SPPARC Architecture + The Music Box Southwark London

White Cube

Missed it, impossible. An enigmatic form; a legible plan. Classical with precedence; original with credence. Absence of colour; presence of brilliance. Monochromatic look; colourful character. Box clever; clever box. The morphemes of negative space; the polyphemes of architectonic afterimage. Lines of beauty; the unlocked grid. Complexity; contradiction. Cool design; hot property. If architecture is frozen music, The Music Box is a timely sculpture in ice. Above the arches; above the commuter belt; above the parapet; above the radar; above the norm. Blue sky thinking. Right side of the tracks. Rooms with a view. A place for living; a space for learning. Thinking outside the (Miesian) box, Trevor Morriss, Principal of SPPARC Architecture, is a bright young(ish) thing, a rising star in the architectural firmament that is London. The sky’s not the limit. The Music Box is his latest meteor to strike across the galaxy. Taylor Wimpey Central London’s mixed use scheme of 55 apartments suspended over a music college will inspire generations to come. List it, imaginably.

“The scheme is in two parts: the upper element adopts the vertical proportions of the golden section. A cube shaped residential building is delicately positioned over a 15 metre high base with a large glazed section, providing both prominence onto the street and glimpses into the music college. This purity of form is reflected in the simplicity of the external surfaces. The strong base is faced with a white ceramic brick interrupted by a textured three dimensional band representing rhythm which accords with the positioning of the rectilinear punched apertures. But it is the erosion of this cubic form that truly defines the building. A ‘missing’ street corner acknowledges the strong horizontality of the adjacent railway line, in parallel creating a longitudinal distinction between the music college and apartments. The upper residential storeys are distinguished by a hierarchical layer of vertical solar spines intersecting glazed fabric. The top of The Music Box is a continuous glazed kerb regularly punctuated by the extension of the solar spines: a profile reminiscent of a hammer and piano keys.”