Peter Salter – Walmer Yard

Peter Salter is an archi­tect and teacher whose work has influ­enced sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of stu­dents. The cul­mi­na­tion of ten years of plan­ning, Walmer Yard, in Not­ting Hill, is his first res­i­den­tial project in the UK and one of only a small num­ber of build­ings he has com­plet­ed world­wide. Although mod­est in scale, the project is extra­or­di­nary in many ways. On an irreg­u­lar­ly shaped site, Salter’s design brings four hous­es into a com­plex rela­tion­ship with each oth­er that is half for­mal, half famil­iar, inter­de­pen­dent, yet soli­tary. Sim­i­lar­ly, the rela­tion­ships between the core team mem­bers are more nuanced than in most archi­tec­tur­al projects, since they all met at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion in Peter’s unit, where Crispin Kel­ly (the client) and Fenel­la Collingridge (Peter’s cur­rent col­lab­o­ra­tor) were stu­dent con­tem­po­raries. This book doc­u­ments the evo­lu­tion of the project through the medi­um of Peter Salter’s pen-and-ink draw­ings and Hélène Binet’s remark­able photographs. 

Peter Salter began his career in the stu­dio of Ali­son and Peter Smith­son. In the ear­ly 1980s, he formed a part­ner­ship with Christo­pher Mac­don­ald, pro­duc­ing a series of projects known for their high­ly devel­oped and evoca­tive draw­ings. Through­out the 1980s and ​‘90s he taught at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion as a unit mas­ter. In 1995, he became pro­fes­sor and head of school at the Uni­ver­si­ty of East Lon­don, and is now Pro­fes­sor of Archi­tec­tur­al Design at the Welsh School of Archi­tec­ture, Cardiff Uni­ver­si­ty. In 2004, he won the RIBA Annie Spink Award for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to archi­tec­tur­al edu­ca­tion, and in 2012 was elect­ed a Hon FRI­BA. In 2018, he and Fenel­la Collingridge exhib­it­ed ​‘Pro­pos­al B’ at the Venice Bien­nale. Walmer Yard received a RIBA Nation­al Award in 2017.

Fenel­la Collingridge was asso­ciate design­er of Walmer Yard. For many years she taught archi­tec­ture at the Roy­al Col­lege of Art. She teach­es at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion and has run research projects into the rela­tion­ship between colour, vol­ume, tone and tex­ture in archi­tec­ture. She exhib­it­ed ​‘Pro­pos­al B’ with Peter Salter at the Venice Bien­nale in 2018.

Crispin Kel­ly stud­ied his­to­ry at Oxford, before becom­ing a devel­op­er and qual­i­fy­ing as an archi­tect. He has con­tributed to jour­nals on top­ics rang­ing from art in pub­lic space to the qual­i­ties of suc­cess­ful sub­urbs. He is a past pres­i­dent of the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion, and cur­rent­ly chairs the board of trustees of the Lon­don School of Archi­tec­ture, and Open City.

Peter Beard­sell taught at Chelsea Col­lege of Art and Design, in Inte­ri­or and Spa­tial Design. He also taught at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion, with Peter Salter, and at the School of Archi­tec­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of East Lon­don. He is cur­rent­ly a vis­it­ing crit­ic at the Welsh School of Archi­tec­ture, Cardiff University. 

Mark Dor­ri­an holds the Forbes Chair in Archi­tec­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh and co-directs Métis, an ate­lier for art, archi­tec­ture and urban­ism. His recent books include See­ing From Above: The Aer­i­al View in Visu­al Cul­ture (2013) and a vol­ume of col­lect­ed essays titled Writ­ing On The Image: Archi­tec­ture, the City and the Pol­i­tics of Rep­re­sen­ta­tion (2015).

Matthew Ritchie is a visu­al artist whose prac­tice includes paint­ing, wall draw­ings, light box­es, sculp­ture, per­for­mance, vir­tu­al real­i­ty, music, text and pro­jec­tions. His work has been exhib­it­ed world­wide, includ­ing the Whit­ney Bien­ni­al and the Venice Archi­tec­ture Bien­nale. He is cur­rent­ly an Artist-in-Res­i­dence at MIT and a Men­tor Pro­fes­sor at Colum­bia University.

Hélène Binet is a Swiss/​French pho­tog­ra­ph­er, cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Lon­don. Her work has been pub­lished in a wide range of books, and shown in numer­ous exhi­bi­tions. An advo­cate of ana­logue pho­tog­ra­phy, she works exclu­sive­ly with film. In 2019 she was award­ed the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for her excep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion in the field of architecture.

Den­nis Cromp­ton is one of the six mem­bers of the archi­tec­tur­al col­lec­tive, Archi­gram, who were award­ed the RIBA Roy­al Gold Medal in 2002. For many years he taught at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion and was respon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion of the AA’s pub­li­ca­tions and exhi­bi­tions from 1976 to 1994 as the coor­di­na­tor of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit.