://twitter.com/tiggcollarch

Yew Trees

I have been revisiting some of my earlier work this week and found this image of my Winchester project as part of Horizon Scanning module in the MSc. Architectural Technology and Design. This was the first project where I really stared to see how effective contour modeling can be for sites with complex topography.

Vitra Design Museum

This post relates to a trip I took at the start of the year but have only found the time to post it onto the blog this weekend. In January I visited the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein and was overwhelmed by the architectural petri dish created by Vitra. 

The most iconic buildings on the site are Frank Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum, Zaha Hadid’s fire station and the more recent VitraHaus by Herzog and De Meuron. I didn’t realise until the night before the trip that the campus was home to Tadao Ando’s first building outside of Japan which unexpectedly became the highlight of my trip.

Ando’s use of axis and approach is at its most powerful at the Vitra Campus. A path guides you around Gehry’s buildings to view its deconstrutivism from every aspect and to reveal the subtle concrete wall of Ando’s building. The proportions of the building used the consistent ratios of 2:1 and its scale is distinctly human in all elements.

An exhibition about Alvar Aalto and his works in product design and architecture called “Second Nature” was on when we visited the museum. The exhibition made the visitor realise the scale of work produced by Aalto and the implications it had on design worldwide. The exhibition was split into four sections concerning his early work, his relationship with art, extent of his furniture designs and finally his international architectural ascent.    

Source: http://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailseiten/aalto.html

I would highly recommend visiting the campus as it is somewhat rare to view such a quantity of buildings by notable architects within such close proximity to one another. 

The Observatory: 'A Place To Look In - A Place To Look Out'

The SPUD Group have been posting some excellent photos of "The Observatory" competition winning entry over the last few days. It would be a lie if I said that there are no feelings of jealousy when looking at the completed project, however, I do think the result is fantastic, atmospheric and a great place for artists to do their work. 

Congratulations to the winning team and the SPUD Group for making projects like this happen.

Taken from the "The Observatory" Facebook page

Taken from the "The Observatory" Facebook page

New Years in Iceland

I welcomed in the New Year of 2015 in Iceland and found the landscape and architecture of the country awe-inspiring and magical.

The main architectural attraction of Reykjavik is Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran church standing at 73 meters tall by architect Guðjón Samúelsson.

Hallgrímskirkja Church 

The viewing platform at the top is the perfect place to watch the late winter sunrise or early winter sunset of Iceland. Its the perfect place for an areal view of the diverse and colourful architectural typologies below.

View from Viewing Platform 

One of my favourite images was an unexpected one of an isolated toilet block located in Thingvellir. It sat above a fracture where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet and we got there at twilight during a heavy snow storm.

Photo by Paul Colfer

The image below is just one of a 1000 photos I took of the Icelandic landscape.

Photo by Paul Colfer

Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age

Todays lunch break was an inspirational one with a visit to “Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age” at the Barbican. The exhibition included a diverse range of subject matter from the banal vernacular of America’s Deep South to Lucien Hervé's experiential images of the works of Le Corbusier. The exhibition starts with the birth of modernism in the 1930's but this is not the overriding idea of the work. The pervasive theme throughout the gallery is the exploration of buildings and structures of their time and unique observations through photography. I would highly recommend a visit if your in the Barbarian area. 

Nadav KanderChongqing XI, Chongqing Municipality, 2007

Lucien Herve
High Court of Justice Chandigarh

Coalville Town Centre Retail Park

Marchini Curran Associates have recently submitted a proposal for Coalville Town Centre to planning. I was closely involved in the design process alongside the project architect at mc-a.

http://mc-a.co.uk/architecture/coalville-town-centre/

Open House London 2014

This year I volunteered for Open House London as a guide on Burntwood School by Alford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) on Saturday 20th September. I used the volunteer pass to visit various other buildings with the Skinner Trevino House on Saturday night and Mayfield Road on Sunday morning, both of which were by the same architect, Luis Trevino. On Sunday afternoon Nicola Caiquo and I visited Dorset Road by Sam Tisdall and The Leadenhall Building by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to offer a variation in scale from everything else we visited. 

The highlight of the weekend was observing how engaged the general public were with both new buildings and old. One particular group I guided around Burntwood School were past students of the school in the 1960’s and it was their first time back since they graduated. 

The assembly hall and pool building, designed by Sir Leslie Martin, has been retained and it is their relationship with the new performing arts building and sports hall that had the greatest effect on this particular group. They commented on how the performing arts building is a 21st century interpretation of Sir Leslie Martin’s adjacent assembly hall. The group’s collective memory of the assembly halls distinct veneer smell instantly placed them into their student mind and numerous stories were shared. A similar experiential discussion occurred in the pool building and I felt privileged to be a part of this shared spatial memory. 

Sir Leslie Martin’s wrote that "Architects must respond to the old forms and materials and perceive their true intent in their own age, and then, remembering everything, start again. This is the essential intention of tradition." AHMM stuck to this philosophy through continuing some forms used by Martin but developing new forms that respond to the technical developments in precast concrete and the specific brief for Burntwood School.

Burntwood School Tiles

Burntwood School Canopy

Sir Leslie Martin's Pool at Burntwood School

Sir Leslie Martin's Assembly Hall at Burntwood

Stairway at Dorset Road

Mayfield Road Interior

View from the Leadenhall Building