Not your usual gallery... Roca London Gallery

June 23, 2020 by Zoe

Whether you are local in London, or just a passerby, make sure you have Roca London Gallery on your list!

‘Roca’ is a global bathroom brand, and its galleries around the world are each unique and designed by the city’s best Architectural designer, and in London, that has to be Zaha Hadid.

The brief given was simple and open, and Zaha Hadid Architects took this opportunity to experiment with their specialty - organic, dynamic and fluid forms - flowing with the theme of water, each element of the building are bespoke and relates to water. Not a single straight surface! The exterior facade represents the ripples of water, and merges into the interior spaces, the waves follows, the iconic pod lighting highlights the fluid and represents water droplets.

Entering the larger aperture of opening of the facade, you are welcomed by a white space, displaying books and a few pieces of furniture. This is the central axis of the gallery. Surrounding this, are smaller, interconnected spaces that can be viewed through openings in the walls.

Walking around the gallery, you begin to wonder how these individual sculptural elements are all put together, how a concrete ceiling panel is hung above my head, and is it stable?! Yes, yes it is, each panel is about 400-500kg and has at least 6 cables attached from above or supported by the floor for the lower-level panels, and slotted against each other. The shop’s existing height is 4 meters high, leaving 1 meter for service works, the rest are concrete panels. (There‘s a total of 272 GRC panels installed! 236 interior, and 36 facade panels)

This exposed grey concrete panels are chosen specifically to highlight Roca’s most innovative products, which is also cleverly integrated. How? There are pop up bolts at three different levels on the wall panels so that the products can be hung from it; top level for showers, middle level for basins, and bottom level for the toilets.

Given that the project was built between 2009-2011, ZHA was already a master at parametric softwares that aided them in design, however, the manufacturers was still catching up, hence, the team had some trouble to finding the best contractor to build their bespoke pieces. Luckily, in the end, they managed to find a German fabricator to fabricate their concrete, and my-oh-my, to perfection.

As there were no straight edges in this building, there were no possible section or pans that makes sense, the team had to rely on 3D printed models to be printed after each alteration was made. (and this would be on a weekly basis!)

Even the mosaic floor tiles were cut and laid individually, designed as an optical effect inspired by water current, and leads you in and out of the gallery.

Roca Gallery is definitely a place to visit, not only does it house a gallery of Roca’s products, the space is also used to host social and cultural events that are of interest to Roca, including exhibitions produced in-house and externally, meetings, presentations, debates and receptions.

See Roca Gallery’s website for more information about their events and opening times.

The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 / Frida Escobedo

July 10, 2018 by Zoe

In summer, an activity that each and every Architect living in London must do - is visit the temporary summer pavilion in Hyde Park. With the sun beaming in all its glory early this summer, this year's pavilion has provided us a clever and intriguing contained structure that is a perfect shading space, by using a traditional Mexico 'breeze wall' to bring in a cool breeze in this heat.

This year, the selected architect is a Mexican-born architect Frida Escobedo. At 39, she is the youngest architect ever to be granted the commission, and only the second female architect to display their work for the London Serpentine. (First one being Zaha Hadid)

Unlike previous years where the pavilion is openly exposed, Frida’s pavilion decides to surround itself with a wall. As you walk up closer to the secretive structure, you notice the thin cement tiles that are threaded together with steel poles, creating a seemingly light, woven, perforated screen. Given this chance to peek at what’s on the other side of the semi-revealing screen, you enter.

This enclosed courtyard space cleverly amalgamates characteristics of the Mexican ‘celosia’ walls (permeable, breeze walls) with standard British roof tiles. In the center is a shallow layer of pond together with the curving mirrored roof, reflecting and distorting the space and light.

Serpentine Pavilion Architect's Statement

The design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2018 is a meeting of material and historical inspirations inseparable from the city of London itself and an idea which has been central to our practice from the beginning: the expression of time in architecture through inventive use of everyday materials and simple forms. For the Serpentine Pavilion, we have added the materials of light and shadow, reflection and refraction, turning the building into a timepiece that charts the passage of the day.

The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 is open every day from 10am to 6pm.

The Serpentine Pavilion 2016 / Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

The Serpentine Pavilion 2016 / BIG

July 04, 2016 by Ponk Memoli in Pavilion

This year's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by the Danish architect firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), featuring a tall pointed structure made of interlocking fibreglass bricks. A series of box-like fibreglass frames stacked on top of each other in a pattern based on a common brick wall.

"We have attempted to design a structure that embodies multiple aspects that are often perceived as opposites: a structure that is free-form yet rigorous, modular yet sculptural, both transparent and opaque, both solid box and blob," said Ingels.