Tom Holberton’s project brings to the surface key questions: the relationship between public and private spaces and the role that architecture can play as mediatic experience, bridging the gap between the tangible and material and the invisible and extraordinary.
Tom Holberton
University College London
Bartlett School of Architecture
View of south bank. © Tom Holberton.
Jury
Michel Mossessian
Larry Oltmanns
This project explores the notion of a facade as a projected “drawing.”
An auction-house operates in a territory where art seeks universal appeal and exclusivity at the same time. The facade of such a building can become a critical object in negotiating between these divided loyalties; public and private realms; concepts of display and concealment.
At the South Bank, open and public spaces interweave with the valuable office space. This project looks to investigate possible new relationships between an external public audience and a private interior world whereby the facade will be a changing drawing that can be both wholly public and private. It must communicate on several levels, displaying to several audiences, and revealing and concealing its contents. It can betray an internal and private structure, perform an intentional display, or articulate the building's surveillance of the area.
Light is a medium that can describe the facade and in considering its various attributes, polarization appeared to be a promising source of investigation. The plane of polarization cannot be detected by the human eye and so this could form the basis for some silent mode of communication.
The site is divided into two parts located on the north and south banks, where a traditional relationship of display and view can be resurrected between abandoned railway bridge footings. By separating components of the auction-house, the private dialogue between the two parts can be glimpsed and influenced by a curious public.
Daily cycle. © Tom Holberton.
Public route. © Tom Holberton.
Auction. © Tom Holberton.
Reflections reveal image. © Tom Holberton.
Brewster reflections. © Tom Holberton.
Tom Holberton
University College London
Bartlett School of Architecture
practices as SoHo+Co he is also a part time Associate at Rick Mather Architects. He has worked on a variety of residential and cultural projects including James Allen’s Community Music Centre, West End One, a sustainable mixed-use urban quarter in Central Milton Keynes, the extension to the Lyric Theatre, a masterplan for Barking River Roding, and Stowe Boarding House. Holberton is currently part of the Centre Point team working with London Borough of Camden to refurbish the Grade II listed complex. He was awarded the RIBA Bronze Medal when he studied at the Bartlett. He is also a lecturer at Unit 21 at the Bartlett School of Architecture.
