design
for institutions
where you sit is
who you are

muf have experience of working with multi agency and complex organizational structures to design spaces that maximize existing assets and where design is advocacy, a platform that reveals and celebrates the work of the institution. We establish durable working relationships that enable a process of brief development that ensures the inclusion of diverse demands and is resolved as spaces that inflect to use, are durable, balance transparency with comfort, function with pleasure, openness with security.

clients include:

SSEA Arts Council England

Tower Hamlets Health Authority

London Borough of Hackney

Dalston Library and Hackney Archive

Client London Borough of Hackney
Budget £3 million
ongoing

A 4-storey public library and archive (built as the 106 section of a new 10-storey residential development in Dalston). The largesse of the scheme mixes historical with temporary use. Quiet spaces are inserted into larger spaces while small spaces of quietness are enlarged (through the provision of a big study). muf has brokered the construction of a new café as part of the library. Based on the site of the old Dalston Theatre, muf recognises the loaded historical conditions of the site and are working with salvage remains from the old theatre as a way of engaging with this past. The project mirrors muf's project in Barking (where muf designed the public realm in relation to a new library). Here, conversely, it is the library that opens up to the public realm but, as in Barking, the scheme works to carve out public space from within the confines of commercial development.

Surestart on the Ocean

Client Tower Hamlets Health Authority Trust
Budget £110,000
2000

The scheme comprises of the refurbishment of two retail units to create an amenity for the under 4 and their carers alongside other SureStart services. To develop the brief muf consulted with both the client and through two temporary events created on site , with the wider client body. The scheme creates a flexible space able to be used as a boardroom or a playroom. The glazed facade veils views from the street by the application of Bengali and English texts rendered in gold and scarlet lettering. These texts advertise the work and presence of SureStart in a way that avoids the usual aesthetic and therefore stigma of associated with community provision.

Southern and Southeast Arts Offices
Client SSEA Arts Council, England
Budget: £220,000
2003

The office design maximises existing assets of the organisation by organising the library into glazed cabinets that define those physical boundaries where the public meets the institution. The planning layout accommodates an organisation that is complex in structure, where a desire for transparency and openness is realised through an open plan that balances comfort with function, pleasure with security. The design resolution is achieved through a number of discrete artist commissions.