Press - Jamie Fobert Architects

One of our very earliest residential projects, in 1998, was to reconstruct the rear elements of a Victorian villa on Love Walk in Camberwell, for artists Christopher Le Brun and Charlotte Verity.

Now on the market with Inigo, Christopher and Charlotte open the doors to their home and describe life in their house on Love Walk.

Our addition to their Victorian villa was designed to redirect the focus of the house to enjoy its attractive side garden, and to create an interior space with gallery-like simplicity and calmness – including a top-lit wall for hanging a large painting.

Read Inigo’s full article or take a look at the listing here.

Dezeen have today published a piece about our House in Primrose Hill featuring a movie by Tapio Snellman and photographs by Jim Stephenson.

Amy Frearson writes: “The project took a feat of engineering. Two original floors of the house were temporarily suspended, allowing a previous floor to be rebuilt and an extra floor to be slotted in underneath. ‘The house presents itself to the city in a very unassuming way,’ said Fobert. ‘It feels as if nothing has changed since it was first built. But when you walk through the door, you are met with an extraordinary transformation, with a space which seems like it shouldn’t fit inside.'”

Wallpaper* has published a feature, written by Ellie Stathaki, about our House in Primrose Hill.

Accompanied by photographs by Jim Stephenson, Ellie writes that the house ‘balances a discreet, street-facing frontage with a distinctly contemporary interior of minimalist architecture and subtle spatial luxury inside’.

To read the full article visit Wallpaper* or read more on our House in Primrose Hill here on our website.

Jamie invited The Modern House into his Clerkenwell home, to tell them the story of its design, and talk about what it means to live in a modern way:

“Designing someone’s house, you have to be very careful not to make it sensational, because a home is where people have to wake up every morning, somewhere where they have to come home to, where they have to be on a rainy day, where they have to be when they’re feeling ill and where they celebrate and entertain.”

Read more and see the beautiful photographs here.

Jamie was invited by Building Design to share a favourite building as part of their new 50 Wonders series, which marks the magazine’s 50^th birthday.

Jamie selected the Sao Paulo Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism by architect Vilanova Artigas, a building he came across on his travels a few years ago:

“From wherever you approach, you move seamlessly under an immense canopy into the school without ever encountering a door. This is an exceptionally public building, with a sense of commonality throughout; its broad ramps, long benches and social spaces have a generosity of scale combined with modesty of detail.”

Read the full BD article here.

Jamie contributes to Pamela Buxton’s article on how the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced and may affect museums and galleries, as they begin to open their doors once more to visitors. Topics from safety to funding and sustainability are discussed, along with some possible changes we can expect to see put in place moving forward.

Jamie comments that “The one positive thing that might happen is that when they [galleries and museums] do come back, people will appreciate the experience they offer all the more.”

Read the full article in The RIBA Journal.

Jamie recalls fond memories of visiting Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in San Diego for the first time, when discussing buildings that we will look forward to seeing again after the coronavirus pandemic.

‘With its extraordinary setting and views, as well as its immense physical form, is the most powerful reminder of the importance of the direct encounter’.

Read Amanda Baillieu’s full article on Dezeen here.

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s foremost newspaper, has published a feature about Jamie.

Writer Katherine Ashenburg met with Jamie in our Shoreditch studio to learn about our projects, focusing on significant gallery projects for Kettle’s Yard, Tate St Ives and the National Portrait Gallery. She tells the story of Jamie’s journey from being a young student in Canada to an established architect in London:

“The lessons we learned in first year,” Fobert says, “are still some of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned: that
architecture should be unpretentious and it should be humane and it should be about the users and about improving their existence and their lives in ways that were beautiful.”

Photograph ©Justin Griffiths-Williams/The Globe and Mail

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Jamie sat down with Nick Carvell, Editor of The Jackal, as part of the magazine’s Citymakers portfolio to discuss architecture in the city, including the proposed new public space at the National Portrait Gallery:

“Public space is an integral part of what makes a city great – or not. Many of these places already exist, but what is important is how they are handled, how inviting they are, how open they are to having events, or to having people sit.”

This article is out now in the latest edition of The Jackal Magazine or you can listen to their conversation on the podcast by clicking here.

