112+

PRACTICE PROFILE

HHoowwaarrdd WWaattssoonn profiles a London-basedstudio whose practice results from theinterplay of a wide range of influencesspanning contemporary culture, history,nature, landscape and the ephemeral.Working at a variety of scales from thedomestic to the urban, partners PeterThomas and Catherine du Toit demonstratea natural bent for the arts-related inundertaking collaborations with artistsand exhibition installations.

51% Studios51% Studios

Peter Thomas andCatherine du Toit.

113+

‘State of balance is at constant play in what we do – thestability of things that have only just come to rest. Thearrangement is only just fixed,’ says Peter Thomas of51% Studios, which has gained huge plaudits for itsdomestic architecture, but is equally at homecontemplating urban planning, art-led or educationalprojects. The statement lies at the heart of this smallLondon practice, led by Thomas and Catherine du Toit,as it suggests an obsession with the portrayal ofmovement through the traditionally fixed form while alsounderlining the practice’s fluid nature as it constantlyabsorbs new thoughts and influences, and integratesthem into a hugely diverse range of projects.

51% Studios officially came into being in 1995 witha commission for the Cornwall Centre for the Arts andEnvironment, but its genesis began a decade earlier atthe Architectural Association (AA) in London. StudentsThomas, du Toit and Peter Sabara exchanged ideas andbecame collaborators, continuing to work together whilemoving on to teach at the AA. Sadly, Sabara, who hasbeen recognised as a great lost talent to the world ofdesign, died in 1993, and it was left to Thomas and duToit to take their shared enthusiasms forward into formalpractice. At the AA they were influenced by NigelCoates, but not so much by the emergence of NATO(Narrative Architecture Today) as by his approach tolandscape and by his desire to fuse design andephemera together. Both Thomas and du Toit went on towork on projects for Branson Coates, Nigel Coates’

design practice, before setting up 51% Studios. Another influentialassociation that began in the world of academia was with the artistRichard Wentworth. In the mid- to late 1990s their collaborations withthe sculptor included designs for the Will Adams Environment Centrecompetition, winning third prize, and the ‘Swing’ Financial TimesMillennium Bridge competition.

During the early years of the practice, Thomas and du Toitdeveloped a language whereby design ideas are not constrained byarchitectural form or typologies, but result from the interplay of wide-ranging influences, be they from contemporary culture, history, natureand landscape, or the utterly ephemeral. The practice, which now hasan architectural staff of six, is collectively driven by an investigation ofthe possible, by new adventures, combinations and collaborations.Although ephemera play an important part in the design process, thepractice soon created a robust, whimsy-free working method that wouldsuit all scales of projects: ‘The first thing to understand is the use [of abuilding], in parallel with understanding where it is going. We don’tactually look for repetition, but subtler things, perhaps unwittingly, doget carried through. We do have a library of things, materials, but thecomposition is always varied.’ They explain that: ‘The physical model isalways the first thing that we do. There’s nothing like it to really checkthe effect of an idea. We model throughout the process to get a morevisceral realisation.’ Du Toit also believes that it is often best to showclients models rather than drawings as ‘the angle of vision of adrawing, and its foreshortening, can be distracting’.

The Cornwall Centre for the Arts and Environment in Bodmin provedto be ill-fated. It was one of the first National Lottery applications to begiven the green light. As a result, there was a political interest inmaking a statement about the value of lottery funding which forced the

Vicco’s Tower, London, 2007The steel, stiletto-shaped extension to the backof a Georgian house in London is clad in heat-treated larch, which is guaranteed to last for30 years without further treatment. The use oftimber and the sympathetic pitch of the glazedroof helped to ease the concerns of building acontemporary extension within a conservationarea, while also creating a union between theoriginal building and the garden. Thomas says:‘We used an architectural lens to frame therelationship of the site to nature, to theperpendicular of the tree.’ The extensionprojects slightly from the side of the house sothat it ‘looks around the corner’, offeringviewers from the road an invitingperpendicular strip of glazing and slice oflarch. Within, the designers recycledfloorboards from the original building, kept theold sink and used plywood wall-covering tocontinue the theme of a graceful unionbetween the existing building, the extensionand the garden. The design won a RIBARegional Award in 2008.

114+

original concept to mushroom among overblown hopesand the project never came to fruition. However, thedesign itself – an environmentally sustainable buildingimbued with flair and veracity – was a graceful, intelligentresponse to the brief and the topography. Du Toit does notlook back at the project with any bitterness: ‘It wasinfluential, showing us how to work with a nonstandardclient in a staggering landscape.’ It revealed that 51%Studios has a natural propensity to absorb and evolveinfluences and to adapt to the particularities of a site,while also pronouncing the quality of the human experience.

As the Bodmin arts centre project suggests, 51%Studios’ ideas are not cowed by scale. Large plans, suchas for the 2005 Dover Sketch Idea Competition and theongoing 18.6-hectare (46-acre) Mineral CountyAgricultural Fairgrounds development in Colorado, carry

Bridging the Playground, London, 2006above left: A paper bridge built as part of a yearlyeducational project that 51% Studios conducted with pupilsfrom Dallington School in Clerkenwell, London.

Greenhouse, London, 1999above right: While converting a dilapidated Georgiancottage into a modern family home, 51% Studios realignedthe building and introduced a skyroom, with a glazedceiling incorporating glass rafters.

