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Chevron motifs taken from military uniforms are interspersed around this cafe at London’s Royal Arsenal Riverside by Paul Crofts Studio (+ slideshow).

London-based Paul Crofts Studio referenced the area’s history of producing arsenal when designing the Cornerstone Cafe in part of a former munitions store.

“The warehouse building was part of a larger complex of munitions factories supplying all the armed forces during the First World War,” Paul Crofts told Dezeen.

Created by tessellating wood and white solid surface tiles, the chevron patterns that cover one wall and the counter front are based on the V-shaped badges used on army and navy uniforms to indicate rank or length of service.

“The inspiration for the chevron pattern was derived from the insignia on military uniforms and the repetition of the pattern was inspired by archive photos showing the endless stacks of the munition shells,” said Crofts.

The studio stripped back the interior to the original brick and render wall finishes and installed wooden seating booths with green upholstery along one side.

In the centre of the cafe, oak tables with white powder-coated metal legs are printed with grey and white arrows that alternate with the wood.

Various shapes and sizes of Paul Crofts’ Nonla pendant lights are suspended from the ceiling, positioned between the white truss beams.

Blackboard menus are mounted on the walls between strips of hot-rolled steel above oak display boxes for storing crockery and dry snacks.

Paul Crofts Studio also recently completed a bakery with a graphic based on a magpie nest etched into the wooden counter.

The most popular cafes we’ve published lately include a Bucharest coffee shop with 276 cups suspended from the ceiling and a waterside bistro in Vietnam with a roof supported by conical bamboo columns.

Photography is by Chris Tubbs.

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Paul Crofts Studio sent us the project description below:

The cafe can be found in the industrial setting of the former factories and warehouses of Royal Arsenal Riverside, an area famed since the seventeenth century for producing munitions for the Royal Navy and armed forces. The building has been stripped back to a shell, while retaining character and authenticity.

Paul Crofts Studio’s scheme for the cafe leaves original features intact and exposed, while inserting new elements to contrast with the existing fabric of the building.

A chevron motif derived from the insignia on military uniforms can be found throughout the scheme, seen on the table tops, oak display boxes, and the counter and display wall. Banquettes upholstered in a military green create a delineation between old and new, running in a continuous line from the window reveals to the waiter station by the main door.

Bespoke solid oak tables, featuring the chevron motif screen-printed in a mixture of grey and white, have metal powder coated legs inspired by an industrial workbench. The Nonla lights by Paul Crofts – a contemporary interpretation of a traditional utility light fitting – appears in various sizes, while unfinished hot-rolled steel is used to line the kitchen walls and for the wall-mounted menus.

The scheme’s focal point is provided by the service counter and display wall, the design of which provides a deliberately new intervention to contrast with the rough surfaces of the existing interior. Created from a combination of solid wood and CNC-routed HI-MACS solid surface material in pure white, the chevron motif is inset in an irregular pattern to take the design from wood on one side, to white on the other. Display shelves are edged with a brass trim.

The industrial look is leavened by the use of clean white and warm timber, with homely café chairs by Hay and chalk boards behind the counter adding to the relaxed atmosphere.

The post Cornerstone Cafe by
Paul Crofts Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

by Gavin Lucas Made from just 10 ingredients, Hawt Sauce is the result of a year’s experimentation and is the very first product to emerge from Adam Brooks’ start-up culinary enterprise, Holloway Kitchen. “It’s unusual in that it’s very thick, almost like a…

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Opinion: in this week’s column, Sam Jacob argues against the resurrection of Crystal Palace in London and urges us to “resist the pull of loss and nostalgia”.

When the dead return, the world of the living is thrown into turmoil, as we’ve just seen in French TV show The Returned that’s been spooking out British audiences for the last eight weeks. In The Returned, the undead are not zombies out to eat your brain, but far more puzzling entities. They are confused themselves at their return to the living.