We are delighted that Jamie Fobert Architects is shortlisted alongside five other practices in the Public Building category of the BD Architect of the Year Awards 2019.

Our submission included three completed public gallery projects – Tate St Ives, Kettle’s Yard and Charleston – and our reconfiguration of the National Portrait Gallery, which is currently in the design process.

Read more about all the shortlisted practices and their work here.

In the February issue of ICON magazine, in partnership with Arper, Jamie is interviewed by Priya Khanchandani about weaving ‘finely crafted buildings into the awkward, hidden folds of our urban fabric’.

Portrait by Carl Russ-Mohl.

Ahead of this weeks announcement for Art Fund’s Museum of the Year, The Art Newspaper explores Tate’s connection to the community in St Ives.

Ben Luke describes how “..the extension to the Tate’s westernmost outpost has been welcomed and is now enabling the gallery to reach its full potential”.

Photography by Marc Atkins for the Art Fund.

Jamie sat down with Robert Bevan of the Evening Standard to discuss being appointed to transform the National Portrait Gallery, how he started his career in architecture, his affinity for art and the links between Tate St Ives, Kettle’s Yard and Charleston.

Robert described Jamie as the “go-to man for cool, clever museum extensions — and the National Portrait Gallery is next”.

Read the full article in the Evening Standard.

Gillian Darley eloquently writes for Frieze Magazine of our careful changes, thoughtful details and observant touches at the new Kettle’s Yard, which opened to the public on Saturday 10 February.

“the transformation has been achieved, seemingly, by sleight of hand. Jamie Fobert Architects inserted a set of entirely new buildings which, until you set off for a room in the four-storey education centre or press on past the entrance area towards the pair of full height white-walled exhibition galleries, you scarcely suspect are there at all. The effect is the result of adherence to a palette of materials and forms that spill over and bond the old extension and the new front of house”.

Read Gillian’s full review in Frieze.

With less than a month until the re-opening, the Kettle’s Yard team is busy preparing the new galleries for the inaugural exhibition, ‘Actions: the image of the world can be different’.

We have reconfigured and extended the existing building to comprise a new entrance and welcome area, two new galleries, a new education wing which includes two learning spaces, a cafe and a shop. The spaces and facilities of Kettles Yard have been vastly improved and yet the particular character of the place, created by curator and collector Jim Ede, is retained.

Our excitement for the re-opening of this much-loved Cambridge gallery is shared by The Art Newspaper, Frieze Magazine Archiboo, and The Times, all of whom have included the event in their previews for 2018.

As 2017 draws to a close, magazines and newspapers are looking back at the highs and lows of the year and we are delighted that Tate St Ives is being remembered as one of the highlights by so many:

In the Guardian, Oliver Wainwright describes his ‘top 10 architecture events’

In the Observer, Rowan Moore lists his ‘5 best buildings’

Dezeen gives a roundup of the ’10 best museum and gallery buildings’

The Art Newspaper reviews the highs and lows of 2017

In The Times, Jonathan Morrison lists his ’10 best buildings of 2017′

Jamie chatted to Monocle 24 Radio about everyday life in our Shoreditch studio, about how his nine years working for David Chipperfield was a formative part of his education as an architect, and his intuitive approach to design.

Listen here

The Art Newspaper announced today that Kettle’s Yard will be reopening their doors on 10 February 2018, with the exhibition ‘Actions: the Image of the World Can Be Different’.

Our work at Kettle’s Yard is a series of gentle additions to improve visitors’ experience, which will include two new exhibition spaces, an education wing, café, shop and new welcome area.

Learn more about our work at Kettle’s Yard.

Rowan Moore describes our new gallery for Tate St Ives as “not any old exhibition space but one that contains about as much intelligence, strength of mind and sensitivity as it is possible to put into a single plain rectangle. It is only a room, as Cézanne didn’t exactly say of Monet, but what a room”.

Read The New Tate St Ives review by Rowan Moore in The Observer.

Architecture critic Ellis Woodman writes that our new Tate St Ives gallery “ranks among the most beautiful galleries in the country”.

Read Ellis Woodman’s review in The Telegraph.