In the workshop | Making Kumiko inspired screens for Cotford St Luke Primary School

In November 2022 we were commissioned by Somerset Council to create a new permanent public artwork for Cotford St Luke, a village near Taunton. The project has been developed in consultation with Cotford St Luke Parish Council.

The project will create a pond dipping platform and a series of five screens in English Sweet Chestnut for the forest school area of Cotford St Luke Primary School. The wooden screens will upgrade an existing dilapidated shelter, doubling as both habitat creation and a seating area for the children during Forest School lessons every Monday. The designs are inspired by the architectural plans for the Tone Vale Psychiatric Hospital, which the village grew up around.

Geometry and Kumiko

To develop our ideas, we visited the Somerset Heritage Archive to find out more about the Tone Vale Psychiatric Hospital, which formed the starting point for the village’s development and at one point was a 290 acre site. Today the remaining historic hospital buildings have been converted into apartments. Inspired by the geometry of the hand painted architectural plans of the hospital building, we took the geometry as the inspiration for the design of the screens. The work we are developing is influenced by the Japanese technique of Kumiko joinery where wood is assembled into patterns without the use of nails.

We took the geometry of the hand drawn architectral roof plans and drew a series of geometric screens that will form the backdrop of the forest school shelter at Cotford St Luke Primary School.

Making habitat screens using hand cut joinery techniques at our studio in Dorset.

Public Art Commission. Cotford St Luke, Somerset. Commissioned by Somerset West and Taunton Council and project managed by Suzanne Heath.

The project has been funded by section 106 monies from a completed housing development in Cotford.