At the RIAI Annual Conference on the 4th of October Niall McLaughlin will give a talk titled ‘ Town and Country’ and will be looking at four recent projects: Two urban housing projects in London and a chapel and hut in idyllic rural locations. The chosen theme for the conference is Strength, Utility and Grace, reminding delegates of the three qualities that Vitruvius demanded of his work, and qualities that posses an enduring relevance for today.
A short film has been made about the practice and the design of the Tapestry Building, a large-scale mixed-use development on the edge of the Regent’s Canal in King’s Cross. The scheme forms one element in the wider regeneration of the 67-acre site adjacent to King’s Cross station and the Regent’s Canal.
In the film Niall McLaughlin describes the design influences behind the woven tapestry-like facade and places the building within a tradition of masonry buildings looking to imitate “the intensity and the enmeshed, thicket-like quality of tapestries” that goes back to the origins of architecture, where hanging tapestries were used to enclose space.