Intro essay for the book BRINKWORTH - SO GOOD SO FAR.
Written by Professor Graeme Brooker RCA.

Book design by FUEL.

I first met Adam at a birthday party on a Thames river boat, not long after i’d left college.
We then met again at some design event, and at some point started meeting up more regularly, usually to see art, which most of the time then led on to a bar & more discussion of design and art amongst other things.
During this period we had both been working from home and were both at the stage where we felt it was time to find a studio, so the idea of sharing a space took shape.
Not long after, I came across a semi derelict building in Bethnal Green, near where I lived. It was the ground floor of an old brick coach house, full of old carpet samples and dead pigeons, but it was a good size, with lots of potential and big enough for both studio and workshop space, which we both wanted. Eventually we secured a lease, borrowed a van to get rid of the bits of carpet, pigeons and other debris, and started to make it into a studio.

Once we were working in the same space, I inevitably got to know Adam much more. One of the things that impressed me was the vigorous way he approached work, combining super practical problem-solving with a unique vision for a space and client that belied all it’s practicality, expediency and budget. The majority of early projects were stores for Karen Millen. Karen Millen was still a young company with just a handful of shops, but it was also an ambitious and energetic enterprise. Adam had fallen into working for Karen Millen almost by chance, but proved to be a vital partner, that enabled their brisk growth. A key part of their nimbleness was Adam’s nimbleness as a designer, enabling them to launch exciting new stores at an incredible rate.
A typical project would start with a phone call from the client to announce a deal on a new site & that keys would be available the following day! The first site visit would therefore include a hastily assembled wrecking crew, to clear out whatever was left of any previous fit out. Adam would be there, hammer in hand, searching for what was behind existing surfaces, measuring up, and staring to rough out a plan. Whilst ripping out was finishing up, Adam would be back at the drawing board, designing and planning, usually in a way that could incorporate a maximum off-site fabrication. This whirlwind process enabled elements to be ready to be installed on site almost as soon as the skip had removed unwanted elements, and whilst services were being installed,
Another factor that made this speed possible was that it was a small, tight team. The client trusted Adam to get on with the job and deliver a beautiful, seamless result, on time and on budget.
Adam meanwhile organised the projects in the fashion of a design & build unit, with a small team of regular and reliable collaborators & sub contractors. Despite the breathtaking speed of installation of new shops, solutions were innovative, befitting of the existing space and the client’s needs, and often with supremely inventive ways of satisfying conservative planning requirements at the same time, and all done with a furious enthusiasm.

During the time we shared the space, the rate of new projects & clients gathered pace.
Fast enough that during our first year there, personnel expanded from just one to half a dozen or so, helping to manage what had become a constant flow of work.
At some point I moved out, and Brinkworth continued to expand into the rest of the space, adding staff as projects required.
Several of the growing Brinkworth team were friends first, or have become friends along the way, including, notably, co-director Kevin Brennan, who we both met around the same time, during a period when Shoreditch was a kind of hub for creative east London. Some of the team have worked for Brinkworth, left, then returned again once they realised which side their toast was buttered!
Along the way they have renovated the building itself and taken over the first floor too. Together, Kevin and Adam seem determined to ensure the studio, however it grows or evolves, retains the feel of a group of friends heading out on a weekend together. The family ethos of the studio, together with it’s professionalism, informed amongst other things, by Adam’s love of all things skate, surf or hot rod, and Kevin’s hardcore love of hardcore Corbusian bunkers, has established a thriving and energetic team that slowly expands along with the client base and project types (but held in check by the seating capacity of Pelliccis!).

I have more recently, via a collaborative project for Bird, a chicken restaurant, become re-acquainted with the Brinkworth machine. This has given me an insight into how the team has grown alongside the breadth of projects, clients & collaborators (including Stafford Schmool and the Wilson Brothers). When I was first approached to work on Bird, my immediate thought was; we need Brinkworth in on this. On a purely practical level, I knew they had the capacity to project manage & roll out the scheme into the future, but I also felt they had the experience and sensitivity to manage to be able to work in a creative collaboration successfully.
Part of this was the fact that I knew them already & what they were capable of, but I think there’s also a genuine enthusiasm and open-ness, seeing each new project or collaboration as an opportunity to do good work, inject more energy, and keep the motor running sweetly.

(2019)