The blurry distinction between states of being alive, dead and undead might be tropes of supernatural dramas and horror films, but their questions are part and parcel of the everyday landscape of architecture and cities.

It’s just this situation that’s suggested by plans revealed earlier this week for the resurrection of Crystal Palace in London by what the press refers to as “a Chinese billionaire”.

The original Crystal Palace was built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. Designed by Joseph Paxton, it was a huge iron and steel structure, itself a technological triumph of the Victorian age. It housed a vast assemblage of the bounty and riches of imperial Britain and the marvels it could produce. After the exhibition ended, its contents were distributed to seed the museums of Exhibition Road.

The structure itself was dismantled, transported and rebuilt in Sydenham where it failed to ever really settle. Despite boasting that it hosted the world’s first cat show, visitor numbers were poor. Its decline was dramatically ended when it burnt to the ground in 1936. The architecture gone, its presence remains in the huge plinth that sits at the top of the park and the name bequeathed both to the area and its football team. The building’s absence, even as its name is remembered, is ever present.

Despite not being here, the Crystal Palace remains highly significant architecturally. Crystal Palace exists as a foundation myth for a certain idea of British architecture. High-tech claimed it as an inheritance, as part of the tradition of glass-and-steel engineering that eventually became the Centre Pompidou, the Lloyds building and so on.

It also gave us another architectural thread that winds through Modernism: it was in the Crystal Palace that German architect Gottfried Semper encountered the structure that was to become his primitive hut. A colonial reconstruction of a native hut, in other words, acted as his cypher for the essential. That it should take the apogee of the industrial revolution – the immense wealth and reach of high colonialism – to invent this primitivism is odd in itself. Though of course, the idea of the primitive can only be conceived from a position of un-primitivism.

So what of the idea to reconstruct the Crystal Palace? Its own history of building and rebuilding on a different site suggests it might be a more likely subject than many for this treatment, but perhaps Semper’s Primitive Hut inside a crystalline industrialised structure might make us think twice.

Any return – of history, primitiveness or anything buried in the past – can only be as perplexing as the undead are to the living. What would you do with your reanimated great great great great grandma? And what would she do in the here and now, brought back without her consent into the present, only to die again?

Even something as outwardly simple as food: think of all those artisanal breads, of peasant food remade as luxury dining on heirloom fruit and veg. These returned artefacts are only possible because of a highly complex, super-refined culture. When these things return to us, they return in a drastically altered form. Even if they are entirely the same in ingredients, shape, size, texture and so on, they are completely different. Re-animation can’t bring back the original but rather invents a new form of the present.

These plans for the Crystal Palace are not unique. In fact, we are surrounded by zombie architecture, re-animated Frankenstein’s monsters: Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, the Dresden Frauenkirche, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House, to name but a few. The Euston Arch and The Skylon are just other examples of the past that threatens to resurface in the present.

The state that this returned architecture takes is an idealised version of itself. The Villa Savoye, for example, spent very little time as the house it was originally intended to be: it was a cow shed for longer and a derelict building for even longer. That we choose to return it to an imaginary state is hardly an innocent decision. Rather, it’s one loaded with a contemporary idea of what that particular building and architecture in general is. We remake history in our own image.

Buildings exist in a time as well as space. They rot, crumble, break and leak. They require constant repair. In our quest for the authenticity of historic architecture, we often find ourselves running into Theseus’s paradox. It runs like this: on his return to Athens, the hero’s ship was placed in dry dock as a monument and in seaworthy condition. Over time, pieces of the boat were replaced as it rotted. At a certain point, the paradox emerged: if none of the original material remained, was this still Theseus’s boat? As it is for classical philosophers, so it is for contemporary conservationists. Where, in other words, does architectural or historical authenticity reside?

