Structure studio HawkinsBrown has taken over a former furnishings showroom, giving its workers a workspace with a store window, a social kitchen and a Richard Woods-designed cabin.
The previous Vitra showroom on Clerkenwell Highway is now a three-level workplace for 250 of HawkinsBrown’s 350 workers. The brand new street-front deal with was designed to provide the architects a workspace that facilitates extra numerous methods of working and presents higher alternatives for social actions and occasions.
“Our huge shopfront means we’re on show, presenting us with a brand new and thrilling alternative to indicate the world who we’re and what we do,” stated HawkinsBrown managing associate Hazel York.
“It is a spot to attach with our shoppers, collaborators and the broader Clerkenwell group by means of a programme of talks and occasions, non permanent exhibitions and artwork installations.”
Central to this strategy was turning the ground-floor house into a versatile “canteen” that includes a stainless-steel counter the place workers meet for espresso and cafe-style furnishings that may be simply moved round.
“Our floor flooring canteen is our working experiment, our laboratory,” stated HawkinsBrown’s inventive director David Bickle.
“It is a spot the place we will host talks and seminars, workshops, supper golf equipment and sundown yoga, and invite takeovers by like-minded organisations,” he instructed Dezeen.
“We have purposely stored it unprogrammed, unfastened match and unfinished, preferring to ‘present not inform’ what we do to the world exterior.”
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A shed lined within the vibrant cartoon-style prints of artist Richard Woods may be discovered on this flooring, surrounded by crops.
Referred to as Hut, it presents workers a spot to seek out isolation.
The thought was to create the texture of a constructing inside a constructing, an strategy that HawkinsBrown beforehand explored on tasks together with the Gantry at Right here East and the Right here + Now workplaces.
“We recognised that many people labored from sheds, house workplaces, lofts and kitchen tables through the Covid lockdown and that this type of isolation was necessary for sure concentrated inventive duties,” said Bickle.
“We talked by means of our concepts with Richard; he was instantly taken with our pondering and open to creating one thing new,” Bickle stated.
“The closed type of Hut creates a speaking level. Paradoxically we positioned probably the most personal house in probably the most public location however, by means of its design, we created a sanctuary from the remainder of the studio and the world exterior.”
Extra artwork may be discovered on the glazed facade within the type of graphics designed by architect June Tong, the successful entry in an in-house competitors.
Energy-assisted acoustic curtains permit the house to be subdivided if obligatory, whereas a newly painted purple staircase encourages workers to cease and chat whereas shifting between flooring.
Assembly rooms may be discovered on all three ranges. These embody a pair of adjoining basement rooms affectionately often known as Ray and Charles, which may be mixed into one bigger room known as Eames.
These had been named in tribute to former occupant Vitra, which produces furnishings by the famed American architects.
A modelmaking workshop is positioned within the basement however seen from above, whereas pin-up boards had been built-in into sliding doorways in addition to cell partitions.
York stated the brand new workplace has formed a extra collaborative tradition amongst workers. Amid the broader shift to hybrid working, she believes it has strengthened the agency’s sense of group and collective id.
“We knew having a store window on a bustling avenue could be nice but it surely has surpassed our expectations,” she stated.
“Watching the world go by is a continuing reminder of how our work shapes and is formed by the town and communities we serve.”
“Equally, we’re very open in regards to the work we do; everybody can see in. We draw on the home windows, stick up work in progress and commonly wave at individuals on the bus cease!”
The images is by Ruth Ward.
