‘My team and I have been [here] for over ten years,’ explains Cocksedge, ‘so I wanted to commemorate this space in some way.’

While looking around the studio, he had the intuition to explore what was literally below it. He started by digitally scanning the floor, discovering a pathway belonging to a Victorian stable.

“After carrying out extensive scans of the foundations, I drilled down into the floor to uncover the levels hiding underneath. The resulting findings epitomise London’s multi-layered history, with the initial concrete hiding Victorian bricks left over from the building’s former life as a stable,” he said

After being evicted from his studio to make way for a new property development, London designer Paul Cocksedge reacted by excavating material from the floor to produce a new series of furniture.

EXCAVATION: Evicted is his physical and visual reaction to eviction, the place the acclaimed designer has spent twelve years in, building his career, has been mined as a direct source for a new body of work.

Cocksedge drilled down into the studio’s floor to excavate material that he then transformed into five distinct furniture pieces. Each of these works documents commemorates and preserves not only his own time in the location, but the building’s own history.

One of the highlights of the series is a round glass table, with a base made from concrete columns of varying sizes. The pieces become shorter towards the centre of the piece, and each one has colourful aggregate set into it.

Another table is made up of a rectangular glass top supported on two large upright discs. On one side is the concrete floor surface, while the other side displays the brick floor of the old stable.

The collection also includes a third table with a solid round base.

And also a shelving unit supported on cylindrical columns.

He sees the collection as a celebration of “the tension and creative energy” of the Hackney building. ”The brief for this project has basically come from the landlord himself,’ the designer half-jokes, noting how he looks forward to taking some of his old studio with him to the next space: ‘My Hackney studio will also accompany me to my new workspace.’

“By creating pieces from the very fabric of one of London’s disappearing creative spaces, I hope to remind of the transient nature of both creative workers, and the places they inhabit.”

New York’s Friedman Benda gallery is pleased to present British designer Paul Cocksedge’s latest project in Milan, in collaboration with philanthropist Beatrice Trussardi, who is committed to supporting design and art, commissioning work that encourages people to question the environment around them.

EXCAVATION: Evicted will be shown on the occasion of the Milanese Design Week at Palazzo Bocconi-Rizzoli-Carraro, , a 17th century building which will open its doors to the public for the first time before its upcoming transformation to an Etruscan Museum.

Photography courtesy of Friedman Benda and Mark Cocksedge

About Paul Cocksedge

Paul Cocksedge Studio is the internationally acclaimed design practice of partners Paul Cocksedge and Joana Pinho. Notable for in-house design of concepts, installations, public interventions and exclusive interior objects, the Studio explores the limits of technology in order to create unique design experiences. With an interdisciplinary approach and an acute sense of quality, Paul Cocksedge Studio reinvents contemporary design as an event. Paul’s energy permeates his work from the design process and beyond.