The Hidden Sounds of Architecture
Posted: Wednesday, January 29th, 2020
Last year I was commissioned by The Architects’ Journal to make a series of short films about each of the six Stirling Prize nominated buildings. I’d been having a few conversations before that with musician and sound designer, Simon James about the relationship between architecture and sound and so he joined me on the shoots to make a series of recordings, using a range of very specialist recording devices. Whilst our priority was to produce these six mini-docs on the buildings (which you can view here ), the time we had on location also allowed Simon to be a bit more creative with his recordings and editing, creating sparse and evocative soundscapes from on-site recordings which we paired with my footage for two new films; Hidden Sounds…
Posted: Friday, October 16th, 2015
I was commissioned by The Architect's Journal to produce a series of short films on each of the 6 nominees for the RIBA Stirling Prize. This year was one of the most interesting shortlists I'd seen for a while - less of a focus on the 'iconic' and more on craft and details. It was also incredibly diverse, with a Maggie's Centre for those dealing with cancer sitting alongside a school, social housing alongside a museum and gallery, private housing and university buildings.
I travelled to Lanarkshire, Manchester as well as across London to document the projects and meet the architects and the users of the buildings. Two things linked this diverse list; the first was the attention to detail, all these projects are truly crafted. The second was that no-one wanted to pick a winner!
Still, a huge congratulations to AHMM, Morag Myerscough and Burntwood School on winning the Stirling Prize, 2015, for a wonderful collection of buildings that display a huge range of architectural skill. Here's all six videos I created, plus some stills I shot on site too...
Posted: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015
I was born in 1981, when The Jam were at their peak. They broke up in 1982, so obviously I don't remember them at the time, but their impact was huge. So many of the bands I was getting in to in my teens were very very obviously influenced by Weller's lyrics and the band's sound, and songs like 'That's Entertainment', 'Start' and 'Going Underground' were mainstays in Brighton's indie discos.
So when Anthony Burrill called to see if I'd be up for doing stills and video of Somerset House's new exhibition on The Jam he'd been working on with Simon Jones Studio and Teo Connor, my response was of course a cool and collected "I'll check my calendar" and definitely not a shouted "HELL YES!!!"
Scroll on for more stills and video from The Jam: About The Young Idea...
Photos and Videos - Craft and Architecture on Savile Row
Posted: Sunday, June 28th, 2015
Almost two years ago now, Stephen Pey from EPR Architects approached Edward and I with a project that he described himself as a "labour of love" - a new mixed use building on London's Savile Row clad in almost 10,000 hand glazed ceramic tiles, created in a spirit of true collaboration. Edward and I had recently formed Stephenson / Bishop, combining his film making skills with my background in architecture to create films on the built environment. Stephen's brief to us was to follow the life of the tiles, from inception with EPR, to the creation of the unique glazes by Kate Malone to being hand glazed by Rich Miller and his team at Froyle Tiles in Sussex and finally to installation on Savile Row. This series of 4 short films, plus the photos, are the result of our documentation...
Photos and Video - The Serpentine Pavilion 2015 by SelgasCano
Posted: Thursday, June 25th, 2015
For the last three years now, I've been commissioned by The Serpentine Gallery to document the construction of their annual pavilion. The construction is a fascinating phase to witness, to see how each architect approaches the site and to see how Stage One, the contractors who have to build these structures, flex and bend to each design. Here's a series of images, plus a video, of the whole process - from marking out to celebrating with champagne in the sunshine...
