Alex Chinneck creates undulating house to bring sense of "playful escapism" to Clerkenwell Design Week

Artist Alex Chinneck has designed A Week at the Knees, a rippling installation that looks like a historic Georgian brick house sitting down, for Clerkenwell Design Week in London.

Located in London's Charterhouse Square, the installation reconfigures a Georgian facade – complete with brickwork and bending windows – to make it look like it's sitting with bended knees on the ground.

The 5.5-metre-high and 13.5-metre-long sculpture, whose name nods to the fact that it's taking place during the annual Clerkenwell Design Week, was made from 320 metres of steel and 7,000 brick slips. It features bespoke bending windows, doors and pipework.

Chinneck had tried to find a suitable building to attach the A Week at the Knees facade to, but had a eureka moment when he realised that it could be freestanding.

"For a long time, we were fixated on finding another building that we could attach the work to," Chinneck told Dezeen of the challenges in the lead-up to the project.

"Conceiving the free-standing facade was a breakthrough. Then there's the practical side of being able to afford to create a work like this."

The physical aspects of A Week at the Knees proved difficult, too, as the artist was creating a seemingly flexible and lightweight sculpture from heavy, rigid materials.

"The sculpture is made from 7,000 brick slips and glued to a steel skeleton," Chinneck said. "In the middle of the project, there was a global glue shortage of the glue that we required, which gave me sleepless nights."

"I'm an unfortunate combination of ambitious and anxious, so despite this being my 18th public sculpture, I always find these projects highly stressful," he continued.

"We are a small art studio with big ideas, so conceiving, designing, managing and making these works requires absurd working hours."

Chinneck hopes that the completed installation, which will be on display throughout Clerkenwell Design Week and for a further six weeks, will give people a feeling of possibility.

"I hope that my work offers a moment of playful escapism from the everyday and also that it opens up a sense of possibility, particularly for younger audiences," Chinneck said.

"We live in an increasingly risk-averse, digital and highly surveilled world, where it can often feel like the safest thing to do is to stay in and do nothing," he continued.

"My work is a kind of act of defiance against that. It's an invitation to come out and explore – Charterhouse Square is a wonderful place to do that."

A Week at the Knees is a callback to one of Chinneck's first public artworks, the 2013 From the Knees of my Nose to the Belly of my Toes, which made the facade of a seaside home in Margate look like it had slid down.

"The introduction of a seemingly simple bend to the brick surface created an incredibly satisfying sculptural form and narrative that people really responded to and which I also enjoyed," Chinneck said of the Margate project.

"In some ways, I've been chasing that same outcome ever since, while exploring different materials and increasingly complex and sophisticated fabrication processes."

"I think the real question is why haven't I revisited it sooner," Chinneck added. "The main reason is that I didn't want to be creatively pigeonholed, so I've been trying to use each new project as an opportunity to do something new – much to the frustration of my commissioner."

The artist, whose most recent project featured surrealist twisted street furniture, also said he enjoys the "creative fruits" of having a diverse portfolio.

"I've always tried to maintain an explorative side to my practice – refining my process without repeating my projects," he said.

Once the installation is over, Chinneck hopes to see the playful A Week at the Knees house get a permanent home.

"The sculpture has been designed with the ability to tour and with permanence in mind," he said. "I'd like to see it inside a museum space, where it would create a brilliant tension with the confines of the building."

The photography is by Charles Emerson.

Clerkenwell Design Week 2025 takes place from 20 to 22 May 2025 at various locations across London, UK. Visit Dezeen Events Guide for more global architecture exhibitions, events and talks in architecture and design.

The post Alex Chinneck creates undulating house to bring sense of "playful escapism" to Clerkenwell Design Week appeared first on Dezeen.