Studio Visit: Philip Beesley

Design

When you talk to the Canadian architect Philipp Beesley, a long time collaborator of the designer Iris van Herpen, you must rewire yourself. Beesley talks in abstractions – instead of walls and floors and ceilings, you get planes, and motion, and thermodynamics. This isn’t because he’s trying to obfuscate anything, it’s just the way his mind works. In a way it’s a requirement for Beesley, because he has moved on past the traditional architecture of making buildings, which he has done exceedingly well in his career. Instead he creates spaces and environments that operate on a level above the basic requirements of architecture, such as protection from the elements. It’s not that it’s not his concern, but these problems have been thoroughly solved. Instead, he’s more concerned how space interacts with human beings on a philosophical level – freedom, community, interaction. Abstraction is the language that’s required.