Ferguson

Ferguson is a small place to stay in Glasgow, and the result of an intensely collaborative process between Arrant Industries, Lee Ivett (Baxendale) and Simon Harlow.

Named after the found nameplate of a previous occupier, the 25m2 ground floor tenement apartment was acquired as a place to stay when in the city supporting other projects. An ambition soon emerged to replan the space and to install a highly unusual and spatially rich interior which refelect what is actually required from private space when the occupant is willing to actively participate in the life of the city. With all works carried out over lockdown, the design evolved through distant conversation.

The raising of existing structural openings close to the ceiling and insertion of pragmatic new ones allows the small space to be explored in three dimensions. Where once there were dark ‘dead ends’, a stroll ‘around’ the apartment is now possible. Where once the 3.4m tall volume felt disproportionately high, a defined mezzanine level now contains a sleeping space with high-level views to all parts of the apartment.

In plan, all explicit function – washing, sleeping, cooking, sleeping, the business of arrival – is pushed to the edges, resulting in a unusual proportion of lateral unprogrammed space.

In a small space, everything but the cooking arrangements is of an unusually large scale. A over-scaled red cast concrete butler sink is accessible for handwashing on arrival from the entrance hall, as well as serving the kitchen. 2m high South facing sash windows give light to a space featuring a 2.7m long ‘floating’ bench, a work surface in the form of an enlarged cill and little else.

Behind the apartment’s only internal door, an atmospheric shower room, fully lined in two colourways of Mirrl’s Fossil surface sits below the sleeping space and borrows light from the main space. A custom yellow sink nestles within the wall.

The entire interior was fabricated, not by contractors, but by Simon and fellow professional artist’s technician (and fellow Simon), Simon Richardson, giving richness to the space through an extreme level of care – not just in the execution of a negotiated design, but in ‘real time’ intuitive creative detailing.

Shortlisted, Architects Journal Small Projects Awards 2023

Photography by Pierce Scourfield

Drawings by Lee Ivett