El Paso & The Gopher Hole

The Mexican-themed El Paso bar on Old Street in east London has been transformed by aberrant architecture into a lively bar, workspace and diner. A multi-disciplinary gallery and performance space called ‘The Gopher Hole’ is suitably located beneath the floorboards.

El Paso

The current trend towards leaving office blocks behind and working remotely is creating a demand for temporary office space outside of the home. Consequently an increasing number of nomadic workers roam London in search of welcoming workspaces.

But this change in working styles is nothing new. The concept for the El Paso bar/workspace/diner takes its inspiration from 19th century pubs like the ‘Elephant & Castle’ in Lambeth. The original designs and drawings of Albert A. Webbe, architect of the demolished Lambeth pub, reveal a mixed used building divided up into three main areas: a ‘public’ space for drinking; ‘private’ areas for the pub’s regular patrons, who used the watering hole as an extension of their home and office, and a large space that was used for group meetings and community events.

Combining historical precedent with aberrant’s own research into how contemporary ‘work-styles’ are evolving, the El Paso bar is specially designed to provide the modern nomadic worker with enhanced comfort, productivity and opportunities to interact:
The brightly coloured double height space features a variety of different areas, both open and intimate, for working, socialising and dining.
By day there is an open-faced residency studio for use by up-and-coming local designers. On the mezzanine level, gigantic cut-out moustaches and sombreros break out the otherwise intimate ‘meeting’ booths.
A mixture of bespoke and carefully selected vintage furniture is complemented by free Wi-Fi, laptop plug in points, old school desk lamps and a library stocked with design magazines, art manuals and miscellaneous books donated by attendees at the opening night launch party.
To facilitate the transition from daytime workspace into evening bar, desk lamps make way for a mass of hanging bare pendant light bulbs. Storage lockers are also available for daytime patrons to stow away laptops and get on with enjoying a night time drink.

The Gopher Hole

The Gopher Hole is a brand new gallery and event space located beneath El Paso. aberrant architecture has stripped back the raw features of this one-time band venue to reveal an original layering of forgotten materials and activities. Old bathroom tiles, large sliding steel doors, cast iron lifting gear and the original bare brick walls replace ad-hoc building work, plaster and paint.

A redesigned bar, DJ booth and a moveable stage (made from custom designed gallery display boxes) provide the space with the ability to deliver a diverse programme of exhibitions, film screenings, interdisciplinary events and eclectic music happenings.

Inspiration for the gallery name – as well as for the upcoming calendar of events- comes from the slang used by US border guards to describe the temporary man-made underground tunnels that are regularly dug beneath the fence that separates the US/Mexico border.

Events and exhibitions at The Gopher Holes will be curated by aberrant architecture and Beatrice Galilee. The current exhibition is called ‘about a minute’, which asks fifteen architects, designers, poets and writers to interpret the potential of 60 seconds.

Please contact David Chambers for more information at: david@aberrantarchitecture.com or +44 (0)7940245626


Designing El Paso & The Gopher Hole

The design of El Paso & The Gopher Hole brought in the collaborative contributions of three additional design firms and practitioners. Working alongside aberrant, Cannon Griffin contributed to the fabrication of the El Paso interior, Shiyuan.co.uk worked on the overall brand identity and graphic design and Beatrice Galilee co-founded The Gopher Hole and co-curated the first show -‘about a minute’ –, which opened on 9 December, and runs until 13 February 2011.

aberrant architecture uncovered Alfred A. Webbe’s original designs and drawings for the ‘Elephant & Castle’ in Lambeth during a six-month architecture residency at the V&A Museum in London (see 4 below for more details).



Why call it ‘The Gopher Hole’?

El Paso is a city directly located on the US / Mexico border and a Gopher Hole is US military slang for the spontaneous, self made smuggling tunnels that are used to move and distribute illicit materials beneath this type of fortified international boundary.

The temporary, small-scale incursions often tap into existing infrastructure and only exist for a few weeks / months before being discovered or collapsing back into themselves.

In the same vein, The Gopher Hole aims to scratch below the surface of popular culture, investigating subject matter that often lies just below the radar.

Working with established as well as emerging artists, architects, writers and designers, each exhibition will cross disciplinary boundaries before rapidly disappearing, then re-emerging in new forms elsewhere.
‘About a Minute’

About a Minute is the inaugural exhibition at The Gopher Hole, a new project space in Hoxton founded by aberrant architecture and Beatrice Galilee. For their first show, The Gopher Hole invited carefully chosen conceptual artists, architects, designers, poets and writers to respond to a premise - the idea that today, a minute is all we seem to have.

Increasingly hyperactive consumption of data, information and images has trained the brains of a generation to multi-task, skim, tweet, comment and status-update, but has eliminated the notion of patience or pause. The sheer volume of things available at the touch of a button or swipe of a finger has lead to a saturation point, where boredom and irritation arrives sooner than we may like to admit.

Galleries are easy victims of the phenomenon. Visitors may spend a few moments to absorb an artwork, half-read a caption and move on. This leaves both curators and artists in a conundrum. How does one respond to the knowledge that no more than a minute may be spent with a painstakingly crafted exhibit? After all, it can take less than a minute for everything in the world to change.

Each work in this show was chosen for its thoughtful, provocative or playful interpretation of the minute through the lens of number of disciplines and mediums. This plurality is key to the curatorial philosophy of the Gopher Hole: interrogating popular culture across disciplinary borders.
About aberrant architecture
www.aberrantarchitecture.com

aberrant architecture is a multidisciplinary design studio and think tank. From its studio in east London, aberrant strives to capture the best of the past and the contemporary in order to shape the future of the designed world. The practice is part of an emerging generation of architects and designers who are choosing to eschew a straightforward architectural approach in favour of operating beyond established disciplinary boundaries.

Recently completed projects include: El Paso, a bar, workplace and diner in Shoreditch, east London (2010); The Gopher Hole, a small exhibition venue, project space and performance area, also in the Shoreditch area of east London (2010); Welcome To Your City, a unique two week installation inside the Wonder Room shop windows at London’s Selfridges department store (2010), and Gordon Wu City Local, a research project and installation on flexible working, which aberrant exhibited at the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture (2009/2010).

During the first half of 2010, aberrant were architecture residents at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In conjunction with the Royal Institute of British Architects, the practice spent six months researching the museum’s historical precedents on the subject of ‘work’. The results of the residency are being fed into ongoing projects that address work & lifestyle in the 21st Century. aberrant architecture was founded in 2008 by David Chambers and Kevin Haley. The founders of aberrant architecture are studio leaders at London Metropolitan University and associate lectures at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design.