08•2025
08•2025
Parallel Sessions Gallery
Parallel Sessions Gallery
Parallel Sessions reimagines the traditional gallery model through a close collaboration between artist Olu Odukoya and architect Benni Allan, founding director of EBBA. Conceived in 2018 and realised in 2024, the project emerged from a shared desire to create a more flexible, intimate way to engage with art. The two met by chance in East London’s Hackney, where mutual interests in interdisciplinary work and challenging creative norms sparked the idea.
Located on Teesdale Street, the gallery is housed in a modest 3x3x3 metre unit. EBBA helped transform the space into a hybrid gallery-studio, using minimal interventions to prioritise the artwork. The design is intentionally pared back to be compact, tactile and direct, allowing each installation to take centre stage.
The programme is non-linear and time-based, with exhibitions presented as “sessions” that vary in length and form, grouped into evolving “seasons.” This structure allows for repetition, looping and experimentation, giving artists complete control over how their work is experienced.
Originally inspired by a concept for a replicable gallery, Parallel Sessions now includes a digital platform streaming live footage of exhibitions, further extending access. Ultimately, the project embraces limitations as a creative driver, offering a unique model for showcasing diverse, process-led work in both physical and virtual formats.
Title: Parallel Sessions
Location: London
Year: 2025
Client: Olu Odukoya
Photographer: Rikard Kahn, James Retief
Type: Gallery
Status: Completed
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09•2024
09•2024
Space Talk
Space Talk
A collaboration between EBBA and Studio Charlotte Taylor on the design of Space Talk, a new Listening Bar in Farringdon, London. Space Talk is dedicated to sound and community, and draws its concept from creating place that can generate a sense of calm and intimacy. The design and atmosphere uses light and the feeling of warmth from the natural materials that wrap the space. This project is about how each component of the project comes together to create a unified idea through lots of considered moments. The resolution and spacial configuration is the result of design challenges and opportunities of working on a project dedicated to sound, and at the same time wanting to make the space feel sophisticated and intimate.
Sound system by Friendly Pressure with speakers in collaboration with Lewis Kemmenoe.
Acoustics by Ethan Bourdeau
Furniture with Spazio Leone
Title: Space Talk
Location: London
Year: 2024
Client: Space Talk
Photographer: Ollie Tomlinson
Type: Bar
Status: Completed
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06•2024
06•2024
Veja
Veja
A collaboration with designer Deidra Hodgson on the first store for Veja in London, featuring a monolithic stone structure that forms a key element within the space. EBBA worked as executive architect to develop the design and deliver the project, including the complex sculptural element that anchors the space.
Title: Veja Store
Location: London
Year: 2024
Client: Veja
Photographer: James Retief
Type: Retail
Status: Completed
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01•2025
01•2025
Silo Chair
Silo Chair
EBBA launches of a new piece called Silo, a composite chair designed for exterior and interior use. The chair plays on weight and space, maintaining a heavy appearance whilst being composed entirely of lightweight fiberglass.
The Silo launched in Plaster Composite, a new colourway developed with Uma. Discarded multicoloured trimmings from the production process are folded into the gelcoat to produce a finely textured, up-cycled finish. A contrasting Carob Brown finish creates a beautiful pairing with the Plaster Composite piece.
03•2024
03•2024
WatchHouse
WatchHouse
Drawing inspiration from the modernist architectural features of lobbies found in civic buildings, the project is rooted in an approach to craft an inviting, unique space whilst establishing a sense of connection to the broader building. The concept store was developed to echo the clean lines and grid patterns characteristic of Miesian buildings, introducing sculptural objects throughout to partition the space.
The flexible nature of the space offered a new opportunity to delve into the intricate connection between the art of coffee making and the customer experience. Embracing WatchHouse’s values and passion for creating spaces where people want to ‘spend time’, we looked to imagine a sanctuary in the city – somewhere that felt beautiful and inviting, whilst also being highly functional.
Central to the design is an eight-metre stainless steel counter which acts as a stage for the theatre of coffee-making to unfold but also as a communal workspace, nurturing a fluid motion of activity around the centrepiece. Whilst the adjacent atrium offers comfortable seating, we looked to carve out pockets of relaxation throughout the store itself, incorporating a large coffee table and bench which provides customers with moments of quiet respite as they await freshly brewed coffee.
Each of the furniture pieces were designed and crafted in house by the studio, including the sculpted steel counter and the large oak table which was skillfully made from solid blocks, designed to emulate the aesthetic of stacked timber, complementing the grid-like ceiling and evoking a sense of organic unity.
Title: WatchHouse
Location: London
Year: 2024
Client: WatchHouse
Photographer: Ståle Eriksen
Type: Retail
Status: Completed
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01•2023
01•2023
Cast House
Cast House
EBBA completed the refurbishment and extension to a Victorian home in East London. The project looked to maximise the opportunities for light while creating small moments of calm.The result is characterised by intricate timber detailing and the textures found in the floors and the cast facade; a celebration of finding ways of making more with less.
