PSLab

Rhianon worked alongside artists JAMESPLUMB, as an architect, to assist with developing a design and realise a home for Lebanese lighting designers and manufacturers, PSLab, in London.

It was thought of as a house of light and shadow. Not an office, neither a showroom, yet serving both these functions. A discreet, yet permanent presence in the neighbourhood: grounded, hospitable and activated by light.

The building at Wilds Rents had once been a late Victorian warehouse, originally built for industry. The shell was stripped back to reveal the core structure of steel, brick, concrete and sunken pits formerly used for dying. Due to its location near the river, Bermondsey was once know for leather tanneries.

An internal concrete landscape of quiet brutalism was envisaged by artists James Russell & Hannah Plumb. Solid and permanent, yet inviting to the hand and to inhabit. It was detailed with timber, textiles and plants, encouraging touch and use. Steps extend, becoming levels and floors becomes benches. A plinth becomes floor and a table becomes a seat. The functions of the space are defined yet intertwined creating an open space of possibilities. A garden, a kitchen, a courtyard, a dining table, an auditorium, an atelier, a library, a meeting room, a living room.