Bringing to life the story of Ketley Quarry at Clerkenwell Design Week 2022

The UK’s leading independent design festival was a great success with Solus running a key exhibition by Szczepaniak Astridge.

From 24th to 26th of May, our team welcomed over 2,500 unique visitors to our showroom in the heart of the Clerkenwell design district where we were able to tell the story of a fascinating 200-year-old product from our Midlands neighbours, Ketley Brick.  

‘The Marl Pit’ is a stunning installation using Ketley Quarry tiles from architectural practice Szczepaniak Astridge. The multi-sensory experience can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, and moved across. 

A conventionally laid tile floor meets a curving wall of tiles stacked on interstitial spacers, showing the depth of the tile, and moving up to elbow height. This creates a kind of proscenium for performers and speakers. The stacked walls continue away from the stage and wrap the bar area. 

In front of the stage area tiles are arranged loosely on their sides, as they would be stacked in the kiln, so that when the audience moves across them, they clink and shift, giving the visitor auditory and haptic feedback. 

Ketley Quarry has a beautiful colour gradation from a warm ruddy orange to a cool metallic blue grey, and the architects made full use of the available visual effects. The stage seems edged with fire and the stacked tiles look like parametric equalisers, which worked particularly well with the DJ sets on Wednesday and Thursday night. 

The concept behind ‘The Marl Pit’ arises from Szczepaniak Astridge’s interest in sensory architecture – an architecture that does not only address the visual acuity but engages our hearing, touch, smell, movement. 

The installation could not have been achieved without the hard work of the showroom team, who unloaded several tons of tiles into the space; nor the incredible skill and dedication of the team from Trainor Tile and Stone who laid and fitted the installation. 

Response to the installation was overwhelmingly positive. The moment of cognitive dissonance from stepping up onto a moving floor gave our team the opportunity to share the story of Ketley Quarry with visitors.  

A series of events ran alongside, and inside ‘The Marl Pit’. We held talks from industry leaders, a panel discussion on ‘Leadership with Purpose’, performances by DJs and musicians, as well as some lively parties. Big thanks to everyone who helped make the event such a success! 

Watch this space for further reflections and write ups on the event. 

All photos by Henry Woide.