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    Sam Jacob gives “soft brutalist” University of Kent building a modern makeover

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    Architecture studio Sam Jacob Studio has refurbished a 1960s building at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, using playful architectural references and bright colours to add layers of “wit and delight” to the existing interiors.

    The project provides teaching spaces for the university’s School of Architecture, Design and Planning, which is part of a campus designed by William Holford that opened in 1965.
    Sam Jacob Studio has refurbished the interiors of a 1960s University of Kent buildingSam Jacob Studio (SJS) looked to retain what it described as the “soft brutalist” character of the brick and concrete Marlowe Building when reorganising the existing interior.
    The Marlowe building originally housed the university’s physics department, which featured a series of cellular offices on the ground floor and a top-lit lab space above.
    The studio wanted to retain the building’s “soft brutalist” feelingFollowing a detailed consultation with faculty and students, Jacob and his team defined a strategy that balances areas dedicated to specific year groups and subjects with the ability to transform and open up the spaces.

    The team at SJS said it was interested in “what happens between the logic of architecture and the happenstance of creative working”.
    They based their design on a variety of famous creative spaces including the Bauhaus school and Paul Rudolph’s brutalist Yale Art and Architecture Building, as well as The Factory created by artist Andy Warhol in New York City.
    Large sliding doors were used to separate spacesThe architects gutted the existing interior to expose the concrete ceiling alongside the building’s structure and services, which were retained as the backdrop for a series of minimal interventions targeted at fulfilling the space’s new role.
    “This is a project that reveals the intrinsic qualities of the 1960s building, while also contrasting a more fluid contemporary character,” the studio said.
    “It is an architecture that invites inhabitation rather than imposing order, that recognises character, wit and delight as part of an essential role of architecture.”
    Polycarbonate portholes allow light to pass through the spacesSJS worked as much as possible with the existing spatial layout, adding just one wall to the ground floor and two on the first floor so that the interiors can evolve to meet different future requirements.
    Rather than functioning merely as static partitions, the walls are activated by incorporating moving components that can be used to adapt the layout of the studios.
    Large sliding doors with polycarbonate portholes allow some of the spaces to be separated, while pivoting wall sections can be opened or closed depending on the desired layout.

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    The partition walls incorporate full-height pinboards for displaying work. These surfaces were given a more dynamic appearance by cutting the boards diagonally from corner to corner.
    The standard-height pinboards are topped with a shelf, onto which adjustable lights are clamped to allow illumination of the students’ work. Mirrored panels above the shelf create the illusion of a continual space.
    Pinboards feature clamped adjustable lights to illuminate student’s workThe studio can be customised further to suit different working modes by rearranging freestanding elements including drawing boards, easels, screens and moveable storage units built using standard warehouse shelves.
    Existing furniture was reused wherever possible, while doors salvaged during the strip-out were converted into desks, with yellow laminate pieces added to fill in holes where the locks and vision panels were once located.
    Pivoting wall sections can be opened or closed depending on the desired layoutThe interior incorporates several explicit architectural references, according to SJS, including a colour palette based on Le Corbusier’s 1959 paint system.
    “A series of columns used to define thresholds act as 1:1 models of, variously, Canterbury Cathedral, Brancusi and James Stirling, like a library of other architectures inhabiting the school,” the team explained.
    To prevent sunlight from overheating the studios, a series of coloured window blinds was added along with moveable perforated pinboard panels that help to control privacy. This creates a changing topography that animates the building’s exterior.
    Moveable perforated pinboard panels provide privacy and shadingSam Jacob established his eponymous studio in 2014, having previously worked as part of the radical architecture collective FAT for over 20 years.
    Previous projects by SJS include a new entrance at London’s V&A museum made from hundreds of glass tubes and a brightly coloured studio and office for designer Yinka Ilori.
    The photography is by Timothy Soar.

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      Barbie exhibition aims to show toy is “worthy proposition from a design point of view”

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      The Barbie dolls and Dreamhouses featured in Barbie: The Exhibition at London’s Design Museum reflect shifts in visual culture over the famed toy’s 65 years.

      With over 250 objects on display, Barbie: The Exhibition opens today and examines the history of the doll since it was created by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler in 1959.
      Barbie: The Exhibition opens today at London’s Design MuseumAccording to curator Thom, the exhibition was conceived to unpack the toy’s design influence over the last 65 years and explore the “myriad technical, aesthetic and cultural decisions that go into creating Barbie”.
      “What I would really like visitors to take away from the show, whether they’ve come as Barbie fans or Barbie skeptics but with an interest in design, is that there is actually a very complex and intentional set of design processes that go into creating the dolls and the accessories,” said the curator.
      A first-edition Barbie is included in the collection”And that intentionality does reflect the social context in which any given Barbie is being produced,” she told Dezeen at the Design Museum.

