Cobham Mews Studios

Summary

A pair of studio offices, 1987-1989 by David Chipperfield Architects. Partner in charge David Chipperfield, project architect Michael Cullinan. The building is an early work by this important practice and was their London home for over 20 years.

Reasons for Designation

Cobham Mews Studios, 1987-1989 by David Chipperfield Architects is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its principal elevation, a sophisticated composition realised with clarity and rigour which references influential works of modern architecture;
* for the spatial interest of the interiors, particularly strong in the paired studios where the effect of the double-height volumes and mezzanine levels are accentuated by the use of natural daylight;
* for its minimalist, materials-based approach in which high-quality finishes, refined details and tactile surfaces bring a craft quality to its understated aesthetic;
* the building reflects a wider reengagement with modernism which emerged in the mid-1980s and became a significant strand of architectural culture into the new millennium.

Historic interest:

* as the first complete building by David Chipperfield, an architect of international importance, which served as the practice’s home for over 20 years; in its architectural references and handling of space, light and materials, it embodies the formative influences on Chipperfield’s approach and the themes and preoccupations which thread through his subsequent work.

History

Cobham Mews Studios, also known as Agar Grove Studios, was designed and built 1987-1989 by David Chipperfield Architects. The building was the practice’s first complete building after a series of shop-fitting and conversion projects.

The site was a former scrapyard at the centre of a triangular city block with a single access from Agar Grove in one corner. Chipperfield saw the potential of the site and partnered with David Rosen of Derwent Valley Property Developments to obtain planning permission in 1987.

Chipperfield’s design sought to maximise floor space and to allow plenty of natural light into the building without compromising the privacy of the neighbouring houses. The design took inspiration from small-scale industrial buildings as well as Victorian artist’s studios, of the type found squeezed into awkward or left-over spaces in residential areas and characterised by tall ceilings and north-facing windows or top lighting. The intention was to create interesting workspace that would appeal to smaller creative businesses. After the building’s completion Chipperfield himself took the lease on one of the studios (later expanding the into the other) and the building remained home to the practice for over 20 years.

The building remains little altered since its completion. After the practice’s departure in 2011 the roof over the western range was re-built, essentially on a like-for like basis; light fittings have been renewed, using the same flush-mounted track fittings; some fitted storage has been added, including a small server room, and limited screen partitions have been introduced where privacy or quiet space is needed.

Sir David Chipperfield (1953-) studied at Kingston Polytechnic and the Architectural Association. Between 1978 and 1985 he worked in the practices of Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, before briefly going into practice with Kenneth Armstrong. He established his solo practice in 1985, working out of 26 Cramer Street, London, also home to Blueprint magazine. Here, he founded with others the 9H Gallery, mounting the first exhibition in England of the work of the contemporary Swiss practice, Herzog and de Meuron, as well as a slightly older generation of European architects working in place-specific, modernist idioms including the Portuguese Álvaro Siza and Swiss Luigi Snozzi. Chipperfield himself exhibited alongside like-minded British practices Eric Parry, Rick Mather and Stanton Williams.

The early part of his career was at a time when modernism’s critical and public reputation was at a low ebb and Chipperfield’s work can be seen as part of a wider project of reclaiming or recovering modernism by returning to its diverse origins and by emphasising its ability to address the particularities of place and culture. Initially he focussed on interior design, principally in conversions and luxury shop-fitting, a key early project was the design of a London store for Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake in 1985. His pared down, materials-based approach was characteristic of what Alan Powers has described as ‘English Minimalism’ (A Powers, Britain, 2007, p 228). The aesthetic is also found in the work of contemporaries such as Parry, Stanton Williams and Tony Fretton. Initially attracting high-end retailers and restauranteurs, it became a widely adopted idiom of the 1990s.

Chipperfield made his name in the 1990s and 2000s principally through major commissions overseas. He is best known for a series of important museum and gallery buildings, including the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach, Germany (2001-2006), for which he won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2007 and the 2012-2021 refurbishment of Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1963-1968). Notable English works include The Hepworth Wakefield gallery, (2003-2011) and Turner Contemporary gallery, Margate (2006-2011). He has received a number of awards and honours, including a knighthood in 2010, the RIBA gold medal in 2011 and the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 2023. His buildings are known for their qualities of clarity and restraint, skilful handling of materials and natural light, and their emphasis on place.

Details

Pair of studio offices, 1987-1989 by David Chipperfield Architects. Partner in charge David Chipperfield, project architect Michael Cullinan.

