Interview with Ben Pentreath
Lets get to know those we work with and have a good relationship, a little better. Here is a chat with Ben Pentreath.
Ben is the director of an architectural and interiors practice based in London. The practice has 12 staff and are working on projects throughout the UK. The company is mainly known for classical and traditional design but they love working on jobs with a more contemporary angle too. We have worked on a number of CGI projects together.
Six questions, six answers from Ben’s world, lets pull up a chair and find out a bit more about Ben.
I use CGI on almost every project (the image at the top of the article is from the recent Burnbrae project). It’s partly an invaluable tool to explain to clients, planners or neighbours what a street scene or a building might look like. However – for me CGI is an invaluable design tool – I look at the images and can instantly spot something that doesn’t feel or look quite right. I always say – if it doesn’t look right on the image, it won’t look right in reality.
Reliability and accuracy.
It’s hard to pick out any single project – I love working on a huge variety of jobs, whether it is urban planning large housing developments in Poundbury, or our scheme near Inverness, where you have the chance to compose street scenes and create the fabric of lives to come… or whether it is a tiny interior design project – such as the cushions we recently designed for Fine Cell Work – a brilliant charity that makes needlepoint cushions in prisons. Then there’s the whole range of scales in between. Large expensive private houses give us the opportunity to design in great detail and commission extraordinary craftspeople. If I did too much of anything, I’d get bored!
The shop started in a strange way – we originally expanded our studio space into a small retail space next door to our office, and needed to have a shop at the front to keep the local authority happy! The shop rapidly became quite a success and a year later the office had to move out to make space for the retail. I love owning the shop, which I run with my co-owner Bridie Hall. It gives us a presence on our wonderful local high street and stitches us deep into the community here.
By constantly keeping my eyes and my mind open.
That’s an interesting question, but if I’m really honest, it would probably be a quiet place with my husband and some close friends. That’s my idea of heaven. Even better – we’d cook at home!
Many thanks to Ben for taking the time to share his insights with us. To find out more about Ben:
Ben on Twitter: click here
Ben’s Blog: click here