      “I want people to realise that Barbie is a worthy proposition from a design point of view,” she added.
      The show features dolls throughout Barbie’s 65-year historyCreated by architecture firm Sam Jacob Studio, the exhibition design includes iridescent colourful plinths and cylindrical toy packaging-style cases displaying past and present-day Barbies and their accompanying Dreamhouses and accessories.
      Among the collection is a first-edition, hand-painted doll from 1959, positioned next to archival footage of the earliest Barbies being manufactured in Japan. The exhibition also features Christie, the first Black Barbie designed in 1968, and the first Hispanic and Asian Barbie dolls created by Mattel.
      An entire section is dedicated to the evolution of Barbie’s hairThere is a specific section dedicated to the evolution of Barbie’s now 76 hairstyles available in 94 colours, crowned by a bespoke chandelier made of dolls’ hair.
      “In the 90s, I found that a lot of the Black Barbies had straightened hair,” said Thom. “Today, Barbies come with different hair textures.”
      “Obviously, hair play is fun. Children like to brush Barbie’s hair. But there’s more to it than that. How Barbie’s hair is represented is a way in which the importance of her is conveyed to children,” she added.
      The show highlights past and present furniture trendsBarbie dolls from the 2016 Fashionista line are also on display, which were created to include more body types and skin types. Launched last year, the first Barbie doll with Down’s syndrome also features in the show.
      “I think since the Fashionista line redesign, there has been a much more concerted effort to provide as many different visual frames of reference as possible in the doll line so that in theory, every kid can see something of themselves,” said Thom.
      “I’ve found that more recently, there’s that level of attention to cultural details,” added the curator.
      Sam Jacob Studio created the exhibition designElsewhere in the exhibition, a selection of Dreamhouses chart how architecture and furniture trends have influenced the Barbie universe.
      Designed in 1962, the first Barbie Dreamhouse is on display. Created entirely out of cardboard, the single-storey home features mid-century modern furniture similar to the designs of Florence Knoll, the late pioneer of the modern open-plan office.
      The first Barbie Dreamhouse didn’t have a kitchenWith the absence of a kitchen, the first Dreamhouse positioned Barbie as an “independent woman”, argued Thom, created at a time when it was “virtually impossible” for an American woman to gain a mortgage without a male guarantor.
      Visitors can also find the yellow-hued A-frame Dreamhouse from 1978, complete with a pitched roof and angular windows, which recalls the early work of California-based architect Frank Gehry.
      “It was a little avant-garde for its time,” reflected Thom. “The house doesn’t look very Barbie by our contemporary understanding of Barbie – no pink whatsoever – but these moments in Barbie’s design history reflect what was going on in the world of design,” explained the curator.
      Later Dreamhomes reflect more decorative architecture trendsLater architecture trends also feature in the show, with a Dreamhouse from 1995 revealing a return to more traditional American 19th-century motifs including corner turrets and decorative mouldings, with all-pink, “chintzy” sofas placed in the interior.
      “It’s this kind of colonial-style architecture with sash windows, a portico and vines climbing up the side,” explained Thom.

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      Shifts in fashion over the years are also acknowledged in the show, with various displays documenting Barbie’s many looks. There is a doll with a cropped hairstyle wearing a tiny version of a dress from the late designer Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 Mondrian Collection, while a host of more “everyday” Barbie garments were arranged within a bright pink cabinet.
      Although Thom explained that the exhibition has been in the works for a few years, as opposed to a response to last year’s high-grossing Barbie film directed by Greta Gerwig, the show features a pair of fluffy pink mules and the multicoloured roller-skating look worn by actor Margot Robbie in the movie.
      “We had a fascinating, kind of informal chat with the set designers about their process,” said the curator.
      Select pieces from last year’s Barbie film were also includedShe also explained why the museum sought the exhibition design of Sam Jacob Studio.
      “We wanted to work with Sam because we felt that his aesthetic, which is obviously very pop-inspired, very playful and colourful, would be a great fit for how Barbie has been presented over the years.”
      “Almost all the objects in the show are tiny,” added Thom. “So we wanted to design something that gave her a sense of presence, and almost in some cases monumentality.”
      “We needed to come up with a design that worked with that, but also augmented it,” she explained.
      The show aims to present “Barbie as a reflection of culture””The idea that Barbie is a reflection of culture I find interesting,” considered Thom, who noted the inclusion of various dolls in the exhibition designed with specific “careers” – Barbie has had over 250 of them in her history.
      “Because it does suggest that her meaning, or meanings, are in the eye of the beholder – the eye of the consumer. And I think that’s one of the reasons for her longevity,” continued the curator.
      “I think there can be a tendency to write things off that might be feminine-coded or child-orientated, as being somewhat lesser when it comes to design,” she added.
      “Barbies are toys – they are mass-produced. They are designed first and foremost to be played with. But that doesn’t negate the possibility that they are important objects.”
      The photography is by Jo Underhill.
      Barbie: The Exhibition is on display at the Design Museum from 5 July 2024 to 23 February 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Sam Jacob Studio adds glass-tube entrance to London's V&A museum

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      British architect Sam Jacob has used ribbed glass to create a contemporary entrance for London’s historic V&A museum and updated its bathrooms with a broken-ceramic cladding that feels “a little perverse”.

