Balmond Studio

Profile

Balmond Studio is an international research-led practice of architects, designers, artists and theoreticians run by the world’s leading thinker on form and structure- Cecil Balmond. We create right across the design spectrum, delivering full architectural and consulting services including project management, interior design, as well as public and fine are pieces. From exhibitions and publications to our property portfolio, we focus on transforming perception and experience.

Approach

Re-inventing creation. For centuries we have placed ourselves at the centre of an external universe. The individual separate from the world, controlling and fixing space. The outside is everything- appearance and object being all that matter. But we think differently. Life is information. A multiplex of overlapping organisational systems. However, we’re not distinct from these networks. We are part of them too.

So we see the world from the inside out, exploring and identifying with the inner workings at the heart of things. Now form is no longer about objects; it’s about the internal forces shaping their organisation. The conventional idea of design is turned on its head. We travel within to engage process, working in the crossover between art and science.

To a place of number, algorithm and pattern- the very roots of order. Here, form isn’t preconceived. Rather it is driven by forces, mysteriously emerging on its own, echoing past experience and future possibility. Investigating and unravelling organisational systems is at the core of our research. And it influences everything we do from large-scale architecture to public art. Our approach produces distinct and truly unique designs. We fundamentally change how people experience the world.


Biography

Cecil Balmond

Cecil Balmond OBE, is widely considered to be one of the most significant creators of his generation. An internationally renowned artist, architect and engineer, Balmond transcends the conventional boundaries of discipline working in the crossover between art and science. In this dynamic area, he has re-invented the very concept of space, transforming the meaning of geometry, form and structure.

Balmond’s design approach engages inner organisational systems - a process based on rigorous research. Balmond has spent over 40 years investigating the relationship between form and the very roots of order at the core of life. This scientific methodology allows Balmond to create alternate theoretical models and negotiate new emergent forms by experimentation. Before setting up Balmond Studio in 2011, Balmond was Deputy Chairman of Arup.

He was also Chairman of Arup’s European Building Division, and ran the critically acclaimed design group, AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit). His pioneering work with the AGU, and collaborations with internationally renowned architects, brought Balmond’s unique design philosophy to the global stage. Balmond has also taught at some of the world’s most influential design and architectural institutions, and currently holds the Paul Philippe Cret Chair as Professor of Architecture, at Penn Design, University of Pennsylvania, where he also founded the Non- Linear Systems Organization (NSO), a material and structural research unit.

He has also been Visiting Saarinen Professor at Yale University School of Architecture, 1997-2002; Professor at LSE Urban Cities Programme, 2002-2004; and Visiting Kenzo Tange critic, Harvard Graduate School of Architecture, 2000. C

Crossover, Prestel 2012
A+U: Cecil Balmond, 2008
Element, Prestel 2007
Informal, Prestel 2002, 4 languages
No. 9: The Search for the Sigma Code, Prestel 1998, 7 languages

Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, 2016
Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Services to Architecture, 2015
Americans for the Arts, Public Art Network Year in Review Awarded to Snow Words, one of the top 50 public art projects in the US 2013
GG2 Hammer Award, 2012 IED Gerald Frewer Memorial Trophy, 2011
Sir Banister Fletcher Prizefor best book on architecture awarded to informal, 2005
RIBA Jencks Award for theory and practice in architecture, 2003
Gengo Matsui Prize, 2002

Equilibrium, Salvatore Ferragamo, Florence, 2015
UnBounded, Allen & Overy, London, 2014
Nebula, Targetti + Louis Poulsen Spazio Luce showroom, Milan 2011
Element, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo Japan, 2010
Forum 64, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh USA, 2009
Solid Void, Graham Foundation, Chicago USA, 2009
Frontiers of Architecture, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 2008
H_edge, Artists Space, New York USA, 2007
Informal, Arc en Reve, Bordeaux France, 2006