Hasta La Ideas

Slideshow: no two items of furniture or pieces of tableware are the same in the dining room that British artist Martin Creed has designed at London restaurant Sketch.

The Gallery is the first in a series of artist-designed spaces planned at the multi-restaurant venue.

Marble tiles zig-zag across the floor, while squares and stripes are painted in bold colours across the walls.

Read all our stories about restaurants and bars here.

Photography is by Ed Reeve.

Here’s some more information from Sketch:

Martin Creed at Sketch

“I want the whole world to be in it”
Martin Creed, 2011

Turner Prize winning artist Martin Creed has transformed the Gallery restaurant at London’s iconic Sketch, in the first of a new long-term programme of artist-conceived restaurants at the venue. The project seeks to blur the boundaries between art, food, design and functionality. Martin Creed at Sketch launches today, 1 March 2012, coinciding with Sketch’s 10th anniversary and a pivotal year for London as a cultural centre.

Through a series of new works both functional and decorative, Creed has created an environment that is at once as an exhibition, an artwork, a restaurant and an Events space. Exemplary of the logical and welcoming systems that recur throughout his work, the floor, walls and furniture take the form of new artworks inspired by the boundaries of art and functionality.

Work No. 1347 consists of 96 different types of marble, in a formation of zigzagging lines across the floor, along with a series of paintings and large-scale wall paintings. Work No. 1343 is a new work specially made for the restaurant in which every single piece of cutlery, glass, chair and table is different. This work brings together a mix of the mass produced and handcrafted, from classic antiques to contemporary design from all around the world.

Sketch’s co-founder and three Michelin starred chef Pierre Gagnaire has designed a new menu in unison with the artist’s concerns, allowing freedom to experiment and create dishes directly influenced by Creed’s artwork. The series of artist restaurants at Sketch will look to establish a forum for artists’ imaginings and innovations in art, design and social space, creating playful propositions for interaction with art in the public realm.

Sketch was inaugurated in 2002 by restaurateur Mourad Mazouz and masterchef Pierre Gagnaire. Mazouz’s commitment to art and design led to the establishment of Sketch Gallery Foundation as a non-profit arts organisation and Sketch has hosted over fifty major exhibitions of moving image over the last decade including work by Carsten Nicolai, John Baldessari, Jonas Mekas and Sylvie Fleury, as well as numerous off-site projects such as the CINACT series at The Gate Cinema in collaboration with Serpentine Gallery. Since 2006 the exhibitions programme has been curated by Victoria Brooks.

With this new initiative sketch continues to contribute to 9 Conduit Street’s rich heritage as a destination for experimentation in design, art and architecture having previously housed the headquarters of RIBA and the Atelier of Christian Dior.

Slideshow: this underground house by London studio De Matos Ryan tunnels beneath a listed stone tower in Gloucestershire, England.

A grass roof slopes up to cover living and utility rooms inside the single-storey building but cuts away at the centre to create a concealed courtyard.

A corridor leads from the main house into the tower itself, where a games room occupies the ground floor and bedrooms are located on two floors above.

Glazed walls at the rear of the house face out onto a sunken terrace and swimming pool.

This is the second project we’ve featured this week in Gloucestershire – see our earlier story about a school with a shiny copper chapel.

Photography is by Edmund Sumner.

Here’s some more text from De Matos Ryan:

The Round Tower, Gloucestershire
De Matos Ryan

The Round Tower is a Grade II Listed folly, which had been reduced to ruin by years of neglect and fire.

Located on the crest of a hill overlooking Siddington Village, the exposed site is visually integral to the setting of this listed structure.

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As such the design approach maintains the open relationship with the surrounding agricultural landscape by developing a discreet and substantial underground extension to the tower.

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This underground extension provides the main open plan living spaces and is lit by both a central open sunken courtyard and a lateral ‘landscape scoop’ concealing the new swimming pool and associated sun terraces from public view.

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The listed tower remains clearly the dominant structure, providing the front door to the 4 bedroom family house and the means of vertical circulation. It is also the visual focus of the main sunken courtyard garden.

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The restored tower provides additional accommodation and a roof terrace for the enjoyment of the panoramic views of the surrounding landscape.

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A new detached building adjacent to the entrance to the site, provides garaging and an additional guest studio.

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Two guest suites in the grounds of a ruined Victorian house in Kent are separated by a walkway cast from concrete set against rough planks of wood.

Glaswegian practice Ewan Cameron Architects have designed a layout that is mirrored along the dividing walkway, with each suite containing a bedroom, bathroom and storage space.

The zinc-clad roof encompasses both volumes and overhangs considerably to provide sheltered outdoor space.

Floor to ceiling glass maximizes views from the front and outward-facing walls of the bedrooms, while translucent glass gives the bathrooms more privacy.

The pavilion sits on an arcaded podium belonging to the old manor, close to the modernist New Capel Manor House designed by Michael Manser in 1971.

Photography is by Henryk Hetflaisz.

Here’s some more text from Ewan Cameron Architects:

Ewan Cameron Architects have completed a new Guest Pavilion in the Kentish Weald near the village of Horsmonden.

