>A021 House No. 3

A slow-tempered response to a modest Victorian terraced house, within Canterbury’s historical city walls.

As Carl and Eleanor’s Canterbury base, much of the response has been an attempt to converse with the house; how might we add, how do we qualitatively appraise, what is its character, and what makes its character?

We established several rules of engagement in an attempt to help contain the works, particularly when delivered via automated means. Form and detailing of the automatically-cut-new has been informed by the parameter that this could also be achieved at the time of origin, and therefore with period tooling — as such, added items meld-to and then evolve their host, instead of say adopting the act of layering over, or overtly contrasting to compare.

In the bathroom, several items were self-cast in our studio workshop; an intention to spatially continue and evoke the character of match boarding seen in adjacent rooms.

We further added a mannered and monogrammed timber ribbon, consisting of graphical wainscotting and an adjoining facsimile-fireplace. This was achieved via digital drawing, automated cutting, and flood-filled engraving.

An act of sorts to further confuse and distort the fabric spectrum of the house; the individual plank here becomes the sheet, the studied drawing of a fireplace becomes a veil over where its antecedent once sat.

Our response is ongoing, our attitude evolving — the quest for a manifesto in how we might respond to the existing — and of course, very much pluralistic to allow evaluation, before deployment in projects-proper.