Ross and Emma Perkin met at Edinburgh University. After working in larger practices, the couple gradually started to go it alone, eventually setting up Emil Eve Architects in 2009. Today, they occupy an office on a fifth floor in Hackney that offers views over the Regents Canal and, crucially, provides an ideal home for growing tomatoes and a series of self-made timber shelves where a carefully curated array of material samples is on show.
On your website you mention how craft, natural materials, and being an accredited conservation architect are all important to you. Where does that stem from?
Emma Perkin We have a real interest in craft and making things. Ross’s dad is a carpenter, so he grew up with that, and then when we were at university we did a lot of actual building projects; we went to Croatia and Romania and were building. That passion and interest in materials, craft and joinery drives a lot of our projects. We really enjoy that involvement with the details of making.
Ross Perkin When you’re a student, you just want to get out there and do stuff, something real at an architectural scale. And when we did that we got to grips with the details of architecture — that definitely informed how we wanted to work. I’m also an accredited conservation architect, so we have an interest in historic buildings and ways of working. A lot of stuff we do in London is working with existing Victorian townhouses, and having that conservation accreditation means that we gravitate to historic and heritage stuff, like listed buildings.
We like to go back to basics and ask ourselves ‘what’s the simplest way to do something?’ What’s the traditional way?’ And then you can work forward and think about how you can refine that, rather than just trying to find a product online.
Emma Perkin We end up designing a lot of our own windows and doors and other things, rather than just relying on off-the shelf products. But to make that happen we work quite closely with craftspeople, makers, contractors and joiners to get them (and us) to think of the whole.
Diespeker & Co. terrazzo tile. The studio is planning to use the product on its Gleneldon Road project in Streatham.
From a materials perspective, how does all that manifest itself in a contemporary office like yours?
Emma Perkin We use timber where we can. We are keen on solid, durable, robust materials, plus timber is very sustainable.
Ross Perkin Quite early on, when we were working for a property developer who rented out his properties rather than selling them, we had to provide robust detailing, avoiding things like veneers and using solid wood wherever we could (which isn’t necessarily that much more expensive). It’s important to work with things that are forgiving and design them that way too.
When you say forgiving what do you mean?
Ross Perkin I think tolerance is important. I used to work in a bigger office as a student, and as a student in that environment you want everything to be perfect and aligned, but then you realise that you need these tolerances otherwise stuff can’t be built — or it can be built perfectly but after a few years it will look shit. So for example, set-backs on door fronts: you might express the frame, but in a few years the doors will look wobbly if it’s all flush, as it will be the first thing your eye picks out. Whereas you won’t notice that if it’s set back.
Emma Perkin It’s about appreciating the imperfections and the wear and tear, and understanding the materials that can take that — like scratches on a worktop. Materials will age and scratch and wear. That’s ok, but you want them to do that gracefully.
Ross Perkin With tiling, for example, and maybe when you’re younger you don’t think these things through, you have outside junctions and you need to have a tile trim or you just see the edges. It might look ok at the start but then it’ll get chipped very quickly, which means you want to avoid an exposed outside corner when working with tile, meaning you might use stone for overlapping. Small details like that mean it all ends up wearing so much better.
Emma Perkin This may seem innocuous but it’s important, as things like that influence our design of a whole space, because we’re thinking of how materials come together.
Yellow zellige tile used for the refurbishment and extension of a large house in the Muswell Hill Conservation Area, north London.
Do you pick out materials that celebrate their age?
Emma Perkin Absolutely. Timber is one of them. We recently finished a house in Peckham, which is all Douglas fir. This is a great wood because it’s very hard, but it’s still a softwood so it grows very fast and is sustainable. And it’s grown in Wales so doesn’t have to travel far either.
Ross Perkin That’s the thing about natural materials and things like terracotta tiling, they have imperfections that allow them to age. It’s not about being slick. These materials already have natural variation, which is something we really consider with our material choices.
Emma Perkin We use a lot of ceramics because it’s a cost-effective and practical way of making a massive difference. We use different types of tiles: some can brighten a space through their reflectivity, while others can be used to dull a space. They’re an effective way of using materials to control light and atmosphere.
Ross Perkin With ceramics you get wobbly edges. Tiles aren’t completely flat, and that natural variation is always something you have to explain to a client. But once it’s all grouted off and you’ve done a whole space, they start to get it.
Foresso green dust worktop sample. “Foresso is basically just woodchips in a bio resin. But they make big blocks of it and cut it into sheets and you can do anything with it, which makes it incredibly versatile.”
How do you ally materials associated with craft and tradition with contemporary building methods?
Ross Perkin It can be a really pragmatic approach. We’re working with trades where they don’t have to be specialists, it’s about being aware of keeping budgets down. You want to know that there is a good amount of skilled labour out there that can deal with the task at hand. If you approach things like that you can keep it simple.
Emma Perkin We also use Ecomortar a lot, which is a lime plaster. There are so many expensive plaster treatments now that you need specialists. And as soon as you try to do something outside of London, the costs are just extortionate.
