British Institute of Biography

Camlins was invited to join MJP in a competition to design a new home for the BIoB. Contemplation of a life, whether one’s own or someone else’s, resides most often in the mind. Memory in this context has the quality of an ocean-deep archive of biographical information. Contemplative demeanour, as a poetic counterpart to archive assembly and retrieval, gives rise to questions about human experience demanding more than a mere record of events. The simultaneous discovery of ‘resemblance’ or familiarity alongside other, unfamiliar ‘worlds’ inspires an exploration of human existence which exemplifies the true art of biography. The biographical garden at Royal Holloway evoked an atmosphere conducive to the contemplation of past lives, current lives and those lives which have yet to commence. Above all it invites those who linger to consider a parallel between the familiar landscape they inhabit and the untrodden landscape of the mind.

Client

BIoB / Royal Hollaway College

Date

1997

Team

MJP Architects