Oriel
A bay projecting from the wall face, carried on corbels — daylight from three sides and a statement of status.
sketch · model in preparation
Catalogue
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
historical
contemporary
contemporary
Elements & objects
Two shelves of the same cabinet. Elements are the vocabulary of building — a gothic portal and a curtain wall belong to one language, centuries apart. Objects are authentic buildings and structures documented in the field. Every card starts as a sketch; models and photographs arrive in layers, at the studio's own pace.
Elements
historical · contemporaryPortal
The ornamented frame of an entrance; in Gothic — pointed, with stepped jambs and moulded archivolts.
sketch · model in preparationArcade
A rhythm of arches carried on columns or piers — structure repeating itself into space; shelter, street and façade in one gesture.
sketch · model in preparationArcaded cloister
A covered walk of arcades wrapped around a courtyard — the arcade folded into a square, turning circulation into contemplation.
sketch · model in preparationPier
The workhorse of masonry — a massive vertical stem gathering arches, ribs and walls; in Gothic, a bundle of shafts, each answering one rib above.
sketch · model in preparationColumn
The classical order distilled — base, fluted shaft and capital in strict proportion; its gentle swelling, the entasis, bends so the eye may see straight.
sketch · model in preparationPilaster
A column remembered by the wall — base, shaft and capital flattened to a few centimetres of relief; it carries little, and articulates everything.
sketch · model in preparationSpire
A needle of stone or timber crowning a tower — governed by wind rather than weight, and thinning as it climbs; height built to be seen, not used.
sketch · model in preparationTower
A shaft of masonry that trades floor area for height — and thins as it climbs, each step left inside the wall becoming the shelf that carries the next floor.
sketch · model in preparationRidge turret
A slender turret astride the roof ridge — the flèche — carrying the small bell that marked the moment; the only tower without a foundation, standing on the timber truss that hands its weight out to the walls.
sketch · model in preparationCupola
A tower crown of bulb, lantern and spike — rebuilt after each fire in the taste of a new age; its soft swelling is really a polygon, a curve the carpenter bends from straight timbers laced by hoops.
sketch · model in preparationWall
The oldest element of all — barrier and support in one; in historic building the brick wall keeps a record of its making in the bond, the rhythm of headers and stretchers that a mason can read like the rings of a tree.
sketch · model in preparationPost
The carpenter's vertical — a squared timber standing in a frame rather than on its own mass; tenoned into the sill below and the plate above, steadied by angle braces. The mason carves; the carpenter joins.
sketch · model in preparationWindow
A hole punched in the wall for light — and the mason's hardest problem: the wall above must find a way down. A flat lintel carries only the triangle of masonry directly over it; a relieving arch, hidden higher, discharges the rest into the jambs.
sketch · model in preparationDoor
The moving fill of an entrance — not its frame (that is the portal) but the leaf itself. Boarded vertically and held by cross-ledges, it would droop at its free corner in time were it not for the diagonal brace, run from the hinge at the foot up to the latch at the head.
sketch · model in preparationGate
A defended passage through a town wall or castle circuit — not a single leaf (that is the door) but the whole gateway: a vaulted tunnel that can be shut from above. Its emblem is the portcullis — a grille that falls in stone grooves rather than turning on hinges.
sketch · model in preparationDouble doors
Great double doors closing a wide opening — of a gateway, a barn, a cathedral: two heavy leaves meeting at the centre. No single leaf can span the width, so it is halved into two and locked by a shared beam — a drawbar that slides into a deep socket in the wall.
sketch · model in preparationCurtain wall
A non-loadbearing skin of mullions, transoms and glass — the façade as a hung, precise membrane.
sketch · model in preparationCantilever
A volume reaching beyond its support — structure made visible, gravity politely postponed.
sketch · model in preparationNext on the drawing board: truss, tracery, corbel, brise-soleil, space frame, pilotis…
Objects
selected photographs by the authorfirst objects — photographs in selection, coming at a later stage