Benedict Froggatt | web log

I couldn’t say much on here whilst the exhibition was still in development, but now it’s up I can explain a bit more …

The exhibition was created to illustrate the development of a new build in the New Forest for a pianist; Hywel Davies. The place is to be his living/working space for several years. One of the main points of the project was that it could be reversible and friendly to the surrounding forest. The idea was that once Hywel had finished his stay, the structure could be dismantled and leave almost no trace.

The gallery that hosted the exhibition (it was a temporary exhibition for 2 days, culminating in a talk given by Carl) was interested in showing how a new build is undertaken. Deer Park Alpha, being the architects working with Hywel, were asked to present their work on the project up to its current state.

We chose to present the project as a linear timeline, starting with the brief given by Hywel and initial research, showing watercolour sketches, spreads from books used as references and interim models constructed and ending with a mock-up of the house in its current stage.

We wanted to show the true nature of the development process, rather than a ‘polished’ version of events that you might see in contemporary galleries that some other architects are so keen to show. Sticking to this concept, we inter-weaved initial sketches with print-outs of emails between Carl and Hywel. The pictures were spaced loosely above and below the timeline rather than in a strict order, to represent the often concurrent nature of separate elements.

Simple explanations and section titles were placed touching the line (explanations sitting on and titles hanging below) in order to help distinguish them from the visual clutter.

Some decent(ish) pictures to follow shortly …