Nick Caville's affirmative view of BDP’s Francis Holland School Centre for Creative Learning in London is appropriate for one who looks back very fondly on his young school days
Nick Caville tells me he loved his primary school experience. Growing up in Peterborough, even now he recalls how much he used to look forward to going in. Perhaps his interest in all things sound and vision started then; it certainly developed through his teenage years, dictating his choice of a multi-media studies degree at Salford University, in an area that’s become synonymous with music globally.
After graduating, he did a stint working at a shopping channel before taking up an offer to be the image librarian for BDP. His first job was to catalogue the six-decade old architecture practice’s building archive, but he would also shadow commissioned photographers on their shoots, learning the tricks of the trade, and soon he was doing them himself. Things continued to look up for him there; urban Toronto might be a far cry from his provincial English roots, but that’s where he’ll be next, shooting the firm’s massive $200 million mixed-use regeneration project, The Well.
And looking down too – literally. For RIBAJ, Caville chose to share this image of BDP’s Francis Holland School Centre for Creative Learning in London; fascinated as he was by the visual reciprocity – presented by its oculus – of young library users below and kids playing above in the garden on its roof. The site might be in Belgravia, but before its rebuild this was a dank courtyard behind a Tube retaining wall. This one move trained kids’ eyes on the blue of the skies; what more could you ask of design?