When Andrew Waugh asked ‘Who’s in charge of Studio in the Woods’ Sue Philips responded ’No one really - except for all of the people that come together to do it in any one place, in any one year - it’s theirs, and they’re ‘in charge’ at any one time, but nothing is ever fixed, and it will keep evolving and being passed around from group to group, and from place to place’. 

Studio in the Woods is not about the installations that emerge at the end of a long weekend, rather it is about the people. Strangers come together and embark on a two and a half day long designing and building adventure. During which they roam the woodlands, agree a place, experiment with mock ups and slowly and iteratively construct a something… informed by the land, the people and the feel and weight of green oak fresh from the mill in one’s hands.

The immediacy of the process, the landscape and amazing food bring people together. The weekend experience leaves behind memories which we take back into our everyday lives, wondering how some of the magic can benefit our practice’s projects, how it can inform the way we design and construct and live the life of an architect.

This year’s Studio in the Wood was held in Wyre Community Forest (https://wyreclt.org.uk/) and partly funded by Trada (https://www.trada.co.uk/).

Supporters and host: Wyre Community Forest (Tim Selman and his kind and supportive team) and Trada (Tabitha Binding)

Groups leaders: Kate Darby and Gianni Botsford, Charley Brentnall, Oscar Emanuel and Martin Self, Zoe Berman, Hannah Durham and Carolina Vasilikou, Lee Ivett, Laura Marks and Tim Lucas, Barbara Kaucky and Susanne Tutsch

Roaming engineer: Toby Maclean

Lecturers: Andrew Waugh, Gianni Botsford, Steve Coombs and Paul Evans

Studio in the Woods was initiated more then 10 years ago by Piers Taylor (http://www.invisiblestudio.org/)