Award winning architectural practice founded by Catherine du Toit and Peter Thomas

tel +44 (0)8456 123 991 | email info@51pct.com

About us

51% stu­dios is an archi­tec­tural stu­dio based in Ken­tish Town, Lon­don. The prac­tice was estab­lished by Cather­ine du Toit and Peter Thomas in 1995, after win­ning the com­mis­sion for a lot­tery funded arts cen­tre in Corn­wall. The stu­dio is known for pro­duc­ing projects which make the ordi­nary extraordinary.

51% stu­dios method­ol­ogy is to com­bine the craft skills of build­ing with the play­ful­ness of the artist. Projects span archi­tec­ture and land­scape, urban strat­egy and education.

Like most young prac­tices, 51% stu­dios have a large port­fo­lio of tweak­ings and rework­ings to the exist­ing Lon­don hous­ing stock, includ­ing extend­ing it, gut­ting it, dig­ging under it, or just knock­ing it down and start­ing again. The practice’s per­cep­tion of what can be achieved in reply to a brief is highly imag­i­na­tive. A respon­sive inter­est in the pos­si­bil­i­ties of exist­ing build­ing and a readi­ness to think long-term, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tally, are key aspects of the firm’s ethos. Vicco’s Tower, a recent exten­sion for an artist in east Lon­don won an RIBA Award in 2009. Cur­rently the stu­dio is on site three new tim­ber clad dwellings of high sus­tain­abil­ity at the for­mer Trin­ity exper­i­men­tal sta­tion in Dungeness.

51% stu­dios have recently begun larger spa­tial manip­u­la­tions to the urban land­scape, includ­ing a com­mended entry for recon­nect­ing the City of Dover to its coast and her­itage, mas­ter­plan­ning for a per­ma­nent fair­grounds on a 42 acre brown­field site in Creede, Col­orado and cur­rently, with the artist Han­nah Collins, a pro­posal for a seven new pub­lic works con­nected by a series of walk­a­ble routes and loops for the city of Barcelona. This work, enti­tled Draw­ing on the City: a walk through His­tory, was exhib­ited dur­ing the sum­mer of 2009 in the Caixa Forum in Barcelona, and Madrid.

In 2006, as part of the Lon­don Archi­tec­ture Bien­ale, Peter Thomas and Cather­ine du Toit col­lab­o­rated with artists Neil Cum­mings and Marysia Lewandowska on Social Cin­ema, a project con­sist­ing of a series of tem­po­rary cin­e­mas, each installed for one night only into the exist­ing urban fab­ric of the Bien­nale des­ig­nated route between Exmouth Mar­ket and the Mil­len­nium Bridge. Films about, set in, or com­ment­ing on Lon­don and its archi­tec­ture were stun­ningly pro­jected upon the city itself.

At each loca­tion, build­ings became screens, steps seat­ing, and res­i­dents gen­er­ously gave power, or loaned their houses as pro­jec­tion booths. The archi­tec­tural fab­ric of the tem­po­rary cin­e­mas was impro­vis­ery, play­ful and sub­tle; pal­lets bor­rowed from an adja­cent mar­ket made tem­po­rary bleach­ers, plas­tic crates from local pubs and restau­rants became seat­ing, neigh­bours joined the audi­ence, and vol­un­teers with torches trans­formed into ush­ers. Social Cin­ema turned un-built spaces into audi­to­ria and spec­tac­u­larly inter­vened in neglected places around land­mark buildings.

The film pro­gramme of the Social Cin­ema traced an evo­lu­tion in the moving-image rep­re­sen­ta­tion of every­day life. From the observer and observed of clas­sic doc­u­men­taries, to con­tem­po­rary par­tic­i­pa­tion in those rep­re­sen­ta­tions through mobile tech­nolo­gies, by peo­ple liv­ing and play­ing in London.

Each pro­gram began by intro­duc­ing ideas and obser­va­tions on Lon­don and its build­ings with excerpts from lec­tures in the Archi­tec­tural Asso­ci­a­tion Archives; includ­ing con­tri­bu­tions from the archi­tects Cedric Price, Denys Las­dun, Reyner Ban­ham, and Ron Her­ron; and then looped back to the 1960’s show­ing some mag­nif­i­cent films from the Free Cin­ema move­ment, of every­day — mean­ing work­ing class – expe­ri­ence. Free Cin­ema was fol­lowed by a selec­tion of extra­or­di­nary ama­teur films from Straight 8 and these segued into short films pre­vi­ously uploaded onto inter­net sites where skate­board­ers, shop­pers, and tourists record their inter­ac­tions with the archi­tec­ture of the city.

51% stu­dios is actively involved in archi­tec­tural edu­ca­tion. Thomas du Toit headed a ver­ti­cal diploma stu­dio at the Archi­tec­tural Asso­ci­a­tion from 1989 to 1999. Stu­diowork included a year long exchange project in South Africa with the for­mer town­ship of River­lea, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­sity of the Wit­wa­ter­srand and Plan­act, a local NGO. Artist Richard Went­worth joined the team in 1996 for a three year explo­ration of ‘London’s Hinge’ from Kings Cross to the River.

In 2002, 51% stu­dios with engi­neer Tim Mac­far­lane insti­gated Bridg­ing the Play­ground with local school­child­ren where every­day reusable mate­ri­als such as paper, card and PET bot­tles were turned into a series of tem­po­rary bridges, each able to hold the entire class, weigh­ing in at around 1 ton.

Thomas du Toit and Peter Sabara were orga­niz­ers and insti­ga­tors of the first Archi­tec­tural Asso­ci­a­tion Sum­mer School in 1990. In 1996, Peter Thomas was awarded two DAAD awards in recog­ni­tion of tutor­ing win­ning prod­uct design schemes and in 2001, the RIBA President’s Sil­ver medal tutor prize for part II.

Peter Thomas and Cather­ine du Toit are trustees of the Peter Sabara Travel Schol­ar­ship for archi­tec­tural stu­dents at the Royal Col­lege of Art and the Archi­tec­tural Association.

Con­tact | Stu­dio 6,  Deane House, 27 Green­wood Place, London NW5 1LB

tel | +44 (0)8456 123 991

email | info@51pct.com