INTERVIEW: Sarah McKellar and North Sea Boat Terminals
Your company’s name is quite unique – what is its origin?
I was reading a book on theatre by American performance group Goat Island and was inspired by a story they included. It’s a lovely story, but a bit of a long one.
They wrote about the Danish architect, Rem Koolhaas – quite well known for his ‘big ideas’ approach to architecture – who was asked to build a two million square foot ferry terminal in the North Sea. He replied that due to the size of the request, they needed to consider the philosophical implications of the architecture and construction. He suggested that they could a) construct the building as quickly and cheaply as possible, which might be efficient, but would have a sense of flimsiness and unreality about it due to its sudden appearance, or b) hire a small team of labourers who would construct the building over an entire lifetime.
In the book they summed up this concept with, “What kind of North Sea Boat Terminal is your life?”