de Metz Forbes Knight (dMFK)
- Published: 18 October 2007 14:41
- Last Updated: 18 October 2007 14:41
- Reader Responses
40 Under 40
de Metz Forbes Knight (dMFK)
AJ Corus 40 Under 40
de Metz Forbes Knight (dMFK), formerly de Metz Architects (established in 1996), is a prolific, design-led, London-based commercial practice. The three partners met while studying, and worked at Moshe Safdie, Richard Rogers and Lifschutz Davidson respectively.
Past projects include the education centre, staff restaurant and curators’ offices at Tate Modern; Sardo, an Italian restaurant in London’s Primrose Hill; and a media centre in Chiswick. dMFK was one of three practices asked to come up with a proposal for an Orthodox synagogue in Golders Green, north London.
The practice’s projects are informed by a rigorously clear diagram, generous-feeling spaces and a conscious expression of ‘patina’, whether within an existing building or in the generation of a new facade. The practice’s goal is ‘to create appropriate, timeless buildings that improve with age’.
Orthodox synagogue, Golders Green
de Metz Forbes Knight’s proposal for a 350-seat synagogue in Golders Green takes the form of a top-lit plinth building with a rooftop garden for al fresco weddings. The filigree pattern of the enclosing wall is generated from the timber tracery in the ceiling of the old synagogue at Przedborz, Poland, which was built in the 18th century and burned by the Nazis in 1939. The synagogue will serve a community of Eastern European survivors of the Holocaust and their families.
