Next Monday evening, renowned typographer and Blueprint columnist Erik Spiekermann will join in conversation with the designers of his east London house, Ullmayer Sylvester Architects at the Royal Academy, London. It is the third and final event in the Two Stories series of talks organised by Blueprint, which look at the ways in which creative clients can affect the process of an architectural project.
Clients don’t get much more creative – or daunting – than Spiekermann. Apart from being one of the world’s leading typographers, responsible for typefaces such as Officina, Meta and an entire system of typography for the German railways, he has also worked on the development of two other house projects; one in Berlin, another in San Francisco. Fortunately perhaps, the architects were not initially aware of his huge reputation in graphic design: “When the project was well on site a friend of ours mentioned a film about Erik at the ICA – I guess then it finally sunk in” says Sylvia Ullmayer.
The project began when Spiekermann’s house, a Victorian terrace in the Dalston area of east London that he bought in 2001, started to fall apart. After finding Sylvia Ullmayer and Allan Sylvester, an Anglo-German partnership also based in Dalston, the brief he gave was particular, although not especially precise: Spiekermann would only be staying in the house for occasional visits to London while the rest of the time his son would live there. It was decided that Spiekermann Snr would have a space at the top of the house, in which he could work and live while in London. There was also agreement that the spirit of the Victorian terrace had to be respected, but also updated.
The result is a project of rigorous subtlety, entirely in keeping with Spiekermann’s own work as a graphic designer. Ullmayer Sylvester has retained, and in some cases restored, the internal rhythm of the house while opening it up to more daylight and more coherent routes between the back and front of the building. “What these houses are good at is not being grand, but being in good proportion,” says Ullmayer, “we played with existing room patterns, manipulated them and adapted them… yet the original, typical room layout can still be perceived in the ground floor, 1st and 2nd floor.” The architects also established new views through the building, for example creating a narrow window slot in the ground floor, which clears a view from the hall into the garden.
There are also touches that combine that architectural and the graphic; in particular the approach to bringing the house’s essential services into one integrated system. “The clutter of electric cables, heating pipes, radiators, sockets and new data connections has been combined, resulting in a Leitmotiv for the whole house: the lining, a tall skirting that runs through the whole house. bringing together old elements and new ones,” says Spiekermann.
The typographer says that the collaboration has made him a better client, while Ullmayer has been delighted at the ease of having a client who understands the design process inside out: “If it was halfway affordable and we could make a case for it, he’d let us do it. It was like having a patron.”
To find out more about the project – and get involved in the discussion – come to the RA Forum Unplugged: Two Stories, 7pm, Monday 15 December. It’s at the Cinema Space, 6 Burlington Gardens, London. Tickets: £7 (£4 concessions), including a drink. Space are limited, so please call 020 7300 5839.
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