Development projects can be dispiriting by their conspicuous desire to make the punter think that they are getting value for money.  Here, a project for artists studios was used as a vehicle to explore the development process, to see how quality in design could be retained.

The initial concept was a colony of studios to provide a ‘prize’ for the best fine art students from all European countries. The proposal was that each Art College found a local sponsor who for £8000 would have secured the use of a studio for six weeks of the year in perpetuity.

To design something tangible, a site was chosen in the foothills of the Pyrenees and individual studios designed in groups with some shared functions. The structure was earth vaults with a limewash finish set in a coppiced woodland and the project dubbed Fondation Barguillere after the name of the valley.

Colleges were simply not interested, so the project evolved towards private ownership whereby people could buy a share of the ownership of a studio - or an entire studio if they so wished, ‘off-plan’ i.e. before construction. This required a contractual commitment from a certain number of people simultaneously and this is where the development process shows its head: the marketing costs involved in persuading people to buy is so enormous that the cost of building recedes as a proportion of the entire cost of the project.

The offshoot however, is that Peter Ayley now has the perfect studio and workshop, Atelier 591, for his varied work and curiosity.

ATELIER 591

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