For 2010 we will be issuing quarterly Sans façon Broadcasts to keep you up-to-date with our practice activities. We've had a good year and wanted to dedicate our first broadcast to those who helped to make it so.
Sans façon's highlights of 2009:
We travelled to the US to team up with
El Dorado architects (Kansas City, MO) to develop a proposal for the
New Cultural Centre in Arlington, VA, where we met
Robert Gay (of
Thought Barn), both of whom we hope to work with in the coming year. We even had time to give a talk at the
La Esquina Gallery for the
Charlotte Street Foundation & the
American Institute of Architects.
Two became three in the summer, when we were joined in the studio by
Kerry Spring, hired to assist with and develop our growing practice. Our second collaboration with
Magnetic North’s artistic Director,
Nicholas Bone, culminated in a UK tour of
Walden with
Ewan Donald returning to the role of Henry David Thoreau.
Kay Burns (our mentee on the Laycock Park project) performed her
Iris Taylor Walk and its related website was launched. At the second annual
Art & Urban Design Conference, we presented our approach to working in this field and for
Par+rs discussed the collaborative process in an article entitled “
Collaboration as a place you don’t expect”.
August found us on a 3 week residency on
Fogo Island (Newfoundland, Canada) commissioned by the
Shorefast Foundation, where we worked alongside photographer
Erika Irmler on the
4 Dimensional Mapping Project. Our
hand drawn postcard series from Fogo became a daily email highlight for those who subscribed to them.
In autumn, we sat on the selection panel for
Cube Open 2009, and
Dorset County Council commissioned us to design a footbridge in Charmouth in collaboration with their engineers. In November the design team workshop held at our studio developed the
Visual Language Project into
Watershed+. Team members,
Yan Olivares (Yes Architectes, Saint Etienne),
Matt Baker (Artist),
Dr. Eric Laurier (Geography Department, Edinburgh University),
Emlyn Firth (A Visual Agency),
Heather Saunders (Public Art Program project manager for The City of Calgary) and
Bert Van Duin (Water Engineer, Calgary) were in attendance and contributed to a really successful and exciting week.
As 2009 drew to a close,
Històries i llocs was presented in Barcelona hosted by our commissioners
Idensitat. Details were worked on for the bridge in Charmouth,
Suzanne Dimmock (formerly of Lancaster County Council) received
Morecambe House arts programme proposal documents we devised/designed,
Manchester Design Lab invited us to talk to MA students, work with
RMJM’s Edinburgh office on a project in
Whitehaven was gearing up and
Silverlink extended
Iconic site’s stay in Newcastle into 2010 .
If you would like to receive the first broadcast in full, or subscribe to the future issues then please email:
kerry@sansfacon.co.uk
Happy New Year from us all at Sans façon