WORKING WITH AVAILABLE SOURCES OF MATERIAL
Storquestudios was involved with constructing Grow Tottenham, a new creative community space in North London. This
Community garden and venue was run by Paul McGunn and Chris
Morris – who transformed the carpark and Warehouse
of a civil engineering depot into a stufft garden and open access
energetic hub.
All construction work for this Grow Tottenham base, was
especially adapted for short-term residents on site. With
previous experience in mind, both owners gave attention to using found and recycled materials from their earlier Grow project in Elephant and Castle; organising structures with the ability to move smoothly from one place to the next.
Storquestudios was naturally excited to be involved with this
project through its various stages of progress. Embracing Grow
Tottenham’s sustainable approach to building, we came up with the
idea of introducing our experimental furniture to the Grow café.
The main inspiration for this furniture came from an unusual source
of material for Storquestudios, and was acquired after the disposal of an installation at the Tate’s Modern’s Turbine Hall. This beautiful brown cork used by Danish design studio Superflux, had an initial plan of use for the acoustic insulation
at Grow Tottenham studios… we quickly realised how much this material could be exposed in other playful ways…
Together with the cork from the Turbine Hall, leftovers from other sources such as 2×4”pine off-cuts, shuttering plywood and random screws; were used to make a collection of custom made furniture. For the various tables, stools and benches at the café, we started this project by creating substantial frames for all the available cork slabs.
For this project, it was important for us to create the feeling of a
pavilion; using elements from temporary structures reminds us of how we can quantify all valuable material after a creative build. In Storquestudios we believe that small-scale sustainable ideas turn into bigger actions.
Storquestudios would like to say thank you to all of the Grow
Tottenham team for supporting our creative ideas and preparing the
ground for many more.