Experimental green
“Bringing experimental messiness back into central London” – this is the aim of Somerset House Studios. Transforming Grade I listed former Inland Revenue office into artist workspace.
📍Location
🏢Building Details
Completed 2021
3,550 sq m – experimental workspace for artists + makers
Winner New London Architecture Awards – Best Workplace 2022
👷🏾♀️Developer & Contractor
Marie McPartlin – Director, Somerset House Studios @ Somerset House Trust
Deano Georgiou – Director @ Coniston Limited
✍️Architects & Engineers
Tom Coward – Director @ AOC Architecture Ltd
Nick S. – Associate @ AOC Architecture Ltd
Bryony Martin – Senior Architect @ AOC Architecture Ltd
Farhad Toorbuth – Senior Associate @ Hurst Peirce and Malcolm LLP
Jonathan Howard Ratty – Lighting Designer & Director @ DHA Designs
Kelly Ryder – Director @ The Planning Lab
🌱Sustainability
Redevelopment + retrofit of 250 year-old-building into contemporary art centre
The as-found building fabric provided first resource for materials – a highly detailed drawn inventory used as a tool to assess significance and plan strategy for restoration + reuse
Late 20th century Inland Revenue office desks adapted with painted timber extensions to create useful workspaces
Light touch work: some rooms left as found, with only discrete acoustic treatments + servicing to enhance use for production
🥦 Wellbeing
Somerset House is home to the biggest concentration of creative industries in central London: the Studios are its engine room, providing affordable workspaces for 100 artists + actively nurturing cross-disciplinary conversations between residents
Includes a family of rooms for producing, performing + presenting
Series of communal rooms developed with intent of actively nurturing new community – including snooker room + bar designed in collab with Frank’s Café in Peckham
Monotonous length of windowless, double loaded corridors broken with brightly coloured painted arches – recalling quaint terraces houses
🎈Bonus feature
The project has been praised by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for being a model of how affordable workspace can be made available in central London, being developed for under £1,200/m2.
🔗 Check it out https://www.theaoc.co.uk/projects/somerset-house-studios/
