Piers taylor biography
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Piers Taylor
British architect (born c. 1967)
Piers Taylor (born 1967/1968) is a British chartered architect and co-presenter of BBC Two series such as The House That £100k Built and The World's Most Extraordinary Homes. His work has received awards from the Architects' Journal and the Royal Institute of British Architects. His approach to design is characterised by simplicity, cost-effectiveness and sustainability.
Education
[edit]Taylor went to Australia when he was 22 years old to study at the University of Technology Sydney. He started in graphic design but changed to architecture after attending lectures by Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, who would become an inspiration for Taylor's career.[1]
He was also a student at the Bartlett School of Architecture, later commenting about his experience with the toxic culture at the school, and mentioned walking out from a review panel with Simon Allford.[2]
Since 2017, Taylor is pursuing a PhD degree at the University of Reading, with research in alternative design processes that incorporate making, under the supervision of Flora Samuel.[3][4] He collaborated with Samuel in the 2021 Homes of the Future report for Vodafone, which predicts technological features such as
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Piers Taylor adds local flavour to Watchet with East Quay community space
Watchet is small town, sandwiched between the Quantock Hills and the muddy, dramatically tidal West Somerset coast. It has two Co-ops, a Spar and six pubs. There are takeaways and gift shops for tourists in search of bracing sea air, fossils and angling.
And now it is has the extraordinary East Quay Watchet. Its salmon pink cliff of concrete rises to embrace the town’s esplanade, a candy-stripe Punch and Judy puppet theatre and five improbable beach hut accommodation pods popping out on top (two on stilts). The form is extraordinary enough, but most extraordinary of all is the warmth of life emanating from East Quay. Café, gallery, workshops, an all-singing all-dancing education room, new streets and courts... on a blustery grey day this place seems to contain a whole world of activity and possibility. It would be correct to call East Quay Watchet a community building but that is a massive simplification. Perhaps we could settle for a community enterprise building with art gallery and eyries for rent, Airbnb-style.
The client is the Onions, more formally, the Onion Collective, originally four Watchet women, moaning in the local over a cider, says one of them, Georgia Grant. They ask
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