      The studio drew on the Victoria & Albert museum (V&A’s) collection for its designs, choosing glass for the lobby in a nod to the museum’s glass collection and crushed jasperware for the bathrooms.
      The lobby has glass tubes in three sizesThe entrance structure was designed in response to the existing proportions of the building and is formed of three bands of glass tubes, starting with 120-millimetre diameter tubes on the lower level that become thinner on the upper levels.
      Sam Jacob Studio wanted the design, which marks the entrance from Cromwell Road, to function as a modern response to the surrounding Grade I-listed museum building.
      It sits in front of a large arched window”The heights of the whole structure and the way it is split into three levels is a contemporary response to the historic fabric,” Jacob told Dezeen.

      “This helps the new elements resonate in a harmonious way even with a very different design sensibility,” he added.
      “Working with historic buildings is a great challenge and one that means it’s important to understand what is really there, and why it might be like that.”
      The contemporary lobby was designed as a response to the historic museumUsing glass for the lobby also helped create a more dramatic and dynamic effect at the entrance, while nodding to the large arched window that dominates the space.
      “The glazing for the entrance – especially the glass tubes – were a way to retain a sense of transparency at the entrance, but also to dramatise the way light is transmitted into the space,” Jacob said.
      Sam Jacob Studio designed the lobby for the Cromwell Road entrance”The effect of the tubes is to act like lenses, and the movement of people through the entrance becomes visually more animated, producing different effects as the daylight changes over time,” he added.
      “It’s also a response to the large arched window above, that has texture and colour to the glass, so that the whole interior elevation now acts in a similar way.”

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      “It’s glass used not so much for quality of transparency but for the dynamic effects of light passing through that it creates,” he added.
      Jacob also added sliding doors to the lobby and designed a collection of moveable stations that will be used for bag checks on entry.
      A welcome desk with mirrored backing sits in the lobbyAt the museum entrance, the studio added a welcome desk made from glass tubes with a mirrored backing that reflects the surroundings.
      As well as the lobby, the architect also updated the bathrooms. Here, Jacob used crushed jasperware waste material from the Stoke-on-Trent factory that makes the V&A’s Wedgwood porcelain collection.
      This was used to create colourful wall panels constructed by crushing 700 kilograms of blue, grey, pink and black ceramic waste.
      Terrazzo made from jasperware decorates the bathroom”Terrazzo is a material you often find in these kinds of spaces, so our intention was to introduce a really unusual material element by using the waste jasperware,” Jacob said.
      “It is a material that resonates with the history of the V&A, and with the history of British applied design and with a certain luxury,” he added.
      “Even in a fragmented state, jasperware colours are instantly recognisable. Using it in this smashed-up state, and making a feature of its brokenness, felt like a very modern take on those traditions.”
      Bathroom walls have life-sized digital printsThe design was also intended to make the museum’s visitors think about reuse and how we care for objects.
      “It also feels a little perverse – using broken ceramics in a museum where objects are usually incredibly carefully looked after,” Jacob said. “But a beautiful kind of perversion – all the coloured fragments make a speckled colour field to the walls that surround you.”
      “It’s an interesting experiment in the high concept reuse of waste material, about how we care for objects and the impact that the production of designed objects has on the world.”
      The V&A Museum is in a Grade I-listed buildingThe bathroom walls have been decorated with life-sized digital prints showcasing figures from V&A’s collection, as well as landscape scenery.
      For Jacob, designing for the V&A meant “working in the shadow of people” such as British designer William Morris, a history that made him think about what a similar design response might look like today.
      “We tried to channel a contemporary version of that same spirit of applied arts to help transform some of the most functional spaces of the museum into places of delight, places to interact with the collection in different ways, and make it a more accessible and engaging experience,” he said.
      The glass entrance lets light into the interiorOther recent projects by Sam Jacob Studio include an office, bar and events space for the ArtReview magazine in London and a neolithic shelter in Shenzhen port.
      The photography is by Timothy Soar.
      Project team:
      Architecture: Sam Jacob StudioLighting: Studio ZNAStructure: Price and MyersMain contractor: AlcemaSpecialist fabricator: MillimeterTerrazzo: DiespeckerQuantity surveyor: Currie BrownMechanical and electrical services (M&E): Harley Haddow / JRG Electrical

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