In between getting hailed on and shivering on a recent holiday in Caernarfon, North Wales, I spent a morning at the Oriel Mostyn contemporary art gallery in Llandudno.
The project, by Architects EllisWilliams, is a refurbishment of a listed Victorian gallery building and has a central circulation core of board-faced concrete.
The variations in the concrete wall surfaces generated by the timber formwork created a wonderful play of light, accentuating the horizontality and persepctive of the space. The contrast between the warmth of the timber used for the stairs and the cool concrete also created a pleasing aesthetic which I hope we can explore in some of our current projects.
Exhibiting at the gallery was the work of David Nash which has a strong sculptural and material quality. Timber was the primary material and several of the pieces were made from burning the surface of the wood. This is a technique which I have been exploring in the office and the potential to use burnt timber as a cladding material. It was interesting to see the finish first hand and how the technique had been used in a different discipline.
To summarise, I had 'Oriel' good time
