Intentional Minimalism

By all means, buy a sofa. Just make sure it's one that fits your needs and is built to last.


Minimalism. It's a word that's used quite a lot these days. It's also a word that means different things to different people.

Photo by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash

To me, minimalism doesn't mean you can't buy anything. It means being intentional. Buying products with a clear idea of what you want and how you will use it. It means not buying more than you need. It means having clear aesthetics and having a place for everything. It doesn't mean having no furniture or only wearing black and white. By all means, buy a sofa. Just make sure it's one that fits your needs and is built to last.

Photo by Tom Crew on Unsplash

I want to explore what this idea of 'intentional minimalism' means. In this series, I'll be exploring this idea and speaking to other people to find out what it means to them. What it means to consumers and what it means to business owners. What drives them and what are the unexpected offshoots of this mindset. And, equally, what is a bit of a drawback.

Good Architecture and Good Homes

A house is more than a home. That's the kind of sentiment you might expect to find painted on a jaunty wooden sign and sold in a gift shop. It sounds corny, I know, but there's something real in that phrase.

I was at a talk in Daunt Books given by Mark Swenarton on his new book, Cook's Camden: The Making of Modern Housing. It was at the beginning of the year, dark and cold. I had a pesky cough but decided I had enough throat sweets and water to keep me from making a scene during the talk. It was an interesting talk, and one of the things that stuck with me the most is that there was no definitive answer.

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

Mark Swenarton spoke of the ideals that the late Neave Brown had when planning social housing for the newly formed Camden Council. Every home would have access from street level so that its occupants felt tethered to their community. There would be a small front yard where the children could play and be watched over by their parents from the living room balcony above. Families were planned for and life was encouraged.

However, these were just plans and life is full of variables. The concrete structures of the Alexandra Estate were built with the real lives of its future tenants in mind. Like the architects of Kensal House in the 30s, these ideas and ideals were mixed in with the concrete that formed these homes. But, as Mark Swenarton reminded us, there are variables that an architect can't plan for.

A tick list is not enough to guarantee happiness. Perhaps the flat is nice but it's too far from where your mum lives. Or maybe you have a hobby that takes up more space than normal.

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Say, for example, my husband has a collection of guitars, a drum kit and stacks of amps that have names unknown to me. These objects take up a lot of space. It's unusual to have these large objects, and so architects wouldn't plan for this in social housing. They plan for the norm, and a personal music department isn't the norm. It'd be tricky to fit this collection of strings and skins into a normal home, but that doesn't mean that the building is a bad one. It just wouldn't work for us.

There are other variables that architects can plan for, such as reducing the crime rate. This can be trial and error with experimental new forms of housing, but it is something so important that it can determine a successful development from an unsuccessful development. These are factors that are so important to the lives of all residents that the failure of these endeavours really can mark a building as a failure.

It doesn't matter what the residents choose to furnish their homes with or what they do as a hobby. It is not a question of taste. The failures in the building have contributed to a breakdown of the social fabric of the inhabitants and therefore that building is a failure. There isn't always a lack of care in the planning that causes these problems. It is sometimes the nature of experimentation, however experimentation with physical buildings and creating new types of societies is tricky, to say the least.

Photo by Joshua K. Jackson on Unsplash

For example, take the case of the Robin Hood Estate. This was dreamt of as a 'streets in the sky', years of sociological thought in the making. There has been a lot of disagreement but ultimately Historic England have decided that it didn't work. As a contemporary film from a Battersea Estate shows, people were stuck. Even if the estate wasn't working they were living there now, often away from their families and en masse with lots of strangers.

Now the Robin Hood Estate is being knocked down, suffering from years of chronic lack of investment and deemed not worthy of being listed. You can see a section of it in the Venice Biennale this year, and the V&A Museum purchased two fragments, which perhaps they'll display in one of their new sites.

Architecture isn't just about aesthetics. It's not just about finding places to put your things. It doesn't solely boil down to the facilities that are in your building or your proximity to the tube. It's about the many things that make up the fabric of your life and enable the ideals of the kind of society that you wish to belong to.

