Eiffelover

Over the last few days the way we live, architechnophilia, and inhabit have all been covering a new pre-fab wooden house in Hackney designed by David Adjaye. Pre-fab does exactly what is says on the tin. It is PREfabricated and it allows the construction of some FABulous buildings in less time than it takes concrete to set. I remember seeing a documentary about a pair of artists who dreamt of building their own house for their retirement. In the end chose to have a house designed by a German team who specialise in pre-fab metal structures. The house arrived in pieces on a flat bed lorry and within a matter of days, a team of five or so had ratchetted the whole thing together in a latter of days (if any readers remember seeing this programme and know who they were I would be much obliged if they could share the knowledge!).

There are quite a number of streets in Hackney with grand old Victorian semi-detached houses set back from the road, especially around London Fields and Victoria Park. Every so often however there is a house missing, presumably victims of stray second world war bombs in this area of East London. And quite often these gaps are filled with new and exciting architecture. I haven’t seen Adjaye’s house for myself, but I can well imagine it filling such a void.

ps If anyone reading happens to be going to Hackney this weekend (I’m sure one of you will be) and happens to be passing, could they get me a picture so that I don’t have to steal somebody else’s… thanks