what happened to www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk?

What Happened to www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk?

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Today you can find a wave of architectural firms with an online presence. One particular blog that showed promise was www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk. 

This article looks at the origins of the original company and its website, what they did, how they operated, and why their business venture ultimately ceased.

www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk Business Info – Who Were They?

Ordinary Architecture was an architectural design company based in London E2. The company was initially founded by Charles Holland and Elly Ward in 2013. As of March 2019, the company appears to have ceased trading, and there are no active media to be found after their last blog post on their website.

What Could You Find on the Ordinary Architecture Website?

The Ordinary Architecture website was predominantly a blog – it had no eCommerce section or even a basic “about us” page. Essentially, it appears to serve mainly as a focal point for the author’s ideas and give the public genuine advice and insight.

The website had a very basic structure and contained a blog and a simple contact form. There was also the option to subscribe to their email newsletter. The contact page and newsletter pop-up are now both defunct. 

It is also important to note that the website was not active or maintained for an extended period. There were only four blog articles between April to March 2019. Aside from this, no other active content could be found. 

From this, and the fact that Ordinary Architecture as a business ceased trading in 2016, we can safely say that Carole Melendez purchased the www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk domain name sometime after 2016. However, it does not appear that the firm Ordinary Architecture and the blog are associated.

Below, we look at the specific blog categories available on the website.

Architecture Blogs

The architecture category of the blog has the most number of updates, with four published posts. These were all written by Carole Melendez. They cover various architectural and household maintenance topics, including sash windows, period London architecture, maintaining slate roofs, and an introduction to architecture.

These blogs are relatively long-form and do contain some excellent information. They also include relevant photos. However, there are no links, and it appears that no affiliate marketing was used as a means of potential income.

Household Maintenance Blogs

Although lacking in direction, the blog appears to concentrate on household architecture maintenance. There is a handful of articles relating to repairing and maintaining different architectural features that you could typically find in London period properties.

These include “Maintaining an ordinary slate roof” and “Sash windows are an extremely important part of London architecture.” As with the other blogs, the writer appears to be incredibly knowledgeable, and for the most part, they are well written.

How Did www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk Operate?

Before Melendez purchased the domain, Ordinary Architecture operated mainly offline. We look in more detail at their different methods of business below:

Facebook Page

Until October 2016, Ordinary Architecture had an active Facebook business page. This page appeared to be a promotional tool instead of a direct selling platform. Their Facebook page is packed with articles, re-posts, and content relating to their business activity and successful projects.

Column Writing

After doing some digging, we also found a regular column that Charles and Elly contributed to. They had an active column on the RIBA Journal, a website dedicated to architecture. The site provides a wealth of inspiration and information for would-be architects and design studios.

Elly and Charles wrote a myriad of posts for this blog regularly, spanning as far back as 2016. This would have undoubtedly been used as a means of promotion and exposure for their business.

Design & Architecture

While the Facebook page appeared marginally successful, the business itself seemed to be reputable. For example, Ordinary Architecture created a series of exhibitions for the Royal Academy of Arts in London. 

Also, perhaps one of their best-known projects was the Hollywood sign hoax in LA. In 2014, Ordinary Architecture staged an epic hoax in which they placed fake letters from the legendary Hollywood sign in Los Angeles along the walking trail that leads up to the sign itself.

A series of retro viewfinders accompanied this. The viewfinders were all positioned looking towards the top of the hill – where the sign is. The idea behind this project was to increase the desire of trekkers to reach the sign and make them wonder what this area would be like without its famous icon.

Aside from this, Ordinary Architecture appears to have created exhibits and designs for shows and conventions worldwide – their work can be seen mainly via their Facebook page.

Why Did This Company Stop Trading?

If you search for the business Ordinary Architecture on Google, you can see a Google Places business listing. However, a clear red sign above the name states that it is permanently closed. 

Also, you can see this from the fact that the Facebook page has been inactive since 2016. Lastly, the website is inactive, the WordPress layout has been corrupted, and there have been no new posts since 2019.

But what happened to this seemingly thriving London-based architectural design company? There is no definitive answer, unfortunately. However, we can assume that the founders, Charles Holland and Elly Ward, went their separate ways.

If you search for Charles Holland on Google, you can see that he owns and runs a business called Charles Holland Architects, which operates in Dover. Conversely, if you search for Elly Ward, you can see that she has founded a new plant-based food venture called SUPERNATURE x SITE in Hackney.

As a result, it appears that Ordinary Architecture ran its course and that the owners moved on to different business ventures. Also, due to the different authors of the www.ordinaryarchitecture.co.uk blogs, we can assume that once the company ceased trading, someone else bought the domain and attempted briefly to run an architectural blog.

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