Parti Studio swing between architecture and design through research and experimentation

For a studio that has been predominantly practising architecture for the past eight years, it is an exciting moment for Parti to start designing its own objects. 'We have always been interested in work of a variety of scales,' says Eleanor Hill, founding director of Parti, which she created with Tom Leahy in 2015. is now a growing practice of designers who share Hill’s passion for 'work that makes you feel something and is atmospheric.'

Parti's lighting design debut

Atmosphere was at the heart of Parti’s first foray into lighting, the ‘Puddle’ collection. The launch was part of a collaboration with research facility and experimental fabrication workshop Grymsdyke Farm and Fels Gallery for the exhibition, ‘The Farm Shop’ in London. Here, creatives were brought together for a residency at the farm where they created site-inspired dining homewares. 'We knew there was some sort of table scape and food related events and quickly thought we’d like to design lighting.' As architects, Hill says they’re often specifying lighting, and 'struggle to find exactly what we want and what fits our needs,' so they decided to take matters into their own hands.

Keeping in theme with the environment of the residency, the lighting’s design was influenced by a 'traditionally muddy farmyard sight,' puddles. But unlike murky rainwater found on the farm in rural Buckinghamshire, these designs are reflective and refined. 'We wanted to create something that captures the joy and fun within a dinner party. We wanted to enhance the colours, movement and food at the table.' Hill and the team looked at the more ethereal elements of a puddle to realise this – the ripples on the surface, the crisp edges and depth.

Aluminium was the material of choice for the ‘Puddle’ collection for its highly reflective qualities and how it softens at a low melting point, but developing the puddle shape wasn’t an easy feat. After experimenting with both CNC cutting and traditional methods like hand casting, they soon realised digital tools were the way forward with creating the pieces of precision. 'There was quite a lot of trial and error,' Hill remembers late evenings were spent with the founder of Grymsdyke Farm, Guan Lee, clambering over the CNC machine hoping to avoid mishaps like cutting through the metal to achieve the puddle finish. The result was artfully machined aluminium embedded with a simple Tala bulb.

'In architecture, the ‘parti’ is the organising principle behind a design - it is the reason we design a project. It comes from the 15th Century French word ‘parti pros’ which means ‘decision taken,’' says Hill of why they chose the studio’s name. Reasoning is the driving force of Parti – a practice which is full of research and experimentation. Always keeping materiality in mind, Hill envisions future object lines to be 'expressive, playful and useful.' 

From room dividers to tables and chairs, Hill is keen to trial different pieces, 'we’re also interested in architectural hardware, like ironmongery.' As Parti approaches ten years as a studio, they’re still evolving, balancing architectural projects from hospitality projects to private homes, but essentially for Hill the future of Parti 'will see the disciplines working together.'

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