Marlborough School Tile Project

James Donegan, took a beginner pottery course with us here in Manchester. An architect for Tim Groom Architects at the time, and now a fully qualified architect, with a RIBA and Mecanoo award to his name, and running the creative studio Dematerial.

After an exhibition at Manchester Craft and Design Centre creating an impressive structure inspired by mathematical designs in nature, James took a mould making and slip casting course with us. Following this he designed and 3D printed some tiles for a design project of Marlborough School in Macclesfield.

Involving the teachers and students “to design a space that is flexible, exciting and theirs.” As architects they unfortunately “had to reject suggestions that mashed potato, Lego and bubbles were suitable materials to build the school.” James made slip casting moulds for the tiles and had sample tiles produced at 7 Limes Pottery, using glaze designed by Sam Andrew. Their proposal won the Manchester Society of Architects award for un-built community project that year!

A project page for the school can be seen here.

At 7 Limes Pottery we’ve actually had a number of team building workshops with architect groups.A Architects we find are interested in materials, especially ceramics. So pottery is a great team building activity for architects. Do get in touch to talk to us about arranging a team building workshop or for helping to design and make ceramic samples for a specific architecture project.