His co-op is called the Blue Building for its distinctively colored glass-brick curtain wall; growing up nearby in Kingsbridge in the 1960s, he watched it being built.
Joshua's work details—at a scale of 1 20 the neglected corners of urban landscapes; the grime, bricks, curtains, cigarettes, and graffiti.
The dining room, separated from the bar by a brick wall and curtained doorways, feels like another realm.
Indoors it is mirrorballs, lights, exposed brick and draped curtains; outside it is a garden decked out with Chinese lanterns.
The image fades to a dilapidated brick tenement before the curtain rises to reveal the sooty, ill-furnished squalor of the Boyles' front room, where Juno (Dearbhla Molloy) is cooking breakfast and Mary (Gretchen Cleevely) is dressing for work.
You might catch a jazz organ trio, a bluesy jam band or a bossa nova chanteuse in the cavernous space, a former boiler room with exposed brick walls, red velvet curtains and funky chandeliers.
But when it baulked at the expense, McCutcheon proposed a far cheaper modern alternative: a concrete-encased, steel-framed rectangular box with glass curtain walls and brick in-fill, and an interior of Swedish birch incorporating an intricate stained-glass screen designed by Douglas Annand and a chancellor's throne fashioned by Grant Featherston.
The envelope of the original structure consists of alternating sections of brick over concrete block and curtain wall.
The décor is understated: sheer white curtains, votives, eroded brick.
Most striking is its use of glass, including 8,000 glass bricks that form a glass curtain on the north side.
