Monthly news updates on live projects, ongoing research and what others are saying.
Nov 2021Red House Completes
The Red House, a new build brick house in rural Dorset, is on the cover of this month's RIBA Journal special issue on houses. Contributing editor Chris Foges writes, "It was to be almost 10 years before the couple – now in their 50s – spent a night there, under the oversailing, almost alpine roof of an extraordinary new house that has replaced the crumbling cottage. It was worth the wait. Not only has David Kohn Architects produced a building rich in incident and ideas, but the project also benefits from the refinement of the owners’ aims over time." Read the full article here and visit the RIBAJ website here.
Oct 2021Oxford construction starts
Construction has started on David Kohn Architects’ £44 million quad for New College, Oxford. The new campus, to be named the Gradel Quadrangles after the principal donor, is the result of an international design competition won by the practice in 2015. Contractor Sir Robert McAlpine is set to complete the build in 2023. Visit the project webpage for more information.
Sep 2021Design District Opens!
The Greenwich Design District opens to the public on 15th September 2021. The Financial Times architecture critic, Edwin Heathcote writes of our two buildings A4 and B4, "Kohn has clearly had fun... with chunky brick columns, a green trellis of a facade and glass etched into block patterns, it plays with reality and representation, with scale and style." Read the whole article here (paywall). To attend the launch party, rsvp at Eventbrite here.
Jul 2021Covent Garden Rooftop
Construction has started on a new rooftop apartment in Covent Garden. '"I’ve always been intrigued by the additional spaces of a house,” says David Kohn, “such as a bay window or an extension, because they’re often where the delight is. They’re the things people remember.” And so he’s designing a three-storey home in central London, for an architecturally enlightened property developer, that “is all the extensions of a house without a house”, a compilation of constructional off-cuts, of curves, bays, projections and recessions,' writes Rowan Moore, the Observer architecture critic. Visit the Guardian's website to read the whole article. For more project information visit Baylight Properties' website. Image of early concept model.
Jun 2021"Full-on PoMo Revival"
The Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright describes David Kohn Architects' two buildings for the Greenwich Design District as "a full-on PoMo revival... channelling James Stirling’s 1987 Clore Gallery at Tate Britain, his pair of buildings feature bright green square grids contrasting with red bricks, colonnades of fat columns, and a jaunty rooftop sign." Read more at the Guardian website here. Visit the project page of our website here. The buildings are due to complete later this year.
May 2021Venice Biennale Capriccio
David Kohn has contributed a capriccio drawing to the Belgian Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Biennale. Invited by long-term collaborator Bovenbouw Architectuur, David's drawing "London 2121" responds to the question "What kind of city does your great design work belong to?" Visit the Flanders Architecture Institute website for more information here. The Biennale opened on 22nd May and closes 21st November 2021.
Apr 2021National Gallery Competition
David Kohn Architects has been shortlisted in an open international competition to refurbish the Grade I Listed Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. The project is timed to coincide with the gallery's bicentenary in 2024 and includes a range of upgrades to the Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown-designed wing along with improvements to public spaces surrounding the wider museum.
Photograph of the Sainsbury Wing Exterior © The National Gallery
Mar 2021Multiform
David has contributed an essay to a special edition of AD magazine entitled Multiform. Edited by Owen Hopkins and Erin McKellar, the issue "makes the case for the transformative possibilities offered by an approach that is ad hoc, eclectic and pluralist." David's essay, "Perceiving Postmodernism: Lessons from London's Marshlands," takes readers on a journey from central London to its periphery, encountering projects by the practice and landscapes that have informed its design approach. For more information, visit the publisher Wiley's webpage.
Feb 2021We Are Hiring
We are hiring for a number of important roles in the practice over the coming weeks, starting with senior architect. This is an opportunity to lead a major civic project working collaboratively with local stakeholders and driving a carbon negative future agenda. For the right candidate, the role extends to joining the leadership team in shaping the future of the practice and overseeing other projects. For more information please visit our jobs board here. Please spread the word!
Photograph of the studio trip to Villa Noailles, south of France, 2019
Feb 2021Hermann Czech & David Kohn in conversation
Join celebrated Austrian architect Hermann Czech and David Kohn discussing the influence of Josef Frank on their work at the invitation of the Austrian Society for Architecture. Moderated by architect Claudia Cavallar and Elise Feiersinger, editor of the recent collection of Czech's 'Essays on Architecture and City Planning,' topics will include: What role does site specificity play? How do you transfer local traditions or approach foreign ones? Does Josef Frank's definition of kitsch still hold true?
7pm CET, 6pm GMT, Friday 26th February 2021.Visit the Austrian Society for Architecture website for more details.