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London Open House 2006

My laziest Open House weekend for a good few years. I spent the morning shamelessly doing nothing, then decided to cut my losses an go somewhere fairly local in the afternoon.

So I headed off to Peckham to see Will Alsop's Library. It's a bit of an odd building that's not sure whether it should be clad in copper or brightly coulored glass, nor whether it is tall and thin or short and fat. Raising the bulk of the building 5 stories up creates a useful public space underneith (and gets around the problems of burried cables running through the site), but it also makes for an odd and unwelcoming entrance (I couldn't help wondering why no space was made for a librarian's desk and main entrance on the ground floor). The main floors include three of Alsop's trademark pods that make for an unusual, but still very functional space, and it's a shame that the fourth pod has been omitted from the ground floor to create more space.


While in Peckham, I dropped in on the Peckham House (as seen on Grand Designs). It's a very interesting and innovative house - it had to be to fit within the constrained site. Sorry, no photos though, as Monty was overwhelmed with visitors, and we were ushered through very quickly as a result, but take a look at his website.

posted by Paul @ 8:00 pm