The London firm of architects FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) is closing. This will come as good news to architecture purists, but it is sad for those of us who liked having this jester seriously at work in a profession that sometimes takes itself too seriously.
The group of the architects who made up this practice was making the kind of buildings Walt Disney might have produced if he had a touch of the bovver boy (an English term for a hooligan who is bothersome). The comparison is even more apt because FAT often creates buildings that look like facades for film sets or novelty buildings in theme parks. They draw and quote from all kinds of resources from popular culture to fine art.
They have followed a practice of building which some might describe as follies. To an extent they are: a Romanesque church made from blue sequins, a school that resembles a Gothic wedding cake. The field of design they produced included a seat that requires one to sit on a 3D Hercules foam face. Their comic exaggeration and the graphic impact of their buildings enlivens surroundings that are often bleak or banal.
“We all feel we’ve completed what we set out to do,” said Sam Jacob in an interview with The Guardian.
“He has worked with fellow partners Sean Griffiths and Charles Holland for the last 23 years on everything from art installations to social housing, alongside a prolific volume of writing and teaching.
“‘FAT was only ever intended to be a project, a way of taking a set of ideas out into the world,’ he says. ‘We still can’t believe we’ve had so many opportunities to make buildings.’
“Next summer will see the completion of their final built project, a ceramic-clad gingerbread temple in a field in Essex, designed with artist Grayson Perry as part of Alain de Botton’s series of rentable holiday homes. A cross between a Thai wat and an Essex barn, it promises to be one of the most intricately layered concoctions the practice has produced.
“‘When I spoke to Grayson Perry he said, ‘You know that what I hate above all are those sleek cool white glass and steel modernists. They make me feel ill,” recalls de Botton. ‘I therefore knew right away that we had to move in a very particular direction – and that there was possibly only (one) player in town who could respond adequately.’”
CFile has selected a few projects to feature as a farewell to to architecture’s greatest pranksters. The Perry house is discussed in another post in this issue.
Garth Clark is the Chief Editor of CFile
Above image: FAT won a competition to design this two storey building as part of the Liverpool ONE masterplan in Liverpool city centre. It is located in the former Church Yard arcade.
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The Liverpool ONE design introduces a new building into the covered arcade, using references that include ornamental and decorative street furniture as well as the tiled and patterned facades of the Victorian buildings of Liverpool, according to FAT. The design is a building within a building. Distinct from its surroundings, it is a gateway to the new development.
The facade is expressed as a decorative tiled screen. The series of facets along it alter the building’s interior spaces and provide niches for seating and views into Church Yard from the first floor cafe and ground floor retail units. Shop fronts are as large as possible and all windows are tall and vertical. The terrace cafe connects the arcade to the street life of Liverpool.
FAT designed 23 new houses for the Manchester Methodist Housing Group within the New Islington development by Urban Splash, according to the designers. The 2.3 million GBP scheme is comprised of two-to-four bedroom family homes and garden areas, unifying the residents’ desire for traditional homes with the New Islington masterplan commitment to innovative and world class architecture. The project was developed in close collaboration with the residents.
The design accommodates reduction of primary energy, CO2 emissions and water consumption, Green specification of materials and reduction of construction waste, design for life-cycle adaptability to the Lifetime Homes principles and has an Eco-Homes Excellent Rating. The scheme was completed in Spring 2006.
Lindsay Road is a development of 35 new homes on the former Deerlands School site in Parsons Cross, Sheffield, according to the designers. FAT won the commission through a joint bid with developer Great Places and the project forms part of Sheffield City Council’s Market Renewal programme.
The tri-brick design was the first suggestion but it was replaced with red when built. The houses are laid out as a series of terraces arranged around a large public garden. Subtly shifting variations of brick pattern and colour animate the facades and distinguish individual houses within the terraces. Planting, variations in paving texture and color and other elements mediate between the houses and the park to form a pedestrian-orientated homezone.
The design aims to achieve the ambitious targets of Eco-Homes Very Good rating, 10% of energy supplied by renewable sources and CABE Design for Life silver standard.
Peyton & Byrne is a new bakery outlet run by London restaurateur Oliver Peyton, according to the architects. The design reflects Peyton and Byrne’s desire to remake the old fashioned tea shop and bakery. The front of the shop is characterized by a large bronze framed picture window full of cakes. Inside, the entire shop- counters and all- is finished in white “brick” tiles with green grouting. The floor is an Op Art version of a traditional Victorian mosaic floor. Display shelving and units are kept simple and elegant to allow the packaging and food to become part of the decoration.
This installation, Bathroom Sweet, commissioned by the British Council for its Hometime exhibition in China, is a bathroom retreat for an imagined celebrity couple.
Soft Hercules is a stool cast from foam rubber, soft squishy stuff which is usually used to make stress balls, according to the designers. The bust of Hercules, usually something solid both in its material and the culture it represents becomes unexpectedly soft, deforming a recognizable object into stranger shapes when it is sat on. It uses the plasticity of rubber to suggest a more uncertain and doubtful state to say nothing of a perverse action.
See Grayson Perry’s Gingerbread Tile Clad House
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