In the second part of our VDF collaboration with film-makers Laura Mark and Jim Stephenson, we screen the first episode of the duo’s Practice series, in which architect Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio explains why he built is own house in the woods.
Mark and Stephenson’s documentary series Practice focuses on the process of making architecture, and is made through engaging with the architects featured in their practice, on site and in their homes.
“We felt that so many films and documentaries on architecture look at the finished building, and rather than focusing on what the architects have done, we wanted our series of films to investigate how they have done it and the work that goes on behind the scenes to create architecture,” Mark told Dezeen.
“Piers himself is already a public figure but we wanted to challenge this and look at what really drives him and his work.”
For the first episode, the film-makers joined Taylor in his studio and woods near Bath, where he has built his and his family’s home on a half-acre slot of woodland.
“I realised that I could have the life that I wanted,” Taylor said. “I could live on a bit of bushland, it was close to a city and yet felt like it was in total wilderness. I could live and work in a way that made sense to me.”
The family constructed the house from scratch. “We built a house having to carry every single component down the track by hand,” Taylor explained. “We built it ourselves as a sort of way of understanding how buildings went together.”
Read more on Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/?p=1511611
