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2nd ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: CPD0810-27/4028150-169 Chapter 3 final (3.5)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 8/18/10 12:53 PM Page 159
Development and detail › Construction and occupationGraham Haworth
There’s a poetry in the way that we use materials. It’s trying
to pick up on poetic and creative themes. So what might be
appropriate in Snape, using lath and sandblasted brick with
resonances of the shingle beaches, is a poetic response to
that landscape.
For a different brief and context we would adopt a different
approach; so a building in central London, like the Painting
School we’re doing for the Royal College of Art, is a factory,
basically. There’s very little poetry in the use of materials
here, which are minimal and industrial. It’s very direct and
it’s going to get kicked about and it’s a totally different brief.
It would be highly inappropriate to be overtly precious in that
space but there is a sensibility about how it goes together.
We kept the outside of the building there, because we
thought the memory of what it used to be as a factory was
important, so we kept the old brick and simply inserted a
new steel object inside. At Snape there was much more stuff
to work with that’s about the history of the place. It’s about
being appropriate and making the appropriate response. We
have a working method that can accommodate a wide range
and a wide swing of approaches.
Steve Tompkins
Both Snape Maltings and the Royal College of Art are
buildings where creative processes will be happening so the
building actually can’t tell the whole story. If it did it would
choke off the main purpose, which is to have a creative
relationship with the space that you’re working with. A lot of
our projects are about that. They’re about knowing where to
stop, so that the architecture doesn’t dominate or subjugate.
Graham Haworth
They’re incomplete in that sense. They’re not complete until
they are used.
Steve Tompkins
Psychologically, creative people tend to engage more with
the space that feels more provisional, more available, more
permissive to what they’re doing.Text
2nd ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design
Job No: CPD0810-27/4028150-169 Chapter 3 final (3.5)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 8/18/10 12:54 PM Page 159