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Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Sam Jacob

2021-08-20T12:42:00-04:00

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus concludes today with our conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's final episode is a conversation with Sam Jacob .

Sam Jacob Studio is a London-based practice that works at a variety of scales from urban planning to architecture, design objects, art, and curatorial work. Sam Jacob also currently works as a Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and as a columnist for Art Review. Sam's installation for Exhibit Columbus is located on Washington Street. He treats the six city blocks as a design object in his project titled "Alternative Instruments," telling a story of Utopia from the perspective of both history and fiction, referencing a 16th century novel by Thomas More through symbolism, mapping, and the typography of the Utopian alphabet.

Listen to “Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Sam Jacob”.

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"Architecture for your body:" the Half-Timbered T-Shirt designed by Sam Jacob Studio

2019-03-02T14:13:00-05:00

When we were considering what to carry at Archinect Outpost, our retail shop and event space in Downtown Los Angeles, the products designed by Sam Jacob Studio immediately sprang to mind. Though they were, without question, designed with architects with mind, they were designed to appeal to style-conscious consumers in general.

Medieval Half-Timbered Façade in England. Photographer Unknown.

One product in particular that borders the architecture/non-architecture line is the Half-Timbered T-Shirt. While its patterning and name indicate that its influence is the half timbered architecture common in Jacob's native England. Popularized between 1450 and 1650, half-timber façades were originally designed to strengthen the structural skeleton of 2-3 story buildings most notably in England (though the method did find its way to parts of China and Japan).

As half-timbering has been popularized in the modern era, its function as structural bracing has been eliminated, leaving only the aesthe...

Sam Jacob Studio selected to design new entrance for V&A on Cromwell Road

2019-01-11T13:42:00-05:00

Sam Jacob Studio has won the competition to give the Victoria and Albert Museum's landmarked entrance on Cromwell Road a £2.25 million transformation. The commission comes one year after Amanda Levete's porcelain piazza and new entrance on Exhibition Road, which has helped the V&A achieve record visitor numbers.

The first phase of the Cromwell Road overhaul will involve a redesign of museum's iconic rotunda entrance, while the second phase will involve the lobby's entrance desk, furniture, toilets, heating etc. In their call for designers, the museum said their aim for the transformation is to "harness the potential of the impressive dome area while creating a space in which visitors feel at ease."

Sam Jacob—who has designed a number of gallery and exhibition spaces—beat out other firms Studio TILT, Nex, Gibson Thornley and John Puttick Associates for the bid. He also recently completed the V&A's first international outpost in Shekou, Shenzhen.

On the decision, acting director of d...

Disappear Here: architecture and video games

2018-11-13T13:24:00-05:00

North London video game developer, Shedworks, have developed a specially commissioned film for our exhibition Disappear Here: On perspective and other kinds of space, in collaboration with Sam Jacob Studio. We spoke to Greg Kythreotis, co-founder of Shedworks, to find out more about how the video came about and the processes behind it.

RIBA interviews Greg Kythreotis, co-founder of video game studio Shedworks; talking about his involvement in the current Disappear Here: On perspective and other kinds of space exhibition at the RIBA Architecture Gallery in London, the collaboration with Sam Jacob Studio, and potential overlaps between architecture and video games in respect of the 'perspective' theme.

"Whilst the history of perspective and architecture are incredibly intertwined," Kythreotis explains, "I also think that, by virtue of historically being rendered on a screen, video games also have an incredibly rich history of exploring perspective. Whether orthographic, more realistic renderings or complete distortions and warpings of perspective, I would love to see the overlaps between mediums be explored in even more depth."

Sam Jacob Studio to design the Cartoon Museum's new London home

2018-07-06T14:40:00-04:00

Sam Jacob Studio has been commissioned to design the new home of Britain’s Cartoon Museum. Known for their avant-garde approach to design, the studio will help the museum expand its programming and bring a "real sense of fun and vibrancy to the visitor experience," says museum chair, Oliver Preston.

Founded in 2006 by a dedicated cadre of cartoonists, comic artists and collectors, the Museum has been operating out of an old London dairy. But, wanting a new permanent home that will help it develop to its full potential, the museum has accepted a 25-year lease at 55 Wells Street, located near Oxford Circus.

Their archive holds over 5,000 books, 4,000 comics and 1,700 original strips, graphic novels, animation and caricatures, ranging from the 18th century to the present day. Scheduled to open early 2019, the new space will create permanent and temporary exhibition spaces to give the Museum greater flexibility in displaying its...

One thing after Another, An Installation by Sam Jacob Studio at Sto Werkstatt

2016-05-27T14:06:00-04:00

London-based manufacturer Sto has collaborated with architecture and design practice Sam Jacob Studio to create a oversized replica of an ordinary garden shed by 3D scanning its facade and reproducing it using a product called Verolith. The oversized shed is covered in Verolith panels, a chalky lightweight material made from volcanic stone, typically used for building facades due to its ability to be customised by a CNC machine.

“One Thing After Another explores how objects can be transmitted through forms of technology and how that transmission leaves its trace within architectural substance - both a recording of a thing and that thing simultaneously,” says Sam Jacob of Sam Jacob Studio.

The shed copy has been 3D scanned and blown up to a scale of 1.8 its original size and both the original and the replica are exhibited at the Sto Werkstaff gallery in Clerkenwell as part of Clerkenwell Design Week 2016. The exhibition allows visitors to wander into the original shed, which sits i...

Sam Jacob to redevelop former pub in Shoreditch

2016-04-19T17:20:00-04:00

Sam Jacob Studio’s mixed-use development in the Hoxton Street conservation area retains the façade of the Victorian pub originally on the site while creating ground-floor community facilities with an apartment above. The four-storey scheme will restore the last remaining piece of what was once a terraced street razed to the ground by bombing during the Second World War. The new block is expressed as a curved wall punctured by diamond-shaped window openings.

For more on Sam Jacob, or his former practice FAT, check out these links: