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F E A T U R E S
area of the city, symbolic for their social
and economic history, destroyed and lost
forever. They had begun to plant flowers
and paint shutters in order to soften the
environment. We were brought in to
look at the social problems as an example
of wider housing problems across the
country. There was a tax incentive to
demolish the buildings and build new, so
we had to devise a way in which we could
restore the buildings at a lower cost. The
nomination gave us the opportunity to
highlight these social issues and we went
into the houses, cleared the spaces and
used what we found to refurbish the
houses with new fireplaces, doorknobs,
and titles. Part of the project includes the
Granby Workshop, a social enterprise
which produces and sells handmade
products for homes, and has created a
legacy for the project, the area and the
people who live there.
What is Assemble currently
working on, and how do you work
together as a group?
We continue to do smaller furniture-
related projects alongside bigger building
developments. Currently we are
redesigning a building façade along the
Victoria train line as part of a Transport
for London project. We have just won
a competition to transform a series of
buildings into a new public art gallery
for Goldsmiths University, which we are
very excited about and will be our biggest
project to date. When a new project
comes to light at least two members of
the team have to agree to take it on, and
everyone is working on multiple projects
with different combinations of individuals,
enabling us to share ideas and encompass
different working practices. We are
interested in the role of the architect
reclaiming it so that it is not too dissimilar
to that of the Gothic mason. We are
trying to explore the balance between
designing on the computer and putting to
work the hammer and nails.
How do you feel about housing
and the future of architecture in
the UK?
It is a challenging moment, and housing
is very complex. Architecture doesn’t
have a public voice and there is little
confidence in it as the agent for change,
but there are more powerful players than
ever. Over the last five years architecture
has moved away from a pure focus on
buildings and now encompasses more
enlightened planning and policy. There
is a culture in which people don’t value
the time and ideas of the architect and
many people are giving away their time
and ideas for free in order to develop
their career. Whilst studying I admired
architects who made beautiful buildings,
and now I care more about those who
have an interest in the decision-making
process and how things are built. We are
increasingly interested in the source of
the choices and how this affects the brief
and the overall project. A few of us teach
at universities, and I teach at The Cass
Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design
in Whitechapel, which provides a useful
space to interrogate these issues. It is an
exciting time, and living in London, we are
directly affected by the cost of housing
and housing problems. Whilst challenging,
it feels like we have had the opportunity
to work together as architects in the first
instance because of these challenging
circumstances.
Building the studio