Doris Lockhart of Wallpaper Magazine describes the rural studio-house of Turner Prize nominees Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell “as 320 sq m of meticulous craftsmanship and canny details, a modernist box in the quintessentially English countryside”. It’s said that ‘most visual artists don’t make good architects’ (and vice versa) but this studio / house must be the exception. Having superstar minimalist architect John Pawson as a friend must have helped. An original house (shown below) was torn down so they could construct their modernist box. During the build they supervised the work and lived in a shipping container on site. When it came to naming the box – the house not the container – this artistic duo didn’t call it “Dunroamin” but settled on Untitled. Pawson says ‘It’s not architecture. It’s an installation’ which is amazing, as all his work is more ‘installation than architecture’. There are stunning photos by Christoffer Rudquist and John Pawson of the interiors of this house in the May 2011 issue of Wallpaper. A friend of mine, Matt Bargell, gave me a present of a subscription to Wallpaper – I love seeing it in the letterbox every month.
Click here and see a slide show of the house being built.