Piers Taylor: people, places, process
Thursday 3 December 2009, 6:30pm, Forum
Piers Taylor is an architect and founding partner of Mitchell Taylor Workshop, a Unit Master at the University of Cambridge and the organiser of the annual Studio in the Woods. He will talk about his interests in ‘place’ and site-specificity with reference to his teaching work, his built work, and the Studio in the Woods.
His Cambridge students begin each year by constructing ‘tools’ that allow them to gather data relating to the landscape in which their major project will be set. These tools measure, for example: porosity, topography, wind quality and sound frequency.
He will talk about the Studio in the Woods, which has been running since 2006, which is concerned with the testing of ideas through making at 1:1. Groups of architecture students work alongside practicing architects – Taylor, Gianni Botsford, Meredith Bowles, Kate Darby, Peter Clegg, Erect Architecture, Toby Lewis and Ted Cullinan. Using a constrained predetermined kit of parts they spend several days building occupiable structures at 1:1 designed to expose, reveal, measure and describe an aspect of the landscape. It is one of the only workshops where students do not work in the ‘code space’ of the studio but instead get to construct the actual thing. The projects range from interstitial casts between trees that do not yet exist, to jetties, bird hides and other semi permanent structures.
His own house, Moonshine, is constructed on a site with no car access, and was designed using components that had to be carried by hand along a woodland path. It addresses issues of a fragile woodland ecosystem and is the result of analysis of the water table, wind patterns, rainfall and sunlight. It won the AJ Small Projects Award in 2009.
Room 13, in Hartcliffe, Bristol – one of the most deprived parts of the UK – is a purpose built community art studio designed using raw and unfinished materials which will patinate over time and reveal the occupancy of the users. It is designed to accommodate graffiti, spillage and life, and won 2 RIBA awards.
He is currently working on the infamous ‘cheesegrater’ site in Leadenhall (the site of the postponed Richard Rogers designed building) and is proposing a city farm where city workers can grow their own produce.
He will also talk about formative study years with Glenn Murcutt in Australia, and the collaborative ethos of his own practice.
