Meet the Neighbours: The Paper Engineer

One of the best things about moving out from the kitchen table and garage into my studio at UpperLodge is the comradery and inspiration from all my lovely neighbours. This is never more true than when sharing their triumphs and achievments - big and small.

This week is a biggy for Corina the paper engineer and our landlady. Today see's the launch of Discovering Kings Cross: A Pop Up Book published by Cicada and Corina's off to town to celebrate with amongst others Michael Palin who wrote the forward and Dan Cruickshank who wrote an afterword. No wonder she's grinning!

Cicada Books

Now having grown up in Northamptonshire I'm a bit of St Pancras girl myself and I love a bit of gothic. KingsCross to me always seemed a rather brutal far less exciting space. This lovely book charts the history of what lay behind those 1970s extensions. The illustrations are really charming  - they are the work of Lucy Dalzell who has brilliantly captured the human story behind an iconic buildings evolution.

Corina is one of the most experienced paper engineers in the country. A group of professionals as rare Corina says as "hens teeth". Using little more than a a ruler, scalpel, cutting mat and a Mac she worked from the plans and elevations of John Mcaslan + Partners, the architects of the spectacular new concourse, to create a single enormous popup that brings the station as it is today to life. Its such a great way to be able to appreciate the scale and the detail of its amazing regeneration.

It would appear there's no stopping Corina now as more crossover work for architectural publishers beckons and with it more complex and delicate pop-ups to engineer to satisfy the largely adult audience. I'm happy to report that Corina has definately not left the world of children's pop-up books behind.

I caught her earlier playing happily with the tractor from her other new book published this week - Playbook Farm. From the fabulously named publishers Nosy Crow this is an ingenious novelty package comprises a pop-up storybook, which then unfolds and transforms into a 3D farmyard landscape playmat, with cut-out cardboard animals and the tractor all illustrated by Britta Teckentrup.

Corina and Co: Windmill from Playbook Farm Pulished by Nosy Crow

You have to go watch the YouTube video here  and when your done pop over to Corina&Co and download and make your own paper windmill from the book.