Emerging Design Medal 2019 winner: London Design Festival's Ross Atkin shares his favourite London design hotspots

The designer and engineer has won the London Design Festival's 2019 Emerging Design Medal. He shares his favourite London spaces, secret shops and why he loves the energy of Somerset House.
Liz Hoggard4 September 2019

Ross Atkin has today won the London Design Festival's 2019 Emerging Design Medal.

The award recognises the impact he has made on design within five years or so of graduating.

Atkin studied industrial design engineering at the Royal College of Art and among his key concerns are design for older and disabled people, digital technology and the use of public space.

Where I live: Homerton

My partner Isabel and I live in Homerton, right next to Victoria Park in east London, with our 18-month-old son.

It’s so easy to cycle around, which motivates us to continue living there. It’s great to be near all the technology hubs.

My design London: hotspots where designers find their inspiration

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A lot of my work revolves around tech and it’s easy to get to Shoreditch for meetings and events, and to access a really good pool of freelancers.

Lots of people in our street bought their houses in the Fifties, so everyone chats over their fences.

Our next-door neighbour is 93 and I really value his company. He was born there, seven to a room. He lived through the Blitz, became a stonemason and worked on St Paul’s Cathedral.

Then he became a cabbie and only stopped when he was 85. He’s always out there making things, cutting wood, so I think that’s why he’s in such good nick.

My decor

My decor: a London Underground poster to advertise the opening of the Piccadilly line extension to Heathrow in 1977

We live in a small terraced house which is out of period with the rest of the area. It’s like someone has chiselled off a tiny bit of Hampstead Garden Suburb and dropped it in our cul-de-sac. We’ve kept as many of the original features as possible — flooring, balusters — but painted everything white.

We’ve got some really nice shelves that our designer friend Vahakn Matossian made out of wood reclaimed from a bowling alley.

I wanted an old dresser. When I was growing up my parents had one covered in invitations. I had a huge dresser made by Woodstock and we also bought a chest of drawers from them. It’s really nice to have stuff made to fit — and often cheaper.

One of my mum’s half-brothers gave us a really cool Fly the Tube poster — which was produced when they extended the Piccadilly line to Heathrow — as a wedding present.

One of the downsides of living in an older house is it isn’t very wheelchair-accessible. We have lots of friends who use wheelchairs, so when we had some work done by our friend architect Gareth Gazey he managed to give us a downstairs loo, which has made a huge difference.

Best homewares: Labour and Wait

Best homeware: Japanese enamel kettle in green from Labour and Wait, £68

My favourite is Labour and Wait. We’ve got this incredible Japanese enamel green kettle (£68) that goes on the gas hob (a consideration when we don’t have much space).

It has the best pour of any kettle I’ve ever used. Even the potato peeler they sell is fantastic. And I’ve got a black steel frying pan from there that I cook almost everything in.

Favourite green space: Lee Valley

My favourite is the Lee Valley, particularly the Middlesex Filter Beds Nature Reserve.

Basically it’s a water treatment plant that they built after a big cholera outbreak in the 1850s in order to make London water safe. It closed in the Sixties and it got reclaimed by nature.

There are former pools that are now full of birds and reeds, and a section of railway. It’s very easy to get lost in it.

You can start off in the Olympic Park, go through open marshes and filter beds that close in around you, and then more marshland and even a pub or two before you reach Springfield Park, one of best parks in Hackney, which overlooks the river and the canal.

Secret shop: Wild and Woolly

Secret shop: Anna Feldman's Wild and Woolly knitting shop on Lower Clapton Road

Knitting shop Wild and Woolly on Lower Clapton Road. It’s run by this lovely lady called Anna and the interior was designed by my friend Gregor Timlin. They have knitting classes and events and fun people hang out there.

Favourite workshop and studios: Machines Room

Favourite workshops: Comtainerville in Bethnal Green is home to Machines Room

I am a member of Machines Room, a community of designers, architects, artists and engineers which was on Vyner Street, Bethnal Green and is now based in two shipping containers in Containerville, nearby. It’s a really nice place with a really nice ethos.

The most beautiful space I’ve been in recently is Turning Earth ceramics studio on Argall Avenue, E10. It has the most incredible light and is full of talented people.

Best gallery: V&A

My favourite galleries are at the V&A. They have the most interesting exhibitions — there was one about plywood in 2017 and curator Daniel Charny’s Power of Making was the best exhibition about design the V&A has ever done.

And I love the Ceramics Gallery — I like the fact that they have studio space within the gallery and there’s someone sitting there making ceramics.

Most designers I know have an obsessive interest in how things are made — and in a way I see digital as just another material.

Cultural hotspot: Somerset House

Somerset House. The whole edifice is incredible, with people at different stages of their career, which creates an amazing energy.

You’ve got Makerversity which provides workspace and business support for emerging businesses.

Stables & Lucraft is based there, along with artist Matthew Plummer-Fernandez and Hetco Design — I’m a huge fan of all three.

I took my son there to Now Play This, which was probably the best exhibition about digital technology I’ve seen in London.

Dream property: 55 Broadway

Dream property: Transport for London's headquarters at 55 Broadway in Victoria
Alamy Stock Photo

55 Broadway, the former London Transport HQ, above St James’s Tube, but sadly I can’t afford it.

It’s a breathtaking piece of architecture designed by Charles Holden in the Twenties, with all these amazing friezes. It’s just as incredible inside.

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