HAIRYWOOD p/o 2008 London Festival of Architecture
The tower creates a temporary public space and landmark for one month this summer, offering an escape to watch the world go by.
Photography by MA
London
Hairywood was originally commisioned by the Architecture Foundation for its gallery on Old Street. Designed by 6a Architects in collaboration with Eley Kishimoto, Hairywood’s new residency on the Piazza in Covent Garden marks a new partnership between Covent Garden London and Somerset House.
The tower creates a temporary public space and landmark for one month this summer, offering an escape to watch the world go by. The small place at the top, lined with timber and printed upholstery, is like a fragment of private space open to the piazza.
The outside is clad with reusable plywood that has been laser cut with Eley Kishimoto’s pattern of Rapunzel’s hair allowing dappled light into the interior. At night, the tower is lit from within and glows like a latern.
Protected behind the tower is a printed deck with benches providing a new resting point adjacent to the Apple Market. Hairwood is a playful challenge to re-imaging the possibilities of designing public space from a new perpective.
The designers were inspired by Jacques Tati’s film, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1958) that celebrates the shared pleasure of summer holidays on the beach. Each day with the herione Martine opening her hotel bedroom window and gazing out to sea. Tati built an immaculate bay window held high above the ground on a wooden tower to create juxtaposition of interior intimacy with the public beach. Tati’s romantic image was reinterpreted first in Old Street and now in Covent Garden where a small domestic beacon offers a new human measure to the relentless traffic.
Hairywood has been published extensively in books, journals internationally and in national press. In 2006 it received a Yellow Pencil, D&AD Award. In 2008 it won Best of Category in the Contract World Awards.