Ross Perkin You have to get specialist plasterers that cost five times as much as a normal one. But we’ve discovered this lime plaster that a normal
Emma Perkin – decent –
Ross Perkin plasterer can work with.
Emma Perkin It’s breathable, it’s sustainable, it has beautiful light qualities to it, but you’re not paying premium prices for someone certified to use it.
Ross Perkin The conservation training that I did helped me understand a lot of things related to this, like doing brickwork and getting obsessed with pointing. It’s easy to find a beautiful brick, but getting that bit between the bricks is also really key. The standard procedure is to use cement pointing which you see everywhere. But it’s really hard and brittle, so you end up with lots of cracks. Whereas lime mortar is a softer material so it naturally fills all the cracks. It’s something I could talk for days about. And it’s something bricklayers and masons say they’re not used to, but actually if you explain it, it’s very straightforward and easy to work with.
Thermo-treated solid ash parquet. “There’s a lot of ash coming down due to ash dieback disease (and you might as well fell the trees before they rot) so there’s a lot of ash that can be used. We tend to use ash for furniture, if at all, but with thermo-treated ash it’s really durable. They put it in a kiln where a chemical reaction happens resulting in the wood being darkened which makes it super dry.”
What material are you most excited about working with?
Emma Perkin The materials we’re talking about now, like brick and timber, are very traditional, but there are so many new, exciting materials, such as Foresso that we’ve just used on a massive floor. It’s a timber product and is sustainable because it’s using waste products, and brings with it a lovely pattern. We’re not minimalist architects in the sense that everything’s all white. We enjoy pattern, colour and variation, and we’re really excited by these new products that are coming onto the market that allow that.
Ross Perkin Foresso is basically just woodchips in a bio resin, but they make big blocks of it and cut it into sheets, and you can do anything with it, which makes it incredibly versatile.
Emma Perkin We’re also excited about stained timber at the moment. It brings warmth and the staining also brings colour while as a treatment it works really well externally, too. Beyond timber there are lots of new recycled plastics coming onto the market, but we’re yet to really find a home for them. For us it’s more about the natural tactility of materials.
What’s your method of finding materials?
Emma Perkin We are more or less constantly doing that. Instagram is insanely good for finding things like that, but so is going to things like the Surface Design Show. Fairs and things like that expose you to a lot.
Ross Perkin I also think that going to old buildings makes a difference as well. You might see some terracotta flooring in an old farmhouse and then you might use the same or similar tile maybe in a more contemporary way.
Foresso London Plane flooring used for the refurbishment and extension of a large house in the Muswell Hill Conservation Area, north London.
Looking at your wall of materials: what story is that telling us?
Emma Perkin We use it for a lot of things. We curate it, in the sense that we put materials forward so that when we look up, we remind ourselves that we want to use them. We won’t always know what it will be for or where it will be appropriate, but we know we will want to use it.
Ross Perkin The background to this is that when we moved here, we were always tired of having big, plastic crates of samples. We looked at a few samples libraries and liked the idea of having a display archive where you can very easily pick stuff out. It makes such a big difference because you can’t miss them!
Emma Perkin In some offices they put things in specific boxes for certain projects. But because we work at a smaller scale, we have maybe 20 live projects at a time. We can’t take all those materials, put them in a pile and keep them all separate.
Ross Perkin It’s a constantly evolving curation. We get loads of new samples and then we have to whittle away and get rid of as much as possible. Otherwise you end up overloaded, which defeats the point. It’s a cycle. This wall is an exhibit of what we’re currently using. I’m sure that in a few years a lot of it might end up changing.
Fired Earth hexagon terracotta tile used for the extension and refurbishment of a four-bedroom house on Waghorn Street in Peckham. This was combined with custom-built joinery and an exposed Douglas fir timber structure.
Emma Perkin It’s also generally sorted by use, so you can stand in front of a section for façades and think: ‘I can see we’ve used this one before but we could use this one here…’If there’s a particular problem we’re addressing it helps with that. We also have meetings with clients where we’ll get a few things out on the table. But a lot of meetings will be around that wall where we’re just picking things out. Ross Perkin And the client might see something and then the material starts a new conversation. In terms of the shelves themselves: it’s a modular CNC system which we designed. We can take them apart and put them together again if we ever move offices.
What is the afterlife of your materials?
Emma Perkin A lot of suppliers want to give us everything and we find ourselves having to be very clear that we sometimes only want a particular thing, otherwise it will go to waste.
Ross Perkin Although we’re very much a contemporary practice, there’s still an enjoyment of the more traditional ways of doing things, especially when it comes to cabinetry, kitchens and shelving. It’s not like everything is flush, minimal and perfect, it’s about appreciating the materials playing their role and accepting that they change as they get used. Everything is meant to be used. Plus, I am a little bit suspicious of these recycled plastics… how sustainable are they really?
Source: Architecture Today