Photos by Charles Emerson. All images courtesy of Alex Chinneck Studio, shared with permission A Rippling Townhouse Facade by Alex Chinneck Takes a Seat in a London Square May 22, 2025 ArtDesign Kate Mothes It takes a real knack for design to make something as hefty and industrial as steel and bricks appear weightless or even playful. But British artist Alex Chinneck (previously) is no stranger to monumental projects that reimagine urban infrastructure and buildings into striking public installations. As part of London’s Clerkenwell Design Week, Chinneck unveiled “A week at the knees,” a new sculpture in Charterhouse Square that takes its cue from an iconic predecessor. The artist installed the “From the Knees of my Nose to the Belly of my Toes” in 2013 on a dilapidated townhouse in Margate, appearing as though the entire front of the building had simply slid right off. On view through June in London, his new work boasts a frame made from 320 meters of repurposed steel and 7,000 bricks. “A week at the knees” playfully anthropomorphizes a classic Georgian facade, with its lower two levels rippling over a pathway as if seated in the park with its knees up. London is famous for its green squares and gardens, and Chinneck’s work invites visitors to pass through a unique portal that calls upon the history of its surroundings, complete with downspout and lamps flanking the arched front door. Chinneck fabricated the sculpture in collaboration with numerous British companies to source and create bespoke steel beams, curving windows, and bricks. At five meters tall and weighing 12 tons, the piece mimics a life-size building while sporting a thickness of only 15 centimeters. The effect lends itself to the experience of a hefty, architectonic structure with a graceful, lightweight personality. Explore more on Chinneck’s website and Instagram. Next article

Clerkenwell Design Week is never shy of spectacle, but this year's edition feels particularly expansive. Maybe it's the stunning new spaces, including Charterhouse Square, alongside returning favourites, like the atmospheric vaults of the House of Detention, that add extra depth and drama. Or maybe it's the festival's continued focus on interactivity, tactility, and visual theatre. Either way, 2025's event feels like the most immersive to date, packed with installations that surprise, amuse, and linger in the mind. It's also a year that makes space for both monumental engineering and ephemeral charm. The tension between permanence and play is a running theme, seen most clearly in A Spring At The Knees, a major new public artwork by British artist Alex Chinneck. Rising from Charterhouse Square, the 12-tonne brick and steel sculpture is playful but grounded, quite literally. It's built from a skeleton that uses over 300 metres of repurposed steel – salvaged from the demolition of the old American Embassy in London – and clad with warped, origami-like brickwork and bending windows. Chinneck, who became known for his 2013 'sliding house' in Margate, returns here to familiar material language but adds new layers of accessibility and interactivity. Arches span the path, inviting visitors to walk through the structure rather than merely observe it. It's also far from temporary. "This is a free-standing piece, engineered with a full steel skeleton," Chinneck explained at the press preview, noting that over 320kg of glue was used to bind the bricks. Though part of the festival, the piece will live on well beyond its six-week run on-site, standing as a semi-permanent marker of how design can meet sculpture and storytelling can meet structure. A Spring At The Knees Nearby on Clerkenwell Green, Brick from a Stone: Arch Revival offers a more traditional but no less impressive take on material innovation. Designed by Hawkins\Brown in collaboration with Albion Stone and Hutton Stone, the pavilion showcases a pair of vaulted arches that demonstrate the strength and beauty of British quarried stone. One arch is built from sandstone in a warm palette of tones sourced from Northumberland's Hutton Stone quarries, while the other uses the creamy, mineral-rich Portland stone from Dorset. Each arch is constructed from a single layer of 102mm-thick stone bricks, engineered by Webb Yates to prove just how far the material can go as a load-bearing structure. The effect is quietly monumental, serving as a celebration without showboating, in perfect keeping with the festival's roots in material and making. Brick from a Stone: Arch Revival Water, too, emerges as a major motif this year, not just in theme, but in form. Harmonic Tides, a large-scale installation by architect Arthur Mamou-Mani, mimics the natural flow of ocean currents and eddies to form a 'water corridor' in the heart of Clerkenwell. Constructed as part of the Shaping Water initiative by Ideal Standard and Villeroy & Boch, the piece uses 3D-printed components to translate the invisible logic of aquatic movement into tangible waves. It's an installation that manages to feel both calming and kinetic, gently coaxing the viewer to move through its fluid geometry. Harmonic Tides The theme of interactivity continues indoors at Light, the aptly named returning exhibition in the atmospheric House of Detention, a former Victorian prison that now hosts some of the festival's most cutting-edge lighting brands. Highlights here include Tabitha Bargh's sculptural light shades, which are crafted from recycled cardboard and repurposed estate agent signs, a playful nod to consumer excess, remade as tactile elegance. Curiosa collection makes a strong impression, too, with bold, joyful lighting pieces that are colourful without being chaotic and refreshingly unafraid to have fun. Also in the vaults, local creative studio Pixel Artworks makes its Clerkenwell Design Week debut with Feel the Pull, a mesmerising installation celebrating the studio's 20th anniversary. Using motion-sensing technology and magnetic visual fields, the installation responds to visitors as they move through sound and light. The result is a space that feels alive, drawing you in and pulsing and shifting in real time. Feel the Pull Curiosa Meanwhile, on the streets of Clerkenwell, Italian tile manufacturer Italgraniti adds a welcome note of whimsy with Automatica, a vending machine-style installation devised in collaboration with architect Simon Astridge. Located at three different sites (including Farringdon Station and the Church of St Bartholomew the Great), the machines offer porcelain tile samples in exchange for a token collected from the Solus showroom. Playfully riffing on factory automation and the relationship between humans and machines, the project recasts the humble vending machine as a tool for design distribution. Part nostalgic novelty, part smart commentary on manufacturing, it's a project that brings a little levity to the streets and a sample to your pocket. Italian design also gets a dedicated showcase via Moroso, whose Clerkenwell outpost is transformed with immersive vignettes featuring new launches and iconic pieces. With sets styled in collaboration with Studio Irvine and curated around form, colour and texture, the display champions the idea of living with design rather than merely observing it. It's a reminder that good design should feel as tactile and emotionally engaging as it is functional. Automatica In a year when the festival feels more physically embedded in the neighbourhood than ever before—stretching across arches, squares, showrooms, and subterranean vaults—this latest edition of Clerkenwell Design Week is a reminder that scale doesn't need to compromise soul. Whether it's bricks bending into art, light made from cardboard, or machines dispensing porcelain, the most impactful moments are often the ones that blur boundaries, spark curiosity, and invite us to look a little closer. If you leave with a tile sample, a new light crush, and a greater appreciation for engineered stone, then you've experienced Clerkenwell at its best. Moroso X Studio Irvine