MATERIALS: the building is of rendered and painted concrete blockwork, steel frame with glass brick infill and in-situ concrete. Windows are steel-framed and the principal entrance doors timber. The exposed structural steelwork is formed of rolled, open web beams.

PLAN: the building fits tightly into its irregular, roughly triangular, plot. It follows the site boundary other than to the south-east, where it steps back into the site to allow a forecourt in front of the only public-facing elevation. The forecourt is entered from the east via a cobbled drive, or mews, which connects with Agar Grove to the south.

At the centre of the building’s plan is a mirrored pair of two-storey studios, each with a stair running from front to back against the dividing spine wall. To the south-west is a single-storey wedge-shaped range filling the acute angle of the site, and to the north-east is a small two-storey block which projects forward and fills the stepped outline of the north-east boundary of the site.

The building’s roof is flat, with circular skylights and strips of glazed roof.

EXTERIOR: the building’s architectural language unmistakably references that of the pre-war Modern Movement. The south-east elevation has a strong rectilinear character which reads in three distinct parts.

At the centre is the pair of studios: a symmetrical composition comprised of a recessed entrance bay, flanked to either side by bays with steel-framed elevations. The framework is infilled with glass bricks, interrupted by a band of clear glazing on the ground floor, a nod to Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre, Paris (1928-1932). The flanges of the open web steels form a grid motif at the intersections, a detail influentially used by Craig Ellwood at the Rosen House, California (1961). At the eaves a steel member runs the width of the composition, supporting a lighting gantry with bell-shaped spotlights over the entrance bay. The entrance bay is split vertically by a slender concrete pier, marking the building’s spine wall, which bisects the concrete lintel over the wide, storey-height timber plank doors below. The first floor is blind apart from a small pierced square window to each studio. In front of the studios is a triangular gravel forecourt.

Set back from the studios to the left is the single-storey range which tucks into the corner of the site. Its visible elevation is comprised principally of a deep band of steel-framed glazing which looks out onto a small, raised courtyard.

Projecting forward of the studios to the right, and addressing the cobbled surface of the mews, is the two-storey block. This reads as a discrete unit, its left-hand flank wall overshooting its front elevation, screening it from the studios. The ground floor is fully glazed with a door to the left. The first-floor elevation steps in at the corner to form a small balcony. A window and glazed balcony door wraps the corner and the screen is pierced with a window-like opening.

INTERIOR: the building’s interiors are largely open plan, characterised by a simple palette of materials, precise, understated detailing and the presence of natural daylight. External walls are of painted concrete block, in-situ concrete or glass brick.

Each of the two studios is entered into a double height space which runs from front to back, enclosed on one side by the dividing spine wall, and open on the other to the studio floors. The spine wall is of exposed in-situ concrete, the marks of the large rectangular shuttering panels and their fixings expressed in the surface finish. Against the wall is an open-string concrete stair, beneath which a shadow gap separates the zigzag of the stair edge from the plastered, white-painted finish below. The handrail and balusters are of flat steel bar, the latter tied with a steel rod mid-rail. The space is lit from above by a glazed roof and the flooring is terrazzo tile.

The first floor is treated as a mezzanine, reached via a short steel bridge across the double-height void at the top of the stair. The floor plate is cut back from the front elevation, allowing diffuse light from the glass bricks to transmit between floors.

The ground floor is laid in dark, oiled hardwood and to the rear a strip of glazed roof lights the space from above.

The left-hand studio expands into the single-storey range through a wide opening, the flooring continuing uninterrupted. Light is brought into the space by the glazed south-east elevation, the continuation of the glazed strip roof along the back wall, and two large circular skylights in the centre of the plan. Artificial lighting is suspended form a track, sunk flush with the ceiling; this is used throughout the building’s interiors. The flat roof is supported by four round steel columns. At the far end of the space the floor is slightly raised, covered in terrazzo tile and looks out through full-height glazing onto a very small, raised courtyard at the tip of the site.

The right-hand studio opens into the small two-storey block which provides a single room on each floor and a stair which serves as the fire escape from this side of the site.

Sources

Books and journals
Behind the Scenes in The Architects' Journal, ,Vol. vol. 191, (18 April 1990), pp. 38-49
Rooms Without Views in Blueprint, ,Vol. , (February 1990), pp. 36-38
In Control of the Modern in World Architecture, ,Vol. 16, (1992), pp. 66-69
Cherry, B, Pevsner, N, Buildings of England, London 4: North (2002), p. 392
Working Details: External wall, offices, David Chipperfield Architects in Architects' Journal, ,Vol. 191, (18 April 1990), pp. 57-59

End of official list entry