Bartlett | Mettham are dedicated to the creative re-invention of existing buildings.
Using thoughtful, context driven design to revitalise inadequate and underutilised spaces; whether through refurbishment, extension, change of use, or delicate restoration.
Philosophy
Architecture is no longer confined to demolition or preservation.
Creative reinvention of existing buildings begins with a careful assessment of what already stands, followed by sensitively selecting the tangible and intangible qualities to retain.
This approach can lower construction costs, shorten delivery, and reduce the environmental impact. Leading to a thoughtful and conscious outcome that is historically grounded and worthy of its time and place. Whilst resisting the unimaginative and repetitive tendencies of much contemporary architecture.
We see architecture as an act of care, materialising through attention to detail at every scale of a proposal; where the floor meets the wall, the door meets the frame, and when one material joins another. It is at these junctions we form an adoration of the joint.
Written work
Evaluation of the careers of architects Alison & Peter Smithson, which asks if designing for ‘image’ was responsible for the demise of the Robin Hood Gardens residential estate in Poplar, London.
An appraisal of Sheffield's Park Hill Estate in its historical and present context formulates the primary argument; Robin Hood Gardens could have been reinvented rather than demolished or preserved.
In all its wonderful peculiarity and strangeness, ornamentation appears to possess an ability to animate the inanimate. Its metamorphic nature, at the point of the threshold, allows it to sit upon a liminal border between fantasy and reality.
The necessity and realisation of such is examined through Hector Guimard’s entranceways for the Paris Métropolitain. Drawing is utilised as a method to understand how the inanimate is animated from two-dimension to three-dimension, drawing {pulling} an element of fantasy into our reality.
Robin Hood Gardens; Demolition, Preservation, or Re-invention
Dean Bartlett
2018
Animating the Inanimate; Drawing fantasy into reality
Eleanor Mettham
2024
The Walk, York, YO24 4EL
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