"Dirty House"
In the early 2000s, David Adjaye was not yet a world celebrity and a knight whose contribution to the creation of socially significant objects was so highly appreciated by the queen. He specialized in the design of private mansions, but his clients were famous people in the fashion community - designer Alexander McQueen, actor Ewan McGregor, popular photographers, artists and artists. David himself lived on Penn Street in Hackney for more than ten years. And it is perfectly logical that when in 2001 artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster bought a dilapidated furniture warehouse and wanted to turn it into a place to live and work, they turned to Adjaye Associates.
David Adjaye is an architect and a knight. Photo: Ed Reeve
The work of the scandalous art duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster is familiar to most of us primarily from the "shadow" sculptures from trash that they have been creating since 1997, as well as from the many "anti-monuments" - opportunistic objects of public art.
Tim Noble and Sue Webster in the process of creating sculptures from garbage. Image source: artlyst.com
Shadow portraits created by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. Image source: artlyst.com
Dirty House ("Gryazny dom") was, according to Adjaye, the result of "a whole discussion with clients about creating beauty from street detritus." The architectural image had to correspond to the image of highly sensitive and unstable artists, which they built no less carefully than their garbage sculptures. "Dirty House" got its name thanks to a careless graphic sketch made during one of the first meetings. At some stage of construction, the house looked appropriate - with walls painted with hooligan graffiti. As a result, the banal brick building on the corner of the street turned into a black cube resembling a bunker.
Because of the graffiti, the mansion got the name "Dirty House". Photo: Matt Brown/flickr
"Dirty House" is the final version. Photo: Ed Reeve
The window openings are deeply recessed into the walls, and the tinted glass, opaque from the street, turns them into "blind". The laconic and gloomy volume is covered with a white slab that looks like a pastor's collar. The spaces of the house are filled with art objects and objects that were damaged or broken during the heated discussions between the artists, as the construction process showed. In a word, the exterior and interior of the building are as conceptual as possible.
For Adjaye, this minimalist house became a breakthrough project that brought him a lot of new orders from both private clients and public organizations.
"I have found that artists are incredibly sympathetic to my architectural process - all my most successful projects have been with artists," David Adjaye recently wrote in an author's column in The Guardian.
"Dirty House" played an important role in the work of Tim Noble and Sue Webster until in 2013, after 20 years of being together, they decided to break up. And even an hour before the official breakup with her partner, the eccentric Sue Webster managed to purchase at auction a property in poor condition but with an amazing history - the "Mole House".
"House of the Mole"
Since 1960, the ordinary Victorian house at 121 Mortimer Road has been owned by a man named William Little. The retired engineer had a reputation as a harmless eccentric who sometimes annoyed his neighbors. For example, once a part of the borough was left without electricity due to the fact that Little decided to arbitrarily connect to the underground main electric cable. Then a similar trouble happened with the water supply. And in 2006, the sidewalk in front of Little's house suddenly collapsed, revealing a whole network of underground tunnels that spread chaotically in different directions.
The Mole Man from Hackney - William Little in the background of his house, under which he dug a network of tunnels
It turns out that one day William Little decided to deepen his cellar a little to store the collection wine in a suitable microclimate. The digging process so engrossed him that over the next 40 years, he dug 8 meters under the foundation and, with the help of a shovel and a homemade pulley, laid a whole network of tunnels, diverging from his house at a distance of up to 20 meters. To assess the scope of his work, the district authorities scanned the street and concluded that the eccentric had threatened to collapse several neighboring mansions. In total, Little took out more than 100 cubic meters of earth - he took out part of the soil, and he rammed the rest in the rooms of the house. With a huge scandal, the insane man was evicted to a social apartment in a high-rise building, where he died in 2010.
But, one way or another, the mole man became world famous. Therefore, when Sue Webster took part in the auction, she had to pay 1,12 million pounds for a house with a collapsed roof and a flooded basement. By that time, communal services filled the legendary tunnels with aerated concrete to prevent the destruction of neighboring buildings. Surprisingly, the neighbors did not hold a grudge against William Little and protested when officials proposed to demolish his house, which by then had almost turned into ruins.
"Dom Krota" after renovation with a courtyard buried below street level. Photo: Ed Reeve
"Dom Krota" - site plan. Image source: Adjaye Associates
At first, Webster asked David Adjaye to create a cozy Victorian nest for her, a kind of time capsule, because, by her own admission, she was tired of the harsh minimalism of "The Dirty House". But it was not here. In the process of communication with the architect, the idea was transformed. Adjaye proposed to keep the peeling plaster on the facade, not to restore the collapsed pitched roof, to replace it with a flat one with light windows, and to lower the wedge-shaped courtyard below the street level, paying due respect to the history of the house.
"House of the Mole" after renovation. Photo: Ed Reeve
The project had to be coordinated for a long time with city planners, who, as they say, "eye twitched" when they realized that it was the "Mole House" that caused so many problems. Construction work started in 2014 and continued for more than 5 years. It is difficult to call the house "cozy", but the architect managed to fill it with light and air. And the coldness of concrete is compensated by the warmth of pine floorboards and wall panels. The interiors here are filled with dozens of original design details, and in general they look artistic and moderately bourgeois at the same time.
Guest room in the "Mole House" after renovation. Photo: Ed Reeve
David Adjaye refused to restore the pitched roof, replacing it with a flat one with light windows. Photo: Ed Reeve
Warm wood compensates for the coldness of concrete. Photo: Ed Reeve
Judging by the interviews that Webster gives to journalists, she liked the new house. And his individuality helps Sue realize her own self-sufficiency after breaking up with Tim.
Despite the fact that Adjaye has become famous for his public buildings, libraries, museums and memorials, he admits that he still feels an attraction to complex private projects and clients who are alien to prejudice. The "House of the Mole" is a subject of his pride, since the success of the renovation depended on the solution of many extraordinary technical and intellectual problems.
"I am very interested in clients who own strange plots, the construction of which is associated with difficulties. These are the projects I aspire to,” says Adjaye.
And what about another mansion of Adjaye in Hackney, the Sunken House, which we mentioned at the very beginning? Yes, this is another black cube (this time wooden), partially submerged in the ground.
"Sunken House" designed by Adjaye for the ego of photographer friend Ed Reeve. Photo: Ed Reeve
Terrace of the Sunken House. Photo: Ed Reeve
David designed it for architectural photographer Ed Reeve, with whom he often collaborates. By the way, it was Ryv who documented the entire renovation process of the "Mole House". Well, it was not far for him to walk - to the neighboring street. Hackney-borough is, in fact, a large village, everything is nearby.
