Salt
Glasshouse
WREN ALDOUS · SETS AND ROOMS
I design sets, launches and rooms people walk into.
ARRIVED · W
01
·
Paris
Green Room
A show staged in a working palm house. The runway was the old tiled path; the models walked out of the ferns.
(01)
THE STUDIO
06
worlds built since 2019
41
opening nights, from Paris to Nordland
01
studio in Lisbon, two people and a workshop
Glasshouse
Basalt
W
01
·
Green Room
Maison Ferre asked for a runway that looked like it had always been there.
ARRIVED · W
02
·
Vík, Iceland
Low Tide
A launch film shot on black sand in one grey morning. We built nothing but a frame and waited for the fog.
(02)
HOW A WORLD GETS BUILT
Four steps, the same every time.
01
Stand in it
I visit the place, or a place like it, and stand where the audience will stand. Then I write down everything I can see.
02
Draw the frame
One drawing decides where people enter and what they see first. Everything else follows from it.
03
Build small
We build in the workshop, test in the space, and cut whatever the room already does well on its own.
04
Open, then leave
On the night I stay out of sight. Afterwards the pieces go to a second home, not a skip.
Basalt
Terracotta
W
02
·
Low Tide
Norrvik needed a launch film for a jacket built for bad weather, shot in bad weather.
ARRIVED · W
03
·
Utah
Red Hour
Forty clay vessels placed in the desert for one sunset, then packed away. The show lasted nine minutes.
(03)
SIX WORLDS IN NUMBERS
Terracotta
Fjord
W
03
·
Red Hour
Casa Ocre wanted to show forty vessels in the light they were fired to match.
ARRIVED · W
04
·
Nordland, Norway
Night Cabin
One suite in a snowed-in cabin, lit only from the inside. Guests booked the dark, not the room.
(04)
WHAT CLIENTS SAID
People who walked through first.
“
She found us a building that already looked like the collection. Then she had the nerve to add almost nothing.
Inès Ferré
Creative director
·
Maison Ferre
“
We asked for a film set. We got a frame on a beach and the best two days of weather-watching of my life.
Oskar Lindqvist
Brand lead
·
Norrvik Outerwear
“
The pavilion had nothing in it and people stayed for hours. I still don’t fully understand how.
Maja Halden
Founder
·
Halden Audio
Fjord
Studio
W
04
·
Night Cabin
Hotel Lysnes wanted one suite that people would book for the dark, not the room.
ARRIVED · W
05
·
Lisbon
One Light
A concert stage with a single lamp and a white wall. Everything else was the audience.
(05)
ALL SIX WORLDS
Every project is a place you can stand in.
(06)
WHAT I CAN BUILD FOR YOU
Six ways to work together.
(07)
FROM THE JOURNAL
Notes from the workshop and the road.
Process
4 min
Why every set I build has a frame in it
A frame tells people where to stand. It took me six years to notice I kept building the same one.
Field notes
6 min
Nine minutes of sun
Notes from the Casa Ocre opening, where the exhibition had to fit inside one sunset.
Making of
5 min
Burying speakers in salt
What we learned about sound, damp and salt crust while building Quiet Hours.
(08)
QUESTIONS
Before you write.
Short answers to what people ask first. Anything else, the contact page reaches me directly.
How early should we talk?
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Do you build as well as design?
+
Do you work outside Portugal?
+
What does a project cost?
+
What happens to the set afterwards?
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Can we see drawings before we commit?
+
Tell me about the room you need.
A show, a launch, a suite, a stage. Send two lines and a date. I reply within two working days.