This platform provides participants with an opportunity to establish the identity of interior spaces by developing proposals in detail. The platform considers form, colour, light, material, texture, pattern, finish and structure as key to making interiors that are intelligent, beautifully crafted and, above all, respond to site context whilst creating spaces that are appropriate and useful for their users. Projects undertaken in the platform are small scale and focused providing an opportunity to resolve an interior design proposal at scales from 1:20 through to full size. Exploratory model making and prototyping at large scales with real materials are key to this work.

This year the Platform agenda was to create a space for an optician within a pair of the Coal Drops Yard railway arches at Kings Cross. The Platform worked with Cubitts, the locally based modern spectacle makers founded by Tom Broughton and named after the Cubitt brothers who were responsible for the design and construction of Kings Cross station and the granary buildings adjacent to Coal Drops Yard. The structural rivet designed and used by Lewis Cubitt in a pair of the Coal Drops Yard railway arches at Kings Cross. The Platform worked with Cubitts, the locally based modern spectacle makers founded by Tom Broughton and named after the Cubitt brothers who were responsible for the design and construction of Kings Cross station and the granary buildings adjacent to Coal Drops Yard. The structural rivet designed and used by Lewis Cubitt in his development of the granary has inspired the form of the signature hinges used by Cubitts the spectacle makers and this, in turn, has informed the brand’s logo.

Ian Higgins