As a photographer, my encounters with FAT’s work were always about chasing the spark of something more elusive than just a building; it was finding ideas disguised as ornament, or details coerced into narrative.
The Museum of Croydon, for instance, resisted the solemn hush of institutional display and instead unfolded like a living scrapbook. Photographing its ghostly, sprayed-urethane timeline, I saw an elegant framework of memory: an architecture of stories, shaped with conviction and care.
The same clarity hid inside the apparent chaos of 1.5 Miles of String at Selfridges. What looked like a prank, a shop tangled into Duchampian knots, was in fact an act of precision, a web spun from history, geography and chance. Hard to photograph, but easy to enjoy: playful yet rigorous, anarchic in spirit but mathematically exact in execution.
At KesselsKramer in Hoxton and in Oliver Peyton’s restaurant at Heal’s, I witnessed FAT wield their skill with restraint. The plywood walls that folded open like stage scenery, the farmhouse-like trompe l’oeil of tables and tiles, these were not jokes, though they winked at you. They were acts of insight and humour, reimagining the familiar so we might notice it anew. A drape of fabric, a run of shelving: one rendered solid, another curiously porous. Double takes on the easily overlooked.
And then there was Islington Square in Manchester, where FAT’s playful hand met the serious business of housing. Behind the exuberant brick wall and its argyle patterns lay one of the most thoughtful acts of community engagement I have seen. What looked like bravado and swagger was in fact an architecture of trust, forged with future residents and rooted in deep respect for how people live, and how they express their love of place.
It was easy for critics to cast FAT as jokers. But their work never failed to deliver serious insight and serious care, motivated by joy and generosity. The masks of play, colour and collage made them seem frivolous. But behind the wit lay intellect and confidence.
Their work predicted trends we now take for granted: the mixing of high and low, digital flatness translated into real space, narrative as a central design tool. They understood that design could be rigorous and joyful at once, and that courage in small gestures could ripple outward into lasting, meaningful, change.
For me, photographing FAT was like photographing your favourite band. Each project a new album resonating to different chords: Croydon’s timeline hummed with memory, Selfridges tangled itself into cacophony, Heal’s played a familiar tune in unexpected key. And, like music, FAT’s architecture reminded me that design can touch the soul, not by retreating into seriousness, but by reshaping the everyday until it sparks with unknowable possibility.
Poetry and prose, harmony and discord, familiar and unknown. Just what you’d want from your favourite band.
