WORKING WITH AVAILABLE SOURCE OF MATERIAL
Storquestudios was involved with constructing a
new creative community space in North London. Grow Tottenham
Community garden and venue is run by Paul McGunn and Chris
Morris – who have transformed the carpark and Warehouse
of civil engineering depot into a stufft garden and open access
space for a diverse and energetic hub…..
All construction work for this new Grow Tottenham base, has been
especially adapted for short-term residents on this site. Using
previous experience, both owners gave attention to using found and
recycled materials from their earlier Grow project in Elephant and
Castle; organising structures that will be able to move smoothly
from one place to the next.
Storque studios was naturally excited to be involved with the
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, which was disposed recently after an installation in the
Tate’s Turbine hall. This beautiful brown cork used by Danish design
studio superflux, was initially planned by us for acoustic insulation
in the new Grow Tottenham studios… we quickly realised how much this material could be exposed in other playful ways…
Together with the cork, leftovers from the build such as 2×4”pine
off-cuts, shuttering plywood and random screws, was used to create
a custom made collection of furniture. Including various sizes of
tables, stools and benches we started this project by creating
substantial frames for all cork slabs… we knew exactly how this
fragile substance needed to be protected… we tried to use the
shapes of this frame as a main motive for all elements.
We also tried not to be too precious… simply joining all bits and
gently touching them with white wash finish… there are lots of
imperfections, and rather then carefully polishing, we decided to
expose these scars as reference marks.
For this project, it was important for us to create a feeling of a
pavilion; using temporary objects that remind us how valuable all
material is after any creative build. In Storque Studioes we believe
that small-scale sustainable ideas can turn into bigger actions.
StorqueStudio would like to say thank You to all of the Grow
Tottenham Team for supporting our creative ideas and preparing
ground for many more…
we really appreciate working with You!!!