ROYAL ACADEMY SUMMER EXHIBITION

I just recieved confirmation that I will be exhibiting in this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition!! A backlit piece from my project “The Augmented Instrumentalist” will be hanging in the Architecture room. The exhibition opens to the public on the 4th June and more information can be found HERE.

PECHA KUCHA

I will be speaking at the RIBA organised Pecha Kucha event on the 7th June. I’ve made a little flyer (above) with all of the essential info and details of other speakers… It’s going to be a good one! Hope y’all can make it. More details and booking information HERE and check out more about the project I will be talking about HERE.

I’VE BEEN BAKING

… So I spent my bank holiday baking, and I don’t mean cakes! But I can assure you, it’s very tasty all the same. I’m not going to tell you what it is though… Not until it’s fully cooked, hope y’all hungry!!

COMING SOON…

The bench is now complete and ready for installation!! Get your bottoms ready for THIS … And if you like, you can see more about the project HERE

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

Here are some uber cryptic + raw renders of a little somethin’ I’m currently working on - stay tuned, the picture will emerge :) Prizes for anyone who can guess what/where/how/when it is…

BENCH IN PROGRESS

As promised, here are some sneaky peek photos of the bench in progress (thanks to Max at the Steelline workshop for the photos) - The tubes have been cut and bent and connected to the central beam with a rather nice and minimal steel fin detail, to make the tubes appear as though they are floating above the beam. Still some finishing touches and alignment to go, but we’re almost there!!!

You will be able to sit on the bench HERE in London’s new PLEASURE GARDENS as part of the London Festival of Architecture - there will be 49 other benches dotted around the park too. Go Enjoy! (from the weekend of 23-24th June). I’ll post more pictures and details as things evolve!!

PEWS AND PERCHES

A few months back, I was notified that I had won the RIBA run competition called “Pews and Perches” for which I designed a funky bench for London’s Docklands new Pleasure Gardens. The prize is to fabricate and install the bench in time for the LONDON FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE and of course the London 2012 OLYMPICS. The bench is currently in production and some workshop photos will be published shortly! Until then, add the event to your LFA calendar HERE and follow the events that I’m hoping to attend HERE.

“Long before festivals as we know them today, Pleasure Gardens were summertime venues where people from all walks of life converged for entertainment – to listen to music, amble, drink, flirt, sit and immerse themselves in culture. Public seating is an important part of the Pleasure Gardens concept, allowing people to stop, take in the atmosphere, or just do a spot of people watching.”

[From the LFA website]

AD

The latest Architectural Design book is now out and I am featured in it! :) In a section titled “Distinguishing Between the Drawn and the Made” my tutor Bob Sheil writes about ways that ‘making’ can inform the architectural design process in terms of developing and refining architectural performance. This approach of ‘design through making’ is something which I started to explore during my time studying with UNIT 23 and it’s an approach that I continue to interrogate in my work in practice. This edition of AD is certainly well worth a read (well all AD books are) and you can buy it HERE - (p.s:….If you want to see my drawings skip to pages 136 and 140 teehee) - also check out Bob’s other recent book HERE - Add to basket…

DOIN’ STUFF

Hehe, a very sneaky/cryptic preview of my evening’s efforts :) but what is it? Prizes for correct guesses! And… If you haven’t already then check out my SITE

EKM WORKS

THIS is my new website, freshly updated with a bunch of new projects, images and a more memorable URL - enjoy! More is on the way shortly, just be patient and watch this space!! :)

GRUNDTVIGS KIRKE

So, a few weekends ago I went to Copenhagen and I saw THIS building by architect Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint (more about this man HERE). Grundtvigs Kirke is a building that I have been told to visit for many years by many people and I’m glad that I finally did. My photos don’t quite capture just how cool it is. It’s made entirely from one type of brick (floor, walls, vaults, everything) which made for some interesting details and it ‘sounds’ incredible. There was a HUGE pipe organ at one end which I wasn’t lucky enough to hear in action, but I can guarantee that it sounds awesome. One loud clap lasted around 12 seconds (I bet the other visitors loved me walking around clapping like a maniac!) The light was fantastic too - I think it had something to do with the long thin windows, low angle of the sun and warmth of the yellow brick. The church sits at the end of a long tree lined axis which runs alongside a very orderly looking cemetery (I didn’t walk too far down this pathway, it was too cold), but you can see the layout and the shadow of the tree lined pathway on Google maps right HERE and my pic above in which you can just about see the church aligned nicely at the end (this is an area with a lot of verticality going on!). I could write an essay about this building, but I’ll save that for a later date as it’s 3am and I need to get some sleep, but all in all Grundtvigs Kirke is an amazing building and certainly worth a visit. I need to visit more great buildings, pictures + drawings just aren’t enough. Suggestions on a postcard please…

EGG HUNT 2012

The EGG HUNT is an ‘egg’stra special (sorry) London based event which launched last week and ‘egg’xhibits (sorry) over 200 large eggs designed by artists, architects and designers! The picture above shows the egg submitted by my architecture office WEA and features some of my nifty Rhino work :) not to mention the ‘egg’stra (sorry) special design skills of our part 1 and part 2 architects and the ‘egg’straordinary (sorry) making skills of our modelshop! Now go FIND it + send me a photo!

DOODLE

here is something I never finished for the final show last year and only just got around to looking at it again - It’s part of the AUGMENTED INSTRUMENTALIST project. This is an interior perspective looking out from the small listening chamber, towards the Adriatic Sea at one of the water inlets. I’m glad I have worked on this again, but there are a whole series of drawings that I want to do which better explain the structure of the building and how the overall structural concept plays an essential role in the acoustic performance as determined by the acoustic simulations and prototypes I tested last year… I’m not sure how best to do this yet as it has to be done in a way which is bespoke to the project, anyway, it’s something I can keep ticking away in the background and will post any new doodles on the blog for comments + critique! Stay tuned…

WHAT’S [S]HE BUILDING IN THERE?

So… I’ve been experimenting/playing with Grasshopper recently, for use on a few interesting little projects which are all starting to look rather exciting! I want to continue using Grasshopper for things other than creating whacky shapes, as it’s a very powerful tool and I have only really scratched the surface before…

Anyway… I can’t give too much away at the moment, but here is a sneak preview to whet your appetite! All will be revealed in the coming weeks (fingers crossed!)

NIGHT SWIM

from AMON TOBIN to take us into the new year! I won’t be swimming this evening, but I chose this track as it’s got lots of eerie sounds which remind me of clocks winding backwards and bells going mental (?!?!) which seems appropriate at a time like this, when we reflect on the past year/s and start making plans for the future… ENJOY!

My most important resolution for 2012 is to squeeze as much juice as I can manage from my (very limited) free time, in order to keep my various exciting projects of variable dimensions rolling on… Look forward to lots more blog posts about such things in the new year! Also, I managed to squeeze in a link to my RSS feed on the right, CHECK IT »