Dover Sketch Idea Competition, 2005right: 51% Studios proposed redefining aspects of Dover toreconnect the town to both its sea frontage and surroundingcountryside by redirecting the passage of traffic away fromthe centre and introducing a car-free, landscaped publicspace and improved pedestrian orientation.

through a similar approach to the arts centre design, revealing that thepractice is always able to emphasise the benefits of the existinglandscape through a combination of strong, broad concepts and thedetail required to enhance personal experience.

Working on arts-related projects has continued to be a notablestrand for the practice.

Their exhibition designs include ‘Enthusiasm’ for Neil Cummingsand Marysia Lewandowska at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in2005, and they collaborated further with the same artists for ‘SocialCinema’, which formed part of the 2006 London ArchitectureBiennale. Films about London and its architecture were projected intemporary cinemas which used the fabric of London buildingsthemselves, including the Millennium Bridge. Thomas and du Toit arecurrently involved in a huge urban collaboration with the artist HannahCollins in Barcelona. Funded by the local authorities, Drawing on theCity is a multilayered community project which merges art and

Drawing on the City, Barcelona, 2007– Peter Thomas and Catherine du Toit are collaborating with artist HannahCollins on a multidimensional project backed by the Barcelona TownHall. Originally inspired by Collins’ film work with gypsies in La Minadistrict, the project links seven sites in an architectural and sculpturalwalk through the changing city. At each site, a structure evokes thesense of place through both past and present, sometimes resurfacingforgotten or secret histories. For instance, one site is the Place of Horseswhere a panelled sculpture of hooves and footprints evokes the recentpast of La Mina, where gypsy horses roamed everywhere and werecentral to everyday life and trade. Another structure is the living,nature-inspired Wall of Dreams, while at a third site a house madeentirely of doors floats on the sea, symbolising the portal for the city’smigrants. The project has been successfully exhibited and the sites willbe completed over the course of the next couple of years.

115+

Cornwall Centre for the Arts and Environment, Bodmin, Cornwall, 1995The first commission for 51% Studios was the lottery-funded prospectivearts centre for Cornwall, which was never built due to political and fundingproblems. The £7.5 million project would have covered 3,500 square metres(37,674 square feet) set within 3.24 hectares (8 acres) of landscapedgrounds. The architects responded to the famously rugged Cornishlandscape by designing a chorus of buildings that also evoked the localmonolithic standing stones, while using stripped-back materials that wouldweather with age. The contours of the landscape led down to anamphitheatre in a graceful transition from land to structure. The centrepiecewas a granite and glass court for a winter garden and performance space.As the scheme would also have been an environment centre, it led thepractice towards developing sustainable buildings using the BREEAMbenchmark system for environment design and management.

architecture to play on aspects of the city’s memories, secret historiesand places, allowing Thomas and du Toit to give full reign to their loveof ephemera and cross-association. Thomas’ remark about trying toevoke the state of things that have only just come to rest is particularlyrelevant to this project as it captures the transience of urban life at apoint when histories are still relevant even if momentum is about toshift the sense of place onwards.

The relationship with artists has also crossed into the domesticarena. 51% Studios has become well known for its innovate approachto housing, not least because of Grand Design magazine’s belatedfront-cover exposure of their 1999 Greenhouse design, involving aglazed-ceiling conversion of a dilapidated Georgian cottage. However, itis their more recent Vicco’s Tower, designed for the artist Anne KatrineDolven, that shows the practice’s ability to conclude a topographicresponse with elegance, sustainability and innovation. The glass andtimber extension to a Georgian house in London manages to be bothutterly contemporary and sympathetic to its surroundings andconsequently won a RIBA Regional Award in 2008. No two of 51%Studios’ house designs are alike. Thomas says that they are aided bythe type of client they attract: ‘The ones who choose us recognise thatin no sense will they inherit what they have already seen of our work.’Two newbuilds are now under way in London and promise to furtherillustrate the practice’s unfettered delight in new adventures.

Although Thomas and du Toit no longer teach at the AA, they havekept an interest in education, particularly through their ‘Bridging thePlayground’ series of exercises conducted with young pupils at a localschool in London, building humpback, floating, wobbly and paperbridges since 2003. Whether dealing with architecture graduates orschoolchildren, their educational purpose is the same, says Thomas:‘We do not wish to stifle. We want students to question the aesthetic,to dynamically think across disciplines. The most important thing is totry to teach an integrity to aesthetics – sustainability, community, etc;to understand the interplay between things.’

The architects cite Frederick Kiesler and Carlo Mollino as influencesbut, in truth, they are most influenced by what is immediately beforethem: ‘We continue to do things that quicken the heart. We have atremendous interest in things, how they are.’ The nobility of thispractice is such that the architects talk with the same high level ofenthusiasm whether discussing a large-scale urban plan or gettingchildren to build a bridge. They bring to every project a combination ofaesthetic integrity and delight, and seem continually thrilled by thetumult of histories, possible futures, influences and associations thathas led to each standing object – the still, permanent marker of therestless commotion. 4+

Howard Watson is an author, journalist and editor based in London. He is co-author, withEleanor Curtis, of the new 2nd edition of Fashion Retail (Wiley-Academy, 2007), £34.99. Seewww.wiley.com. Previous books include The Design Mix: Bars, Cocktails and Style (2006) andHotel Revolution: 21st-Century Hotel Design (2005), both also published by Wiley-Academy.

Text © 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 112-13 © Vegar Moen, courtesy of 51%Studios; p 112(tr) © Amos Goldreich, courtesy of 51% Studios; pp 112(r), 114(tl&b),115-17 © Coutesy of 51% Studios; p 114(tr) © Sue Barr, courtesy of 51% Studios