Architectural Design

164 | 165

1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design

Job No: PD0710-67/4028

Chapter 3 final (3.5)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 12:24 PM Page 165

Development and detail › Construction and occupation

Project: The London Library

Location: London, UK

Architect: Haworth Tompkins

Date: 2010

Sectional perspective. Haworth

Tompkins populated their drawings

for the project with literary figures

such as Agatha Christie; Truman

Capote; Alfred, Lord Tennyson and

Charles Dickens.

Interview summary

For Haworth Tompkins, consideration of the occupied life

of their buildings is integral to their design process, so much

so that they consider the building to be incomplete until it

is used: both occupied and a little worn at the edges. The

design of buildings that are able to cope with change, both

daily and over the lifetime of the building, fits particularly

well with many of their clients, who are in the business of art

production: visual, theatrical and musical. Dialogue with the

client is carefully developed from the outset to improve the

architects’ understanding of the way that the building must

be designed to fit the way that it will be occupied.

Haworth Tompkins’ work demonstrates a deep

understanding of the effect of materials and how they are

put together, but also a playfulness in the way that they

are used.

Collaboration is key: Haworth Tompkins explore parallels

between the craft of the architect and that of the contractor

and the artist-collaborators; and also between the production

of the client, the artist-collaborators and the contractor.

Where skills are shared, opportunities are taken to blur the

boundaries between their roles. The architect, the client and

artist-collaborators are given opportunities to contribute to

the building, making informed and intelligent connections

between design, construction and occupation.

‘Why do they want to commission a building and work with us? When you

start looking at that, you’re seeing what your value is, that they are interested

in doing something that changes the way they use a building, the way their

organisation works, the way they think and experience their day to day.’

Graham Haworth, Haworth Tompkins

Text

1st ProofTitle: BA: Architectural Design

Job No: PD0710-67/4028

Chapter 3 final (3.5)_.qxd:layouts to chapter one 7/24/10 12:25 PM Page 165