BODIL BLAIN SHARES COFFEE AND CREATIVE SMALL TALK WITH…

a pair of progressive east London architects

How do you take your coffee?

William: One a day will do, strong with hot milk. Stephen: I buy beans, I grind them and make it myself.

How did your practice start?

S: The three of us had previously studied together and we were all then

working in London. We cooked up this idea where we would meet at some horrible time one morning each

week and just walk and look. This was 1997 and London was beginning to change. There hadn’t been any big

construction for a long time as we were just coming out of a recession. W: We didn’t start off wanting

to fiddle with old buildings, but we quickly realised there were some interesting, progressive clients who

wanted to do things that repurposed existing structures without the need to do away with them.

Is there is a strong vein of social

responsibility to your work?

S: We’re always thinking about how

our work fits into the city. Our next

project is a contemporary almshouse in Southwark for people in social housing. The irony of all the

developments we’ve seen in inner cities over the last 15 years is that, despite creating space for more

people, there are more people than ever suffering loneliness. The idea was to make this almshouse a place the

public could access, with a large, open communal room with a high ceiling and garden courtyard, south facing

with a lot of light. It will have a café, theatre, craft markets and a cookery school where you can make and

eat meals together. For years we’ve been collaborating with architectural writer Ken Worpole. He’s from

a generation when Britain was more socially orientated. Now, the idea of living communally in London,

building with those concerns, no one

teaches you how to do that anymore. We work with idealistic clients, and

they want to build because everything

they’ve seen so far, they don’t like. They’re almost activists and they

want to show there’s an alternative.

wwmarchitects.co.uk