CRAFTLINES
AUGUST 2015
My grandfather has worn many hats; soldier, civil servant, father of seven, husband, and winner of a county final in hurling (the achievement of which he is potentially most proud). He is fluent in Irish and recalls event and dates from 50 years ago with a staggering accuracy. Yet the residing image of him from my childhood is as a craftsman – in the garage next to his house in Dublin, whittling and sanding a piece of ash to form a hurley, sizing it precisely for the user, wrapping the handle to create the perfect hold. I remember sitting, playing surreptitiously with a clamp, watching this in awe: the creation of the perfect instrument from a piece of timber; a skill honed through practice and an unfailing attention to detail. I marvelled at the assurance of it all, the promise in his hands.
It would be satisfyingly simple to attribute my choice of career to these moments – to claim there was an epiphany in watching him, a sudden realisation that I wanted to be an architect, to create. In reality, however, the path was not so linear; instead the conviction that I wanted to become an architect embedded itself in my consciousness slowly, over time. The memory of him working in his garage was one I didn’t return to often, and like any story we fail to repeatedly tell ourselves, it languished, dormant, in the recesses of my mind.
I recently went to site at Jesus College, Cambridge, where we are working on a project that is part new build, part refurbishment. An aspect of the refurbishment involves the adaptation of eight bookcases in the magnificent former library into wall panelling. The existing bookcases are a dark stained timber, designed by Maurice Webb in the 1920s and wonderfully crafted by a masterful hand. Reworking these without compromising their beauty would be a challenge for any craftsman.
On seeing the work the joiner had done, I realised there was no cause for worry – it had been executed with confident, competent hands. In that moment, the memory of my grandfather in his garage came back to me in glorious Technicolor; and I felt a familiar thrill at the embodied potential of the right material in the hands of a craftsman, with promise in his hands.
THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE
NOVEMBER 2014
Sarah-Jane McGee, Project Architect (Right) and and Sophia Tibbo, Structural Engineer (Left) on site, 2014
I recently explained to a relative that the most exciting part of my job is the element of surprise. I compared the world of desktops and emails and repetitive strain injury to that thrill I get each Wednesday when arriving on site to inspect progress. It is the uplifting discovery of the unexpected that is most satisfying to me.
The origin of the word ‘surprise’ ranges in meaning from ‘overcome with emotion’, ‘strike of astonishment’ or ‘a taking unawares’. This is also common to the early process of design during which the building takes shape inside your mind as a sequence of spaces, moments and details. As architects, our job for many months and even years on a single project is to translate this purely imaginary set of ideas into a two-dimensional rule-book for eventual construction. The resulting documentation is scientific, precise, and impersonal. It is accompanied by reams of contracts, costs, schedules and sums. It is in short, quite dull to the naked eye.
This document then comes into contact with a wide range of people; contract managers, site agents, sub-contractors, labourers and tradesmen. They have a unique ability to bring this pile of paper to life. Over the days and months the team forms the structure like bees in a hive. One week there is a hole in the ground, soon after the steel is measured and delivered, the floors and stairs go in, the roof lights are installed, the doors are hung and the whole thing is ‘buttoned up’. Suddenly what was abstract becomes real, what were lines become tangible surfaces, shocking in their dimension and materiality.
Construction is simply connecting one thing to another thing, layering over and over and over. The physical actions are drilling, digging, hammering, stacking, lifting, fixing, pouring, spreading, sticking, brushing, nailing. It is a human activity, with each person lending his or her very specific skills to create the whole.
To me it seems surprising and almost contradictory that something as animated, chaotic and personal as a construction site can become a silent space of light falling on blank walls. The story is hidden behind white layers of plasterboard, a secret that will only be uncovered in the next round of renovation or demolition.
After all the humming and drilling the building gets built. The bees move on; an enchantingly empty hive remains. And we begin to imagine again.
Sarah-Jane McGee graduated with a first class honors degree from University College Dublin in 2008. Sarah-Jane won the Irish Architectural Graduates Association Gold Medal in 2008 and her thesis project was highly commended in the OPUS Construction Awards in 2008. Having worked in Ireland for O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects and in Italy for Mario Cucinella Architects, she joined Niall McLaughlin Architects in 2011. Since joining the practice she has worked as Project Architect on a recently completed private house in Hampstead, London as well as working on St. Cross College, St. Teresa’s Carmelite prayer room in Dublin, a fishing hut in Hampshire and the ROQ Masterplan in Oxford.