Modernist Housing and Utopian Dreams

Kensal House, a 1930s small housing estate of 68 flats, lies on the north end of Ladbroke Grove. It’s in the rare group of 5.8% of listed buildings that receive Grade II* status, meaning it has been deemed a particularly important building of ‘more than special interest’ that should be preserved for future generations. However, it doesn’t look particularly fancy from the road as the architects invested their budget in facilities over adornment, so you might wonder what is so special about this little estate?

Indeed, it doesn’t have the features estate agents happily write about in property listings. There are no on-site gyms or supermarkets here, although a quick nip over the zebra crossing outside will lead you to a 24 hour gym and a large supermarket. Here you’ll find a gated community and shared spaces that manage to remain part of the wider community.

Photo from SPID Theatre

The special parts of Kensal House lie out of view, below street level in the community rooms. I found them when I stepped through the black metal gate, down the stairs, and left past the white walls to the doors of Social Political Innovative Direct (SPID) theatre. The space is leased to SPID by the same Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) that was also in charge of Grenfell and SPID are using their voice to join with others emerging in the community. ‘We are political’, says Helena Thompson the Artistic Director of SPID ‘but we are also positive.’

This was evident from the very start. When SPID squatted the empty community space without a lease, they focused on what they could do. They’ve recently raised almost a million pounds but still have another million to go, having negotiated a long lease after the Grenfell disaster. This seems to encompass the very ideals of modernism that were poured into the concrete of Kensal House. Its first tenants were locals relocated from the slum clearances and housed in this fantastic new block, backed by the Gas, Light & Coke Company to showcase gas as a new type of clean and efficient energy.

Behind one of the doors in the community rooms is a colourful room that the Far Far Away group of under 11s hang their coats and chill out until their weekly Tuesday session begins. ‘This room was decorated last year’ Olivia Lantz, SPID’s Press Officer tells me. ‘The children spent three weeks exploring the estate’ and drew ideas for the room. They hand drew leaves which hang from a big branch that runs across the wall, decoupaged on by a local artist, and a little fox sits in the corner. Their imaginations also ran a little wild as evidenced by the emoji-inspired colourful unicorn that sits on the top of the tree, eating a cupcake and drinking a smoothie. It seems to me that this unicorn is a mascot of sorts for how the past, the present, and the magical all exist together in this space. As in Fry’s flats, there’s a hatch through to the kitchen, where kids from the estate made cakes the afternoon before I visited.

Unlike other gated communities, Kensal House gives off a safe rather than snooty vibe; it’s inclusive not exclusive. A former resident told Kensal Voices, a 2013-2014 SPID project in collaboration with the V&A Museum, 20th Century Society, and North Kensington and Kensington Central Library, ‘We had everything: we had the grounds to play in, we had the club to come to, the nursery was here. Everything was here. You didn’t need to go anywhere else. There was enough space for the children to play.’ Andrew South, who’s first London job was at SPID and who now runs digital programmes for young people at local charity Octavia, tells me how the estate reminded him of the abundant community spirit where he grew up in Sheffield but found difficult to find when he moved to London. In a city where a balcony, let alone a garden, is a rare commodity and children’s access to safe spaces to play is limited, Kensal House is a rare wonder. ‘If a parent’s up in a window they can just look down to check their children are safe outside’, says Andrew. ‘It’s a nice utopia.’

The circular playground harks back to the site’s history, as it mimics the shape of the gas cylinder that once occupied this space. As I stood out there with Olivia, a resident waved to us from their balcony, giving a glimpse into the rare community that exists here. It’s definitely a two way relationship, Helena tells me, between SPID and the residents. Perhaps this is a 21st century version of the new community that Fry and Denby dreamt of. Olivia knocks on doors quite often to get to know the residents, and they’re hoping to bring some of them in to lead workshops soon. She’s heard there’s currently only one flat that’s empty. ‘Which number?’ I ask. ‘I’d like to move in!’ This is a community that I’d like to be a part of.

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I wrote another version of this piece for SPID theatre, which you can see on their website here.

