New studio and work space update
Some days are just perfect, right from the morning. This was one such day.
First thing first – Koda Creative never intended to have a workshop. But with time, the demand for different elements we use in our projects made us think of the possibility to settle a studio where we can pre-fab certain things. You know what serendipity is. Well, this today was pure chance. It was meant to be. When we entered the office of the harbour master at North Quay in Hayle, we didn’t have much hope something will come out of it. The chance to get a space there, at any price, is almost as small as to set a workshop up in Shoreditch. But, as we mentioned, today was one of these days. Not only someone just moved out from one of the (very few) workshops there, but also the rent was so reasonable, that it would enable us to keep the low pricing for our clients while delivering even more variable work. The first project will be to make some mangrove roots and rock panels.
Concrete pump store maybe?
Looks better in the picture! Will soon look much nicer.
The key to opportunities
With the keys of the building in our hands, we rushed to it, inpatient and excited, already planning what we can create there. First metal door, then another, wooden one. A small entrance. An office on the right, a strange empty room on the left. In the office – a table and a very clean, comfortable office chair, left from the previous tenants. A sea slater Ligia oceanica, looking bored. We switched on the light to see what was at the end of the entrance. Under the fluorescent tube light, we saw a big space with concrete floor and walls covered with paint in white, purple and blue, which was chipping and crumbling off. The wide metal beams painted dark, hunter’s green, were contrasting with the illogically clean ceiling. In the middle of the space, there was a huge teak desk left there from the 60s (this one we will definitely keep)! Everything was looking abandoned and deserted. Sad. But we couldn’t help noticing the potential! The walls needed just a bit of sandblasting and a layer of paint, and a good old fashioned scrubbing. We opened the front and back doors which are wide enough to allow fork-lift truck in. Together with the fresh winter air and the sound of the harbour, inside came the daylight and made all the gloomy appearance seem just a bit neglected. After a good look around we realised the building has been modified during its existence quite a few times. Some doors and windows have been inbuilt, some walls – demolished, and built somewhere else. A big window, facing the street, was covered with a board painted in depressing blue. We tore the board off the wall, and through the thick layer of spider webs and dead spiders, more light came inside. Now, this already looked like the ultimate workshop, precisely as we imagined it, perfect for our purposes.
We uncovered that window already.
Large back yard with container and real rock!
The fascinating past of our new home
Our new location has quite a vibe. Lots of things happened here over the years. The Pentowan Calcining Works refined for fifty years arsenic extracted from the spoil heaps and abandoned workings of the nearby Wheal Lucy tin mine. After them came the Cornish Glassworks (1917-19) and its successor, The Pentowan Glass Bottles Co (1920-25), both very short-lived enterprises – the glass they produced was basically good enough only for beer bottles. After the Pentowan Glass Bottle Co. closed, the buildings were abandoned and were later partly demolished by ICI, who used the site to build the Associated Octel Bromine Extraction Plant in 1939. This was a secret war project that ran until 1945, producing the “anti-knock” additive for high octane aviation fuel. This additive increased the power of aircraft such as Hurricanes and Spitfires. Though we looked everywhere, we couldn’t find pictures of the building from that time, except a few taken from the air. No wonder – it was a military object, so people didn’t tend to hang around with photo cameras. ICI retained the chemical works in Hayle until 1973 when the plant was closed and, except for a few buildings on North Quay, was demolished.
One of these buildings is now the new workshop of Koda Creative. Needless to say, we are very excited to move to such a place, not only because of the great location but also because of its interesting history. And as if this is not enough, we discovered in our backyard, at the base of the impressive (real) rock wall, hidden behind the thick, tangled buddleia, the entrance to an air raid shelter! But more about this in some of our next stories.
