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...

Savile Row is, of course, the home of British tailoring, and EPR wanted to honour this heritage by creating a 'hand-made, bespoke' building. They'd worked with ceramicist and artist Kate Malone on projects before (notably, on an art wall at their American Express HQ in Brighton), and so they worked together here from the very inception of the project.

Every single tile, all 10,000, was laid individually on a set of scales when Rich applied the glaze to ensure each one got exactly the same amount applied. The unusually high temperatures create an almost volcanic reaction in the kiln which formed crystals, the size of which was dictated by a whole series of variables which Stephen, Kate and Rich take us through in the next three videos...

Even in Kate and Rich's workshops it was clear that the tiles would look totally different depending on the sunlight, the time of day, the time of year and even the passing traffic. I think the extent of this surprised even those involved in the project...