Unconventional institutions

For every project we have made for institutions, it feels as if we have worked on and through our clients’ culture, as much as we have on the fabric of their buildings. When we think about where you meet, in what atmosphere, and who you might meet on the way, we can’t sidestep the fact that these are cultural not technical reflections. Building – both the inert mass of what is already there, and the logic of what must be added – can be an invaluable catalyst in the process of organisational change.

After they had spent fifty years in rented offices, we made a home for Amnesty imbued with their practical humanity, creating a hard-working suite of public rooms where they could at last host events. We helped the Landmark Trust with a ruin more extreme than any in their experience, drawing on their passion for craft to make contemporary additions worthy of the historic remains. We worked with the Whitechapel to draw on their tradition of creative risk-taking and their deep local roots in adapting the disused library next door to them, and adapting themselves to it.

The unconventional institutions we’re working with – The Courtauld, Workspace and United St. Saviour’s – have very specific ambitions that don’t fit into standardised approaches. They combine strong personalities, nimble working practices and hard-won resources. For us to assist their evolution, we need to absorb our clients’ culture and deliver through their existing capacity. We dig deep, and look from many different angles, to help us to grasp how a building and the process of its making can help reinforce this cultural change.

When collectives grow, it is seldom a case of ‘more of the same’, because they have to find a new balance. Also, because their energy is opportunistic, and their growth is cumulative, unconventional institutions often live in unusual buildings or on awkward sites. Listed or not, these inherited buildings carry values that are not entirely those of the present: philanthropic or utilitarian, egalitarian or hierarchical, open or cloistered. The question we are often asked, is: how to graft on new growth, making the most of the capacity and qualities that are already there, but creating space for future change? So it’s our role to find a graft that complements the whole, rather than just adding another part. The new must transform what is already there, to shape a new institutional equilibrium.

The unconventional institutions we’re working with – The Courtauld, Workspace and United St. Saviour’s – have very specific ambitions that don’t fit into standardised approaches. They combine strong personalities, nimble working practices and hard-won resources. For us to assist their evolution, we need to absorb our clients’ culture and deliver through their existing capacity. We dig deep, and look from many different angles, to help us to grasp how a building and the process of its making can help reinforce this cultural change.

When collectives grow, it is seldom a case of ‘more of the same’, because they have to find a new balance. Also, because their energy is opportunistic, and their growth is cumulative, unconventional institutions often live in unusual buildings or on awkward sites. Listed or not, these inherited buildings carry values that are not entirely those of the present: philanthropic or utilitarian, egalitarian or hierarchical, open or cloistered. The question we are often asked, is: how to graft on new growth, making the most of the capacity and qualities that are already there, but creating space for future change? So it’s our role to find a graft that complements the whole, rather than just adding another part. The new must transform what is already there, to shape a new institutional equilibrium.