Artichoke designers and Artichoke cabinet makers fill an expertise gap, working alone, or in tandem with architects and designers, to furnish kitchens and other rooms with the interior joinery that meet the needs of a household – and fulfils the potential of a house.
This expertise gap has appeared because architects, faced with a complex remodelling, must manage a torrent of detail and so the specialised complexity of interior joinery and the historical knowledge it demands exceeds their bandwidth.
For interior designers, however brilliantly versed they are in drapery, light, colour and soft furnishings, the possibilities and technicalities of interior joinery are, understandably, outside their ken.
We spend an enormous amount of time at every stage of a project, from the early conversations and visits through design and on into production and installation.
By getting to know our clients and their houses properly we are able to write a brief that meets the needs of both. Time allows us to question assumptions and explore possibilities. It is by spending time early in a project we avoid wasting it later.
By maintaining a relatively low hourly rate Artichoke designers and Artichoke cabinet makers use time generously and judiciously, doing justice to the brief, the house and the materials they work with.
We improve how our clients live in their homes by studying their household’s needs and forming a strategy that meets them.
With each project, whether a kitchen or a whole house, we aim to create Britain’s future heritage, adding architectural value to our clients’ houses for their family and for future generations.
Artichoke designs depend on a deep understanding of period styles. But we are experts rather than purists. We are yet to meet a client whose household would benefit from, for example, an authentically Jacobean kitchen (subterranean, smokey and sparse). So instead of slavish reproduction we devise interventions that weave into the fabric of a house and into its architectural story.
For designers, architects and artists – and for who or whatever was the architect of the natural world – 1.618 is a magic number. It represents the golden ratio: a figure arrived at by dividing a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part (wake up in the back) is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part. The Golden Ratio, or Golden Section, is an important principle in our work. Our designers work with the Golden Section and other classical principles to bring balance and harmony to our clients’ homes.
We use traditional, artisanal joinery techniques because they work superbly well and are yet to be improved on. Our workshop is a centre of excellence for these skills and Artichoke cabinet makers are proud to use traditional techniques as they work to create Britain’s future heritage.