SPID has secured half the £2m needed to refurbish Kensal House community rooms thanks the mayor's Good Growth Fund. To help make their dreams a reality contact helena@spidtheatre.com

Sign ups are now open for 13-25 year olds to join SPID's award wining Kensington Stories, as seen on BBC TV tinyurl.com/spidtvbbc. To get involved in their next show contact youth@spidtheatre.com

An Afternoon In: Bloomsbury

I’ve been thinking and writing about the Bloomsbury Group recently. My route to research and rummage through the British Library archives has involved a walk through Bloomsbury, the part of town the group once inhabited. References to the famous members can be spotted in the area, normally in the form of an unenthusiastic sign naming a block of flats after Virginia Woolf. 

Something about Bloomsbury has always caught my eye and inspired my mind. It’s the place I rediscovered the city as an adult, going to free evening LSE lectures the summer after I finished university. To be honest, I didn’t really take away a lot from most of those lectures; I think I was trying to find a way to keep learning now that university had finished. 

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

Even though I can’t tell you what the lectures were about, I can tell you how Bloomsbury felt. The streets felt full of possibility, not too busy yet dotted with people walking with purpose. Some people played tennis in Lincoln's Inn Fields after work. It didn’t ignite a desire for me to grab a racket but it did show me that London wasn't the rat race I’d heard about. People didn't flee the city at the earliest opportunity after the bell rings. They hang around, play sports, get pissed: they live their lives.

A florist with a beautiful window display sticks in my mind. It’s now located on the other side of the Kingsway opposite the Freemason’s Hall, which is seemingly populated with old men in suits shuffling in and out with briefcases. I say ‘now located’ but really I have no idea as the streets were like a maze to me. It was probably over that side of the Kingsway all along. I didn’t have any grounding or landmarks that helped me understand where the heck I was, and so everything felt like a secret discovery that could only be refound by accident.

With time and a smartphone (thank goodness for Google maps 🙌🏼), the maze has turned into a map and this part of the city is no longer a mystery. I’ve found favourite places and secret spaces where I can sit and type. They’re not necessarily the places with the best coffee or cakes to risk diabetes for, but they’re the places that let my mind run free for a while.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash, Photo by Elizabeth Tsung on Unsplash, Photo by Mike Marquez on Unsplash

Curzon Bloomsbury Cafe

Yep, it’s a cinema. Yep, I’m surprised, too. Located in the modernist Brunswick Centre, the Curzon’s cafe occupies a glass box which is quiet enough to concentrate but with enough people walking past to distract your eyes whilst you do a bit of thinking. As it’s a cinema, the cafe doesn’t get too busy during the day so you won’t have to worry about stretching one coffee to last an hour. One of the best spots is at a table running down the side of the staircase. 

11:00 - 21:15, Monday - Sunday, depending on listings

Curzon Bloomsbury, The Brunswick Centre, London, WC1N 1AW

Nearest tube: Russell Square

The British Library, Humanities I

Is it in Bloomsbury? Probably not, but I think it counts. You have to register at the library to use the reading rooms, so check out their website to find out what you need to do this. Once you’re registered, check your belongings at the cloakroom or in the locker room. You’ll need to transfer your laptop, phone, notebook, and a pencil into one of the clear plastic bags they provide. If, like me, staying hydrated is overly prominent on your daily to-do list then fear not. You can’t take water in to the reading rooms but they have relatively hygienic water fountains dotted around outside the reading rooms. 

Humanities I is my favourite reading room: high ceilings, clean lines, and a beautifully soft diffused light filling the space. I find it reassuring to be working alone in a room full of strangers, all working on their own projects, together in singular endeavours.

9:30 - 20:00 Monday - Thursday, 9:30 - 18:00 Friday, 9:30 - 17:00 Saturday, 11:00 - 17:00 Sunday

British Library, 96 Euston Road, London,  NW1 2DB

Nearest tube: Euston, Euston Square, King’s Cross St. Pancras

Pret a Manger, Russell Square

Okay, so it’s not that original. They say you’re always 9 metres away from a rat in London, and probably a Pret too. They dot many a street corner and although they don’t have that special feeling, they are both good and consistent. This one is populated by students from the nearby universities who take advantage of the long opening hours and cheap and fresh food. It’s a big branch and I’ve always been fine getting a table, even during busy hours. As there are lots of people working on essays or group projects, you won’t feel out of place sticking around for a while. 

