#lynch architects

[finn-wilkie]

Lynch Architects, Shacklewell Lane, London, 2024

www.lyncharchitects.com/

[observationsandreflections]

Lynch architects: Kings Gate, SW1, London; 2015

This scheme replaces an existing slab-like office building on Victoria Street in central London with two new buildings that incorporate a mix of retail, office space and housing. 

Opportunities for pedestrian permeability through the site led to the proposal for porous blocks, which between them form two significant new public spaces and public routes. The design comprises two clearly distinct buildings that express their different internal uses whilst making a harmonious urban ensemble. Zig-Zag (G+12 storeys) will be office space from second floor upwards and Kings Gate (G+14 storeys) is exclusively residential from second floor upwards, housing 100 apartments ranging from studios to three and four bedroom family flats.

The scheme proposes an active retail frontage at ground and first floors of both buildings. Kings Gate is made of Jura limestone and bronze coloured metals. Its south façade incorporates long terraces and the stone piers protects the interiors from overheating and the inhabitants’ privacy, presenting an orderly and dignified face towards Victoria Street. The rear limestone façade overlooking the Royal Parks forms a ‘garden elevation’ of metal balconies. Projecting bay windows on the side elevations provide daylight into the deep plan and offer views south over the River Thames or north-west over the parks. We see the scheme as a unified part of the city in which landscape, public art and architecture are conceived of as a single project.

Area: Residential - 10,090m2 NIA (108,610 sq ft) 100 apartments, Retail - 690m2 (7,430 sq ft), Multi-story Carpark - 152 car parking spaces, 386 cycle spaces over 5 floors

Further reading 1, 2

[finn-wilkie]

Lynch Architects, Kings Gate SW1, London, 2015

www.lyncharchitects.com/

[finn-wilkie]

Lynch Architects, Thursford Barn, Norfolk, 2013

www.lyncharchitects.com/

[observationsandreflections]

Mimesis: Lynch Architects - Patrick Lynch, Peter Carl, Laura Evans, Alexandra Stara, Claudia Lynch; Published by Artifice Books on Architecture 2015

'Mimesis' is a polemical monograph that presents the creative processes of one of London's most critically acclaimed architectural practices in its theoretical and cultural context. The work of Lynch Architects is remarkably diverse for a relatively small practice, ranging from large urban buildings to product design and academic research. Essays by Patrick Lynch, Peter Carl and Alexandra Stara situate the practice's recent buildings in London's Victoria Street alongside their earlier projects within a tradition of decorum and urban depth.

The texts establish the continuing relevance of the classical concept of mimesis in modern culture, and reveal the communicative role that memory, history and typology play in the contemporary architectural imagination. 'Mimesis' also explores the vital role that physical creative work and craft play in design, recovering the critical grounds for a poetics of Civic Architecture.

[observationsandreflections]

Patrick Lynch: Civic Ground : Rhythmic Spatiality and the Communicative Movement between Architecture, Sculpture and Site; Published by Artifice Books on Architecture, 2017

In Civic Ground, Patrick Lynch traces the philosophical background to the work of his practice, Lynch Architects, one of the most interesting young architectural offices in the UK at the moment, raising wider ethical considerations about what it means to make good architecture – and good cities – today.

Originating as a PhD, supervised by Peter Carl, Helen Mallinson and Joseph Rykwert, Civic Ground critiques the comparison of architecture with sculpture as a question of static form-making, arguing that parallels should be seen in the sense of dynamic rhythmic spatiality, which mediates and embeds a building into its site and civic context, reinforcing the communicative potential of architecture.

Civic Ground underlines why Patrick Lynch is one of the most thoughtful architects working in the UK today, combining successful practice with a strongly argued theoretical basis to his work, analysed here alongside precedents such as the architecture of Sigurd Lewerentz and Rafael Moneo, and a critique of Peter Eisenman's work, and discussion of the sculpture of Eduardo Chillida.

Reference

[jeroenapers]

De verbouwde bungalow en buitenhuisje Marsh View aan de kust van Noord-Norfolk, naar ontwerp van Lynch Architects.

[finn-wilkie]

Lynch Architects, Zig Zag Offices, London, 2014

www.lyncharchitects.com/