The 551 Laboratory

551 is the laboratory of Andrew Maynard—a space for thoughts, experiments, and play. Andrew treats this room much like he treats his sketchbooks: unencumbered by linear thought, with no purpose other than to exercise the vital connection between hand and mind. For Andrew, a sketchbook is a safe haven to draw and write anything, without rules and without an audience. The 551 Laboratory operates on the same premise. There are no rules, only exploration.

Sometimes the outcomes relate directly to his architectural practice, but mostly, they do not. Ideas often emerge subconsciously across the page, sometimes resulting in something delightfully juvenile. This space represents the hidden, inner workings of the mind. The key difference? People can peer right in. This public gaze creates a beautifully uneasy tension. Thoughts, explorations, and play that were once safely hidden within the closed pages of a sketchbook are now fully visible to the outside world. Does knowing there is a transient audience change the way the work is created? Andrew hopes not.