A House for Essex

A House for Essex represents a collaboration between artist Grayson Perry and FAT Architects for the social enterprise, Living Architecture. The exterior is clad with 2300 faience tiles, custom-made by Shaws of Darwen and installed by Szerelmey. The largest of the deep green tiles, are 450 x 620mm and feature a totemic design of a naked woman. These almost entirely cover the facade, interspersed with a pattern of smaller triangular shaped tiles, some green, some white, that feature a number of different designs such as safety pins, cassettes, hearts, a decorative J, swirls and the Essex shield. All the tiles were individually hand fixed onto blockwork using stainless steel tie backs and expanding bolts. In addition to the cladding on the facades, Szerelmey installed faience tiles to the complicated 2.5m high chimney, fixing them to a metal substructure. The result is a highly sculptural, elliptical structure covered in a geometric pattern of green and white triangular tiles. The chimney alone accounts for 90 faience units.