5:30 - 23:00, Monday - Sunday

Pret A Manger, 40 Bernard St, Bloomsbury, London, WC1N 1LE

Nearest tube: Russell Square

Great Court Restaurant, British Museum

The restaurant’s located right at the top of the circular block in the atrium of the museum, where the light has a beautiful soft diffusion (there’s a theme here). Although it’s a restaurant, it’s normally quiet if you head here near the end of the afternoon, meaning you can sit a while in peace. They try and flog you cake at every opportunity as technically it’s the afternoon tea sitting, but if you stay strong you can happily sit with a coffee and a notebook. 

15:00 - 17:30, Monday - Sunday

British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG

Nearest tube: Nearest tube: Goodge Street, Holborn, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road

Store Street Espresso

The coffee shop is located on one of my favourite streets in London. It has a magical quality at dusk, with the pretty shop facades and amber lights flickering on. This coffee shop is the perfect set up for laptop types: a counter at the front with small, uniform tables lining each wall in a neat rows at the back. This branch opens early and closes relatively late-ish, so is handy if you’re in Bloomsbury outside of the normal busy times. 

7:30 - 19:00 Monday - Friday, 8:00 - 18:00 Saturday, 10:00 - 17:00 Sunday

Store Street Espresso, 40 Store Street, London, WC1E 7DB

Nearest tube: Goodge Street, Holborn, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road

Small Stories: Bringing the Past to Life

Charleston Farmhouse belonged to Vanessa Bell, sister of writer Virginia Woolf and prominent member of the famous, and somewhat infamous, Bloomsbury Group. The Bloomsbury Group has held the fascination of art and design fans for many years. The legacy of its artists and writers can still be seen in work produced today: built upon, developed, distilled. 

But Charleston Farmhouse was also a building that sheltered a mixed of real people who had hopes, dreams, and, above all, an enviable work ethic. My interest in Charleston began when I was researching a story for Eaten Magazine and came across the story of Grace Higgins, who worked for the Bells for over 50 years, graduating from Nursemaid to Housekeeper. 

Charleston, June 2018 ©Emily Burt

Grace lived in Charleston House, inhabiting more than just the kitchen or ‘below stairs’ role. Her integral role to the group as a whole and their output as writers and artists is evident in the way they talk of her. Vanessa’s granddaughter stated the family ‘didn’t believe in God - but they did believe in Grace.’ Vanessa’s son created and installed a tiled plaque in memorial to Grace. 

Through this process of researching Grace’s life, she transformed in my mind from a description of a 2D person into a rounded 3D person, with thoughts, feelings and foibles. The more I knew, the more I understood how important she was to the creation of the work of the Bloomsburies.  

There’s something in that, I thought. The lives of the people that aren’t written about. They, too, have interesting stories to tell, but their stories are interesting in a personal context, in relation to them, rather than in relation to society as a whole. 

The compost heap at Charleston, June 2018 ©Emily Burt

And this brings me on to the story of another part of the Charleston cast. Grace’s son, John, was interviewed over a series of recordings and the tapes are held by the British Library. He tells the story of Mr Durrant, a one-armed gardener that was employed for a time at Charleston. The fact that he has one arm features heavily in John’s recollection to him as it makes for a remarkable tale. 

Mr Durrant was an ingenious fellow. His ingenuity elicited a squeal and slight squirm from me in the silence of the British Library reading rooms where I listened to the tape. Mr Durrant, you see, was a man who accepted his situation and came prepared. He kept one thumbnail extremely long and used it as a knife with which he could cut up the ingredients for a sandwich. He would use it to slice the bread and the cheese. He could even paunch a rabbit with it. 

Grace would have him sit in the kitchen and give him a cup of tea and a bun at the end of the day. I’m not sure if she threw the bun in the air and he speared it with his knife-nail, but it’s an amusing thought.

It’s through stories like this that we can bring the past to life.