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Alex Masters
Alex Masters
Show RCA work
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Blank Canvas Materials
Blank Canvas Materials
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Development model
Development model
Major project:
Blank Canvas
We must weave the arts into our failing urban fabric, for it is full of colourless, joyless, pointless holes; perfectly usable holes, officially titled ‘meanwhile’ spaces.
'Meanwhile Space' has become a stand-alone sector in property, with the total vacant commercial space in London the equivalent of 27 Westfield’s. This design is an interior that wishes to encourage the use of these (abundant) vacant spaces in London to regenerate the city as a creative one. One that both presents ambitious young artists with an opportunity and presents vacant properties with mitigated business rates, reduced insurance costs and protection of the property.
Millennium Mills has been used here as a pilot site – an old flour mill in East London that has been vacant since 1981 and an extreme case in its scale and vacant period. This design is a rudimentary and affordable one, using plywood and polycarbonate sheets to build liveable spaces with all essential amenities to inhabit the old loading bay on the ground floor.
Ultimately, cultural rebirth, connectivity and economic revival go hand-in-hand, therefore the arts should not be considered folly but vitality. Here is just one idea of how to patch-up our failing urban fabric, meanwhile…
Info
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School
School of Architecture
Programme
MA Interior Design
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Contact
- +44 (0)7788 251650
- [email protected]
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I see interior design as living art. Both art and architecture (living art) can reinforce sensations of belonging or alienation, invitation or rejection, hope or despair. It is both deeply emotional and (at times frustratingly) practical. Practicality aside, we intertwine and attach emotion to things and spaces, and I design with this in mind.
My project – somewhat ironically – is a series of squares in differing, rudimentary materials when my interests and history have threads of textiles and fashion in every patch.
Where architecture so often forgets the soft, too much order is boring and inhumane. Hence, I so often design 'by hand'. I have designed a blank canvas interior to utilise 'meanwhile space' to encourage creative regeneration in our cities. This ephemeral design allows the inhabitants to add the colour, curves and chaos.
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Previous degrees
- BA Fashion Communication and Promotion, Nottingham Trent University, 2014
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Experiences
- Studio manager, Gluckman Smith Architects, London, 2015; Studio manager, Shoot Solutions, London, 2014; Sales and marketing, JRC Imports, London 2016-19