360° Tours
Fine Art Mouldings
Fine Art Mouldings are proud of the work that we have carried out in the past and would like to show you our work the best way we can.
The 360° tour shows a few of our mouldings projects, there are also other projects listed below with images of the work such as cornices and roses with descriptions.
The 360° tour below has links in the bottom left which will take you too the next project. Thanks for looking.
Sutherland
Sutherland...
Connaught Bar
The Connaught Bar in the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair has some ultra-stylish décor. Inspired by English Cubist and Irish 1920s art, with textured walls shimmering in platinum silver leaf overlaid with dusty pink, pistachio and lilac.
Suite 105
Suite 105...
Tate Modern
The new shop for the Tate Modern entrance was conceived of as a crystalline structure punched into the existing sloping ceiling of the north entrance. Canted and facetted glass walls almost touch a ceiling made up of GRG polygonal panels, these have lighting and air conditioning supplies projecting through openings which appear as cracks in the structure. The panel edges are detailed so as to appear to have no thickness with all upstand edges and voids painted matt black.
The ceiling geometry is exceptionally complex. The vertices had to be precisely set out both horizontally and vertically in order to ensure that the panel edges meet at a point. Where the panels are three sided a small amount of tolerance was available, however, the panels adjacent to the four sided and five sided panels had to be located exactly to guarantee the vertices would be co-planar. A 3D CAD model was prepared to calculate the individual panel edge dimensions and to generate a 2D triangulated setting out plan.
To co-ordinate the ceiling with the perimeter glazing, temporary profiled sections were fitted to the glazing head support framework to define the notional intersection with the ceiling plane and the glazing. The GRG panels were then installed working to an offset dimension from the perimeter towards the centre.
The high level services co-ordination was similarly complex. The ceiling panels are in some areas very close to deep downstand beams above and it was not possible to define clear service zones. The services snake around the contours of the panels and dive below beams. The setting out was made possible by providing invert levels to each section of ductwork and for every terminal connection.
The end result is a truly unique design that reflects the importance of this popular London Landmark building.
The Connaught Lifts
We were asked by the design team at the Connaught hotel to help them in a very unusual task, one of which was a first for Fine Art Mouldings.
Built in 1897, and named after Queen Victoria’s third son, the Duke of Connaught, the hotel was an impressive landmark on the map of central Mayfair. Used by royalty and loyal devotees the team wanted to hold on to the famous parts that have been photographed over the last century.
Along with the listed suites another part that was particularly appealing to the guests were the lifts. The original carved hardwood panels were of a sturdy well built nature. At first it was suggested to re-use the panels to adapt the new car. As this was smaller though this was not feasible, also with all the restrictions on health and safety and weight measure on new lift cars today, these in the end were impractical.
Fine art Mouldings were asked early on to see if the features could be created in hard wearing Gypsum. We suggested a plaster made by British Gypsum called Alpha K which has a resin pigment mixed with the gypsum. This produces a very hard finish that does not diminish the fine detail.
The cars were dismantled by the lift contractor and these were transported to our workshop. All necessary squeezes of the features were taken and given to the model maker to recreate. These had to match the detail exactly as the building has listed status, however they had to be shrunk to suit the new lift car dimensions.
Over several design meetings we suggested that the use of joints be as limited as possible because of the constant movement of the car. The end result was three major wall panels, 2 curved corner panels and the ceiling detail which is in one piece. The measurements were absolutely critical and there was much checking by our shop foreman and many sleepless nights prior to the installation date. This was on a very tight programme as the lifts were to be used as part of the opening ceremony of the first suites. We are pleased to say this went without a hitch.
We are pleased to have been involved in this unique project and feel this is a great portrayal in the many uses of gypsum.