There is already a replica of the Crystal Palace, but in Dallas, not south London. It houses a technology office and data centre and its lobby contains a reproduction of the Crystal Fountain. The Infomart, as it is called, was honoured with a visit in 1986 by that renowned British architecture expert Prince Charles. In promotional material, the Infomart’s developer was quoted with what must be some kind of garbled and/or fabricated anointment: “England’s parliament declared the Infomart official successor to the Crystal Palace.” This of course reveals how history itself can be made a commodity. The statement shows how the Infomart’s developer attempts to fold the aura of the original Crystal Palace into its spec development.

Behind the innocent claims of honouring the past and righting wrongs done unto culture by acts of god or the wrecking ball, there is always another agenda. History acts as a convenient alibi for contemporary motivations. Though it presents itself as an innocent act, philanthropic even, we should remember Churchill saying that history is written by the victors. History, in other words, is not something that happened in the past but a function of contemporary power. Reanimating its form in the present is equally a function of contemporary power.

We may mourn the past. We may feel intense sorrow at the gaping voids left in the present by things that have vanished, but we should resist the pull of these feelings of loss and nostalgia. The Crystal Palace functions perfectly well in its absence (perhaps even more so than if it were still here). Its return as a ghost, zombie or otherwise undead form of architecture should be seen for what it is: a ghoulish pull on our tender heartstrings in the service of large scale development. Its construction, like the Infomart in its cheap cartooning of history, would only make our sense of loss greater.

Sam Jacob is a director of architecture practice FAT, professor of architecture at University of Illinois Chicago and director of Night School at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, as well as editing www.strangeharvest.com.

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A dilapidated car showroom in north-west London has been transformed into this flexible workspace by Hackney designers the Decorators and community initiative Meanwhile Space (+ slideshow).

Meanwhile Space set up the communal office for creatives to hire. Cottrell House is located on the ground floor of a vacant building close to the stadium and arenas in Wembley.

“The design of the space responds to the context of Wembley, whose landscape is regularly transformed by the large scale events of Wembley stadium,” said designers The Decorators.

A central table in the shape of the nearby national stadium can be surrounded by blue curtains to create a private meeting room.

The unit also contains a cafe, a shared studio, eight fixed desks and hot-desking spaces, which are hired out to more than one occupant to use at different times.

Metal-framed desks backed with peg board can be wheeled outside and used as stalls so designers can flaunt their wares during an event at the stadium.

Black and white tiles randomly pattern the floor, while smaller ones cover the circular columns in a similar style.

The space was built by volunteers in exchange for free membership at the venue.

More unusual offices on Dezeen include one where walls are peeled back to reveal meeting rooms and a Stockholm branding and design agency with surfaces that resemble cardboard boxes.

Photos are by Dosfotos.

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The following information was sent to us by the designers:

Cottrell House is an enterprise space in Wembley set up by Meanwhile Space and initiated by Brent Council to support local start-up businesses and entrepreneurs with affordable workspace.

Cottrell House overlooks the fast paced, large scale development of Wembley City and is almost invisible amongst the shadows of it’s grand structures. In these shadows, meanwhile projects like Cottrell House are providing local alternatives to inaccessible and intangible large scale development.

For this project The Decorators worked with Meanwhile Space to convert the ground floor of a prominent, long term vacant, building on Wembley Hill Road.

This former retail unit was rearranged to provide a small cafe, one shared studio for rent, eight fixed desks for hire and hot-desking space, catering for different needs and budgets.

The space was built with volunteers from Meanwhile Space’s Coming Soon Club, who gave time to the project in exchange for free membership days at Cottrell House.

The design of the space responds to the context of Wembley, whose landscape is regularly transformed by the large scale events of Wembley stadium.

A central round table with the profile of the stadium was built to give room to the many other things Wembley has to offer beyond its football matches.

The self-contained desk units can be wheeled outside and reconfigured as market stalls to provide an opportunity for makers of Wembley to sell and promote their work.

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and Meanwhile Space appeared first on Dezeen.

This sexual health clinic by London studio Urban Salon features an enormous green cat on the wall and a mobile referencing sexual organs.