The brief was to design a guest pavilion, comprising of 2 bedroom suites, that would sit adjacent to an Italianate orangery from 1860, on the grounds of Capel Manor House, an iconic modernist pavilion completed by Michael Manser in 1971. Both the main house and the new pavilion are spectacularly sited upon the raised, arcaded podium of a ruined Italianate mansion on a leafy estate that was the once the home of Jane Austen’s fore-bears.

Since 2001 Capel Manor House has been the country home of Remy Blumenfeld, a television producer and entrepreneur. Ewan Cameron’s response is a formal composition of separate planar elements to frame the garden; an architectural haiku.

Reached via a secluded woodland passageway, we first encounter the simple rear façade, bedded down within the garden, embodying the Zen principle of Hide and Reveal. We can then choose to continue our walk through the gardens, passing through the centre of the building, which is open to the sky. This passageway is formed by two spine walls between the mirrored bedroom suites, giving each complete privacy. The walls are cast in Beton Brut concrete. Their rough mass contrasts with the lighter zinc and glass elements while the wood grain imprint left from the timber shutters echoes the woodland context.

Each suite is entered through a pivoting walnut door. Inside they are subdivided by screens into a dressing area and bathroom, featuring hand-carved white Jaipur marble baths and basins. Finally the drama of the bedroom area and terrace is revealed: glass to glass walls, with elegant lightweight frames, bring the garden into the room and present the guests with carefully framed views of the valley below.

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Ewan Cameron Architects worked closely with engineers David Narro Associates, to achieve the “floating” lightweight roof structure, clad in zinc. Kent based builders Green Construction ensured that the minimalist detailing was executed to an exacting standard. The design was much inspired by the Architect’s visits to the temples and zen gardens of Kyoto; in particular the idea of a building as a frame through which we contemplate nature.

Neighbouring London studios Office Sian and Kai Design have completed a Thai canteen that features exposed bricks walls, caged lighting and a concrete bar.

Behind this concrete counter, colourful cupboards and shelves line a wall of red glazed tiles.

The lampshade cages shaped like over-sized light bulbs hang above some of the vintage tables and chairs that furnish the two rooms of the restaurant.

The restaurant is named Kin, which is spelled out in large illuminated letters on one of the interior walls, while another is decorated with graffiti art.

Other London restaurants completed in the last year include a steakhouse where animals are sketched on the walls and another Thai canteen furnished with construction materials – see all our stories about London here.

Photography is by James Pfaff.

Here’s some more explanation from Office Sian:

Kin Restaurant, Clerkenwell, London

Kin Restaurant, Clerkenwell, is the first design collaboration between Office Sian Architecture + Design and Kai Design.

The design called for the complete remodelling, redesign and refurbishment of an existing Chinese restaurant, which was transformed into a new and exciting Thai eatery.

This commission provided a fantastic opportunity to explore ideas of creating a new and fresh eating experience whilst acknowledging the history of the existing building.

Accordingly, although the basement, ground and first floors were extensively remodelled, aspects of the existing building were referenced in a playful manner.

Exposed walls and vintage flooring add to this aesthetic, along with the carefully chosen materials and colour palette.

Feature lighting, together with reclaimed and bespoke-designed furniture, including a ‘concrete’ bar and serving area, complete the transformation.

English architects Designscape have reversed the orientation of a country house in Bath by adding a prominent glazed entrance to its rear.

Flanked by Bath stone walls, the extension to The Fosse comprises a single-storey garage and the double-height entrance lobby, which overlap one another to create balconies both inside and out.

Timber-clad exterior walls and doors face a new courtyard that was excavated during construction.

Rooms in the existing househave been refurbished, former extensions are removed and the former front entrance now functions as the door to a private back garden.

If you’re inspired by this extension, check out a few more here.

Photography is by Jeremy Phillips.

The text below is from Designscape Architects:

The Fosse

This once dilapidated Victorian villa has been reinvented to create modern family accommodation.

The main body of the house has been sensitively refurbished and the numerous extensions to the north have been demolished or altered to rationalise the plan.

Using bold dimensions the new double-height entrance hall is designed to be an identifiable new addition; it was felt that a continuation of the same language of the existing house would detract from its current form.

It looks over a newly excavated courtyard lined with a continuous rubble bath stone wall that penetrates through a glass screen to form an internal first floor gallery linking inside with outside.

However, the aim was also to maintain a strong relationship between the two buildings and to respect the original building through complementary materials.

In addition, the scheme incorporates a range of sustainable solutions, from recycling stone that was originally onsite to an improved thermal performance.

The concept of the new extension and house refurbishment work was to reverse the orientation of the building to create the entrance to the rear north elevation, allowing the elegant Victorian south façade and garden to become a private sanctuary for the family.

In a clear case of less is more, numerous lean-to extensions were removed and the rear garden excavated to create a new contemporary double-height entrance hall overlooking a level courtyard.

This new external space is lined with a reclaimed rubble bath stone wall that wraps around the space and creates a roof terrace over the garage, penetrating through the new glass screen to form an internal first floor gallery, linking inside with outside.