#righttoflight

[boldtendencies]

Last day Bold Tendencies 2014! Balloon flight 2pm to dusk - see you there! #righttoflight (at Bold Tendencies)

[boldtendencies]

Quick-fire interview with Doug Hodgson of TDO Architecture

Forrest Pond House, courtesy of Ben Blossom. 

Working since 2010, TDO Architecture was founded by a group of university friends who recognised that together they shared a mutual design aesthetic and desire to create challenging contemporary architecture. Primarily working on residential housing, in a short time TDO has achieved acclaim for such projects including their Forest Pond House, which was shortlisted for the Architects’ Journal Small Projects Award 2013 and the 2013 RIBA Awards for South/South East.

For the 'Right to Flight' commission, TDO worked together with James Bridle to develop the tanks that house the balloon, education tank and video installation. 

Describe TDO’s work

The most important thing for us is the function of the space. And then out of that, design develops. We like to work with simple primary shapes because we think that they are very powerful in architecture. Simple shapes, one or two simple moves can create very interesting spaces. We don’t believe in overcomplicating the architecture to try and force something to happen. It should just work. It takes a lot of time to make something simple that works.

Who has had the biggest influence on your architectural practice?

All three of the partner’s in the practice studied together at university, which I think had the most influence on us collectively. We have known each other for many, many years. At university, the tutors we had in second year, Penelope and Eduardo, were instrumental. Out of that year, I think we all developed a very similar way of thinking about design. 

Aside from that, I would say the Richard Rogers and Louis Kahn, who are two architects that we very much admire.

Favourite building worldwide?

Philips Exeter Library by Louis Khan; Casa Das Canoas by Niemeyer; and a new one, the Cheese Grater by Rogers.

Ugliest building worldwide?

It’s probably that (points to the skyline just right of the Shard): The Walkie Talkie building.

If you had the opportunity to design any building in the world what would it be?

James’ next installation (laughs). We love housing, residential architecture. That is something that we are doing a lot of at the moment; houses which can be prefabricated in a factory and then rolled out. We are interested in how that can be done without looking 70s drab. That’s something we are doing already and are really excited about it.

But something we would love to do in the future is a more permanent gallery.

Old Church Street residence, courtesy of Ben Blossom. 

Which organisation/person (past/present, dead or alive) would be your dream collaboration?

In terms of architects, Oscar Niemeyer. He was amazing and we would have loved to have worked with him. All three of the partners at TDO went to Brazil as part of a research trip in our second year at university and there we saw lots of Niemeyer buildings. Charles Jencks is also quite cool. 

What is your favourite design material?

The material that we use the most to build with is plywood because we can machine it ourselves. We even made our studio out of plywood. But I also really like brick. I think it’s quite a beautiful material. 

[boldtendencies]

Do interns, Lizzie and Emma, have the might for flight?

Uncluttered by clouds for the most part, the sky is a great upturned bowl of optimistic blue - the London skyline like an abstract pattern on its rim. If it wasn't for the crisscrossing white scars of the vapour trails reminding us that it is by no means uncharted territory, we might feel like the first pioneering balloonists of the nineteenth century. The sky seems to offer itself up as if it were brand new; it is an unfathomable mystery.

Today, Lizzie and I are pilots in training; James Bridle is giving us a crash course in flying his military-grade helikite balloon. We are both a bit apprehensive that James, who evidently has the practical bent of an artist with an MA in computer science, has too much confidence in the abilities of two interns trained only in art history.

After we have carried the freshly charged car battery and the rest of the kit from James's studio to the balloon tank, I am reluctant to put down the printed sheet of instructions that I clutch in my now nervously sweating hand. Having never been in a situation in which I've needed to lift a car battery before, I was slightly taken aback by its being heavier than I expected, and suddenly the winch and the clips and the cables in the balloon tank look threateningly hi-tech.

The worst-case scenarios flicker through my mind - visions of the balloon bursting or it somehow being released into that vast expanse of blue and being whirled away to waltz with The Shard. I decide that the former would be worse. The latter would make for more sensational publicity: ‘INTERNS RELEASE MILITARY-GRADE BALLOON OVER LONDON, DESTROYING ART AND CAUSING FLIGHT HAVOC’. It would also anticipate James's envisaged project of flying a balloon at the same height as The Shard, creating 'an-Other Shard', although it might scupper his progress in seeking permission to do this.

But James insists that I put the instructions to one side…”All it takes is a little common sense.” 

Of course, being the expert, it turns out that James is right. And thankfully Lizzie and I, between us, seem to have enough common sense and physical might to control the balloon in the gusty conditions on the roof of the multi-story car park. We have now flown the balloon to 150 feet and brought it back in again, and as we are releasing it for a second time, after having topped it up with helium, my anxiety is totally transfigured into exhilaration. Holding the winch-controller, I am squinting against the sun as I watch the balloon get higher and higher whilst the car battery moans. With each ten feet the cable extends, my excitement swells. 

To fly the balloon is to taste the elation and to partake in the utopian imaginings of Nadar, the Parisian photographer and balloonist. Author of an 1866 treatise entitled 'The Right to Flight', after which the commission is named, Nadar envisaged communication and travel via balloon bringing an end to conflict between nations. This is the intention behind James Bridle's project: to recover the initial idealistic potential of ballooning at its inception, the technology of which has subsequently been harnessed for more sinister purposes such as surveillance. Rather than flying for the purposes of controlling people, this balloon, floating serenely over Peckham, is for people to reclaim. 

One visitor likens the crosses that the cable forms in the sky with the vapour trails to kisses - the balloon is curiously beautiful. Her friend describes seeing the balloon from miles away during the cycle to work. Catching sight of it from a distance, people tend to first assume that the balloon is an advertisement; baffled on second glance by its enigmatic starkness, they are drawn to its source to find out what it actually is. The three tanks that they find - housing the balloon itself, the kaleidoscopic projections James creates from the camera attached to it, and images, books and research that expand upon the themes the commission addresses - become a hub of discussion and debate. 

Lizzie and I free and recapture the balloon three times before we let it go once more with the intention of leaving it to fly for the evening. Feeling ourselves buoyant with pride, we decide to head off to Frank's for a celebratory drink, wondering with mild interest whether there are any regulations regarding drinking and balloon piloting....

text and photo: Emma McKinlay