The new large open plan kitchen with adjacent dining area benefits from framed views to the garden and beyond. A vaulted ceiling introduces a unique feature inspired by roman arches and the client’s interest in travel.The continuous tiled floor runs from the garden into the living space helping to connect and extend the rooms, while making the feeling of expansiveness.The lowered section of the living space and the kitchen are divided by a changing level helping to add a different atmosphere within the same space.
Similar detailing in a refined yet textured palette follow upstairs into the rest of the house. A calm master bedroom leads to a walk-in wardrobe and ensuite. Everywhere there has been special attention to making the most of joinery and linings to elevate the feel of each room.
The feature facade is cast in a pigmented eco-cement with a subtle brown tone, finished in a technique that brings out the aggregate reminiscent of Brutalist architecture. Between the rougher elements are a series of screens that act as pivots that can open wide, making better connections to the garden. Altogether the extension has dramatically enhanced the quality of the spaces and provided an architecturally-ambitious project for the young couple, newborn and their Dachshund, Betty.
Title: Cast House
Location: London
Year: 2022
Client: Private
Photographs: Nick Dearden
Interior & Styling: Anahita Rigby & Sophie Surridge
Low Collection Seat: Benni Allan with Béton Brut
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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03•2024
03•2024
Las Maravillas Farmhouse
Las Maravillas Farmhouse
The restoration of a farm building in Andalucia looks to make use of a series of dilapidated buildings across 350 hectares. As well as major internal works we are proposing to introduce new walls into the landscape that cut through the site, helping to deal with the topography while also framing and forcing new vistas.
We have been working closely with with the client’s and our collaborator, Charlotte Taylor, on the design the new buildings and restoration across the vast site in in Southern Spain to create an ecological wellness retreat including its own farm, stable buildings and a series of homes.
The design of these new structures takes into account the traditions of building within the area and looks to use local materials and techniques from the region. Over the next few years we willl work with the clients and their team to support the development of the land and all of its associated industry, including a number of interventions that will support wellbeing and leisure.
Title: Las Maravillas
Location: Andalucia
Year: 2023-Present
Type: Cultural & Wellness
Status: Planning
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07•2022
07•2022
Into Air Exhibition
Into Air Exhibition
EBBA have designed a series of wooden frames and light boxes in collaboration with artist Dawn Ng and her studio as part of her first UK solo show – ‘Into Air’ – at St Cyprian’s Church, London.
Dawn’s work investigates time through the ephemeral material that is ice. She injects blocks with pigment using colour and pattern to create topographical tributaries. The different frames are presented in a way that captures the qualities of Dawn’s process while interacting with the church itself and allowing the visitors to explore, peer into and get close to the works.
Title: Into Air
Location: London
Year: 2022
Client: Dawn Ng
Photographs: James Retief
Curator: Jenn Ellis
Presented by Sullivan+Strumpf and Apsara Studio
Type: Cultural
Status: Completed
01•2023
01•2023
Casa Agulló
Casa Agulló
Casa Agulló is a personal project led by EBBA’s Director, Benni Allan, located in Altea, Spain. EBBA worked carefully to renovate and give the project a new lease of life. The new design maintains heritage features from the original house combined with new interventions and details. The project is defined by the use of materials sourced from within 100km of the house.
The overall concept was to try to retain existing features while celebrate the house’s past. A workshop on the top floor where the previous owner used to make boats is stripped back, with the original concrete floor left bare leaving paint marks that connect with the history of the house as a place for making. The sense of the workshop has also been translated in the design of the kitchen, which acts as a workbench as well as for cooking.
Title: Casa Agulló
Location: Altea, Spain
Year: 2022
Client: Private
Photographs: Salva Lopez
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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05•2022
05•2022
Creative Office
Creative Office
EBBA completed the design of a flexible studio space for MMBP. The project sought to find ways to create joinery and storage solutions through off-the-shelf products. The light touch refurbishment has turned an old storage unit into a warm office space through soft pink and chocolate tones. Maximising the project for flexible working by providing storage solutions that can be easily concealed, while finding ways to add delight in the details and fixtures. Moving down into the office you go through a portal-like entrance concealing a compact kitchen. Enjoyment in this project came through using utilitarian fixtures and soft finishes to achieve a rich result and a calming space to work from. The bookshelf wall was made from parts of a previous table designed for the RA coupled with the stools shown as part of our exhibition design; a nod to EBBA’s consideration of ways to up-cycle projects and products for new uses.
Title: MMBP
Location: London
Year: 2022
Client: MMBP
Photographs: Thomas Adank
Type: Dwelling
Status: Completed
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