Alex Michaelis, co-founder of architectural practice Michaelis Boyd, has spent the past 25 years working on minimal leaning, but detail rich, projects around the world, including private residences, several Soho Houses and Cantonese restaurant Duddells in London. Here, at his playful family home, he tells us how his signature style was applied to a fun-filled living space for him, his wife Susanna and their combined seven children, complete with a fireman’s pole, swimming pool and slide.
Alex: “I’m not very good at living in normal houses. I haven’t really done it for a while. Before I built our first house in Notting Hill 16 years ago, I lived in converted period London houses, but I always thought there were lots of compromises. There’s always the question of ‘what do you do with the front room?’, for example. People often just use them only for special occasions, like Christmas drinks, even though they’re often the best rooms in the house.
“I love people and I love designing houses for people. I love the interaction and getting sucked into projects. A lot of my clients end up becoming friends, because you create such a bond. You have to get inside them to understand what’s going to happen and what they really want.
“This plot of land was the ideal opportunity – a developer came to me and said, ‘I’ve got this site and want to do a joint venture with you. You design it and we can work something out.’ Thankfully, he decided he didn’t want to go ahead with it, which meant I could buy the site off him. It’s very nice to be able to create the space you actually want, rather than try and make it work within an existing framework.
“The space was landlocked by other buildings, which was a challenge. I wanted it to be soft with no hard edges. I design quite curvy architecture anyway, but I really wanted it to peel away from the existing buildings around it.
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发表于 2020-8-4 01:25:15
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