Slotted beneath two railway arches in south London, the Burrell Street Sexual Health Centre was designed by Urban Salon to provide a non-clinical environment that encourages more people to come in for a check up.

The architects worked alongside artists Arnold Goron, Allison Dring and Martin McGrath to add a series of colourful graphics and motifs. The two suspended mobiles hang above the heads of patients in the waiting room, while abstract wallpapers based on sexual puns and imagery cover the ceilings in the consultation rooms.

“The brief was to create a welcoming clinic, which had a look and feel that was very different from the standardised hospital environment to help break down taboos around the nature of the clinic,” explains the studio.

The reception and waiting areas are positioned behind a new glass facade, which is screened with graphics to protect the privacy of patients. A long table stretches across the space and offers coffees and newspapers.

A looping double-height corridor leads through to 16 consultation rooms, each with blackboard-clad doors that allow practitioners to chalk their names across the surface.

Extra rooms for counselling are tucked away at the back, plus stairs lead up to a 120-seat teaching auditorium on the first floor.

Other clinics to feature on Dezeen include one in a Japanese shopping centre and one designed to look like a cluster of smaller buildings. See more clinics and health centres on Dezeen »

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Here’s some more information from Urban Salon:

Urban Salon’s Burrell Street Sexual Health Centre opens for business

Urban Salon’s first project for the NHS, the Burrell Street sexual health centre has been completed and has opened to the public. The clinic is run by Guy’s and St Thomas’ Trust in London.

The project came out of a design competition that engaged designers and architects from outside the healthcare specialism. The brief was to transform two railway arches in Burrell Street, Southwark and create a welcoming clinic, which had a look and feel that was very different from the standardised hospital environment to help break down taboos around the nature of the clinic.

The spaces at the front of both arches are used for registering and waiting for appointments. The waiting room is welcoming and informal and features a communal table for visitors to read newspapers and drink complimentary coffee. Located next to the full height glazing to the street, the waiting area incorporates graphics that strike the balance between allowing views into reception from the exterior and protecting visitors’ privacy as they sit in the waiting room.

Circulation in each arch is arranged around the central pier that supports the two arches, creating a central circulation loop that is double height to maximise natural daylight and create a generous space. The consultation rooms are located off this space and the doors to the consultation rooms are finished in blackboard laminate that is used by clinical staff to write their names on in chalk when in use.

To put visitors at ease, the consultation rooms are divided into two separate areas – a warm and conversational space at the front to encourage discussion that can be screened off from the clean and fresh clinical section at the rear that is used for examination. In addition to the consultation rooms, there are two rooms used by health advisors for counselling. Located away from the busier parts of the clinic, these rooms have sofas, lower light levels and Eames Elephants chairs for when children are present with their parents.

Throughout the clinic, we commissioned art to create a positive and welcoming atmosphere that puts users at ease. In the waiting room, the artist, Arnold Goron created two suspended mobiles comprising forms that are reminiscent of sexual organs. The pieces gently rotate and are visible from the street. Each of the sixteen consultation rooms feature brightly coloured ceiling art developed by artist/designer, Allison Dring. These artworks cover the entire ceiling and take sexual puns and imagery as their theme. The ceiling art is designed to be read from the examination couch and to slowly reveal themselves to the viewer. Graphics designed by Martin McGrath that references the ceiling art and provides a friendly tone of voice is used for wayfinding signage.

A 120 seat auditorium has been created on the first floor for use for teaching, internal meetings and to hire out to outside organisations. The ceiling of the auditorium is curved to fit the curve of the arch.

Since its opening, the clinic has proved popular attracting high numbers of visitors and has generated positive feedback. Comments have included ‘A lovely new building’, ‘I was impressed with the waiting room as it had a welcoming atmosphere unlike most hospital waiting rooms’, and ‘interesting cat theme…’.

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by Urban Salon appeared first on Dezeen.