Making use of those idle minutes waiting for the lights to turn green.
There are some very colourful buildings going up at the moment and some curious naked women too!
Making use of those idle minutes waiting for the lights to turn green.
There are some very colourful buildings going up at the moment and some curious naked women too!
Last week I spent a few hours in the new Rapha store and coffee shop in the heart of London’s trendy Soho. The store has been open for a couple of weeks now and this kind of retail development makes an interesting contrast to the unchanging (or very slowly changing) environment that is Canterbury Cathedral. That said, whilst the store undoubtedly lacks the gravitas of a Cathedral, on the the grounds of cool and funky, this place wins hands down.
It was put together by Brinkworth Design who seem to make a habit of this kind of slightly edgy kind of work and to their credit I think they’ve done a pretty good job. The store is an interesting attempt at creating a slightly different retail environment for their brand (Rapha is a cycling brand, who have done collections with Paul Smith I believe, but fashion is really not something that interests me so don’t quote me!). The coffee shop and fashion stuff sit comfortably together united by the exposed services and rough unfinished surfaces. The place seemed to be popular, judging by the frequently changing muddy courier bicycles hanging up on the rack by the door and I particularly liked the fact that the front cab of the corrugated steel French van was made into an office, albeit a rather cramped one.
And they served an excellent cup of coffee!
You can see more images at:
http://www.greshoff.co.uk/gallery/132264-Rapha/G00008egxtdZS270
Given that this blog is a new venture I thought it might be an idea to show some of the projects and schemes photographed last year in more depth. (I’ll add other archive projects in between the new and/or current projects which will follow in due course.)
First off is the new Sidell Gibson Beaney building in the city centre which I covered in September shortly after it opened. The project was partly Heritage Lottery funded and was engineered by Campbell Reith
Here is the original High Street frontage:
And this is the new rear structure in context:
Designed to replace and expand the existing (1897) Victorian structure, the new building retains much of the original but adds significant aspects to the rear of the site including a new entrance to the large library, new gallery space upstairs, cafe on the groundfloor, lift access etc.
This is a view of the library:
A couple of views of the main atrium staircase and ramp:
The Library again
The common area between the old and new buildings
Looking out towards the new side entrance:
The new entrance canopy
And the very gradual stairway up from street level to the main level of the building