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May 24, 2015

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Architect takes aim at barriers, stereotypes

WHO is he?

Nigel Coates is an architect who likes pushing boundaries. For Coates, architecture is a wide-ranging discipline which can include not just building design, but also things like furniture, lighting and fashion. In his own words, “architecture is an experiential interface with the world, and my job is to heighten our awareness of it.”

 

Tell us about some of your designs; which are you most proud of?

I’ve built many projects with storytelling in mind, including the Hubs music venue in Sheffield in the UK, the giant Body Zone in the Millennium Dome, and the Wall building in Tokyo.

 

Are you currently involved with any project in particular?

Several… There’s a fortress to restore as a photographic arts center in Italy, a new clubhouse in Austria and a boutique hotel in London. We also launched my line of furniture at the last Salone del Mobile in Milan, and we’re hoping to show it at Beijing Design Week. An architect friend and I are also about to set up a London-Beijing design interface; we want to establish a super highway for design talent connecting China and the UK.

 

Describe your design style.

I’ve never felt comfortable in a social straightjacket, so it follows that I like objects charged with a free spirit. I try to put anima into everything I do, so I hope that’s what makes my work distinct ... I start with a stereotype and then chip away at it, add to it, change the material, the function or shift the scale. References are abundant but they’re simultaneously eroded and replaced with something fresh. I like a new building that’s a ruin; a chair that looks like a reclining body; a mirror that’s a giant eye; a table that’s on tiptoes. However down-to-earth the commercial objectives might be, design needs to have pleasure built in to its being.

 

What will be the next design trend?

That’s always a tough one. There are certain trends that I’m already sick of, like the new Puritanism you see on the pages of design blogs. I’d like to see design that gives a bigger role to culture. Simplicity could be offset with a richness of meaning if you can be bothered to look. Miuccia Prada has been working at that idea for a while now with her radical collage. She can make a piece of clothing look simultaneously vintage and cutting edge. That’s directional and I’m looking forward to seeing the effect in architecture. Just like art, design should no longer be about beauty, proportion and all that. It should make you think while delivering a shot of pleasure too.




 

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