Home: Archway London

An embroidered floor plan of a living room in North London, drawn freehand in the room, transferred to calico, then stitched back in the space. Placed over a conventional survey, the distortions are visible: thickened walls, an enlarged sofa, the red insistence of the television. A measuring tape records distance. This records weight.

I drew the floor plan standing in the room. Not a survey: I wasn't trying to measure the space accurately, I was trying to record what it felt like to be in it. Which walls felt solid, which areas were used, which corners carried weight. That drawing was transferred to calico as an embroidery outline, then I stitched it in the room itself, adjusting scale, density, and colour as I went.

Placed over a conventional plan of the same room, the distortions are visible. The Chesterfield sofa is enlarged. The walls have thickened where they feel thick. The television is red because it dominated the room in a way no floor plan records.

This was the room my family left when we moved to Riyadh in 2021. The Home series is an ongoing record of the houses I've inhabited: what a conventional architectural drawing can't tell you about belonging to a place, and what you notice only when you leave.

One half of a diptych with Home: Qurtubah Riyadh.