Restoring & Reimagining Dora House
The third phase of restoring Dora House, our Grade II listed home in London's South Kensington, focuses on completely reimagining our basement.
Our vision is to create a beautiful, self-contained one-bedroom flat and studio space to accommodate artists in residence, as well as space for our fascinating archive and community activities. Inspired by Dora House's past residents, the welcoming space will continue the building's creative lineage.
Thanks to TiggColl, the fantastic architecture and design studio, we now have visualisations of the reimagined and restored space.
Visualising the Home for Sculptors
TiggColl the fantastic architecture and design studio, have created visualisations of the reimagined and restored space. They also gave a presentation to members of the Society that you can watch below.
TiggColl Architects presentation
TiggColl is an architecture practice founded in 2008 by design duo David Tigg and Rachel Coll and they are dedicated to elevating everyday life through a transformative design approach.
In this video David and Rachel presented to members of the Society their vision for the transformation of the Dora House basement into a flexible space including the archive, a workshop / meeting room and a self contained apartment.
Responding to the Challenge
The basement is currently a no-go area and a risk to the whole building. Extremely damp with poor wiring and plumbing, some rooms even have rotten flooring which has collapsed.
Creating a Home for Sculptors envisages a exciting new future for this space. It will welcome artists in residence and house the archive.
The flexible studio space will also be available for the Society and the local community to use. We'll run creative workshops, educational sessions, membership events and evening arts activities, as well as extending school holiday provision.
Restoring the basement will future-proof the Society financially, offering the option for short occasional lets should the need arise. The Society already has a long-term office tenant.
The Kitchen
Rotten floorboards have caused collapse of floor.
Archive
This damp room is unsuitable for our archive.
Studio Space
This dark room will be transformed into a light studio.
Join Our Supporters
We are working to raise £1m to complete this project and are hugely grateful to the funders already on board, including:
Garfield Weston Foundation
Mirisch & Lebenheim Charitable Foundation
Constance Fund
Foyle Foundation
Backstage Trust
Henry Moore Foundation
National Manuscripts Conservation Trust
Each and every donation makes the world of difference and is gratefully received.
Final Phase of Restoration
This is the third and final phase of restoring Dora House. In 2022, we successfully raised £1m to enable the urgent repair of our unique building. Working from the top down, specialist craftspeople made Dora House safe, sound and structurally dry, whilst also restoring the façade to its original glory. Read more here.
In 2023, thanks to the City Bridge Foundation, we were pleased to install modern, accessible public toilets and baby-changing facilities.
The restoration will continue to be overseen by the Society’s building committee, alongside Purcell conservation architects and FOCUS consultants who have been working with us throughout.
The 10gram Challenge Exhibition
In autumn 2024, a very special exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery helped raise funds for this important project.
Over 40 leading artists responded to the challenge of creating a small scale sculpture from a 10gram block of wax. Participating artists include Antony Gormley RA, Cathie Pilkington RA, Conrad Shawcross, Grayson Perry RA, Laura Ford PRSS, Michael Craig-Martin RA, Peter Randall-Page RA FRSS, Polly Morgan MRSS, Rana Begum RA, Richard Deacon RA, Richard Wilson RA, and Sokari Douglas Camp CBE and many more.
With thanks to Alex Davies MRSS at Milwyn Foundry for his ongoing support and the original concept, and to Thomas Dane Gallery, Darbyshire and Artelium.
