profile

The term Plasma comes from Classic Greek and means modeling, form, fabric, imagination, fiction.
In Physics, the Plasma State- or fourth state of matter- describes a unique condition of matter arising at a complex overlay of external forces. Plasma, a charged field of particles, conducts energy.

Plasma Studio was founded by Eva Castro and Holger Kehne in London in 1999 and quickly came to recognition through a range of small innovative residential and commercial refurbishment projects in London, that all share a consistency in innovation, appropriateness and quality.

Since then Plasma has expanded into Europe with a second office location in Sesto near Bolzano, Italy, lead by partner Ulla Hell.
These two studio locations work dialectically: in London its multicultural staff is immersed in a fast-moving, diverse and urban culture, whereas in Bolzano- an area of outstanding natural beauty and strong local crafts tradition- the work is developed from engaging with nature, the landscape and local materials.

Form, space, experience
The studio is best known for its architectural use of form and geometry. Shifts, folds and bends create surface continuities that are never arbitrary but part of the spatial and structural organisation. Space becomes expanded, new potentials arise, new experiences abound. A reduced palette of materials and colors with minimal clean detailing is used in order to let dynamic ephemeral events, such as light changes, reflections and people’s movements happen and be noticed.

Programme, organization, performance
As importantly, each project is geared towards maximizing space, performance and value through highly creative, open minded and skilful work processes. Starting with a careful analysis of the site and the brief, the studio develops together with the client a thorough framework of the contrains, objectives and potentials. Tangible and intangible parameters, such as material, light, structure, budget, usage patterns, atmosphere, weathering etc are all equally processed as determining forces.

Technology, sustainability, collaboration
The spirit and techniques of inclusiveness, collaboration, life-cycle engineering and full sustainability are guided by the academic research of both partners at the Architectural Association and its collaboration with leading consultants such as Arup. Working on the limits of current computer-aided design tools, sophisticated environmental analysis software and parametric dynamic modelling, Plasma is contributing to a more transparent, complex and interactive development process that connects designers, clients, consultants and fabricators at once.

With this combination of pragmatism and radical thinking in all the different scales the practice has won the prestigious Corus/ Building Design ‘Young Architect of the Year Award’ in 2002.
In the same year its Silversmith’s Studio refurbishment received the Galvanizers Association Award for the best application of galvanized steel in the UK. Plasma Studio’s work has been published and exhibited throughout the world, notably in 10x10_2 (Phaidon) and the renown Design Vanguard by Architectural Record.

In distinction to many young architects who have been held in the thrall of digital possibility, Eva Castro and Holger Kehne have an abiding interest in the physical.

Zaha Hadid, 10x10_2, Phaidon 2005

Plasma Studio (fourth floor) made the walls and ceiling of its hallway out of splintered fragments of polished metal that appear to bulge like fractured glass. Even the floors buckle, making you feel as if you are walking straight onto the set of ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.''

Julie V. Iovine, The New York Times, May 15, 2005

"Plasma Studio is seen as being in the vanguard of digital practice, despite its still small size. Its approach to architecture depends on a highly politicised and inflected interpretation and use of computer technology. [...]

Technology, says Holger Kehne, forces a new approach to design. "With these geometries there is not a lot of constraint, which means you have to find your own." This willingness to find the edges of what is appropriate seems a long way from the formal pyrotechnics that most people see as the result of computer aided design at its most technologically sophisticated."

Kieran Long in Building Design March 07 2003

"Plasma Studio's architecture is serious, and properly creative. They want to produce 'exerienced-based conditions' that 'promote dialectic relationships with our environment'. Architecture, in other words, whose unusual physicality forces its inhabitants to question norms, and seek more interesting - if not revolutionary - perceptions. [...]

This is a practice to watch, not least because Castro and Kehne are doing a Hadid, but in reverse: where Hadid's designs tend to burgeon from random scribbles into dynamically rationalised forms, these tyros are moving from highly controlled start-conditions into apparent randomness. And the results are surprising and seductive."

Jay Merrick in The Independent February 01 2002

"You listen to Miles Davis and the Hives. You should still be passionate and naive. And, most important of all, your firm's name should sound like the latest UK garage band. By this reckoning, Eva Castro and Holger Kehne, the founders of Plasma Studio, are model young architects. In fact, they are the best in the country.

Last Thursday night the pair's startling sinuous design, all spiky shapes and origami creases, won the BD/Corus Young Architect of the Year award, the Whitbread of the architecture world."

Sophie Chadwick in The Times March 06 2002

"This year's winner delighted the jury with a vigorous body of work whose strong theoretical approach was meticulously applied to even the smallest detail. The jurors felt almost without exception that this assured, well produced and yet experimental practice was poised to make its mark on the UK scene."

Karen Glaser in Building Design March 01 2002

The refurbishment of the little-known Silversmiths Workshop in London took joint honours with Daniel Libeskind's Imperial War Museum-North in the Hot Dip Galvanizing Awards 2002. Plasma Studio was a joint first-prize winner for its unusual and creative use of galvanized grating to form a translucent internal spiral staircase at Silversmiths Workshop.

AJ Focus July 2002

Hire a young architect, and you're hiring someone who maximises the practical possibilities of a space. The design, essentially a pod constructed mostly off site to minimise disruption, has doubled their living space, and lightened the interior. It's like a magic box, squeezing light from the few windows in the original live/work box into the deepest recesses, by clever use of angled internal windows between rooms, which reflect light like mirrors. It even seems to get brighter the further you get inside. Weird.

Tom Dyckhoff, The Guardian, May 11 2002

'Engaging Topographies' by Douglas Spencer

'Digital generation' by Kieran Long