Handed a program of requirements from the client these included providing a secure reception, sociable laundry room, building management and staff facilities, post room, coffee bar, social lounge, quiet study space, bookable meeting rooms, study booths, gym, screening room and private dining space. We looked to re-work the architectural layout to provide a series of dynamic spaces through the incursion of a rectangular object that diagonally splits the ground floor, floor plan in half. This rectangular object is then sliced open by a series of curved and elliptical forms to form areas to serve from, work from and relax in. This strategic shift in plan allows us to control more social environments towards the street providing an active frontage to the development whilst providing more quiet and acoustically controlled study and working areas to the rear facing onto the communal courtyard.
With a tight budget, a refined palette of materials was chosen to be robust and cost efficient. From colour pigmented render to the walls in warm tones to match that of the exterior brickwork of the building and on first a darker green links with the roof top garden. Softwood timber battens stained black act as acoustic baffles, a polished concrete floor across the ground allows for ease of movement for furniture designed on casters, allowing spaces to be re configured for various activities and events, a stainless steel kitchen with matching ironmongery and lighting complete the look.