Studios

Three studios, one approach
We like to work in spaces that reflect the character of an area, fit their surroundings and are grounded in place.

The London studio occupies a corner building in Clerkenwell, an area that still bears traces of London’s medieval urban fabric. Part of a late-Victorian block which over the centuries housed a public house, ink-makers, furniture-makers and printers, it opens onto the street to the south and west and is flanked by a narrow passageway on the east side, separating it from the former House of Detention.

Three-storey high, it feels like a house rather than an office, a set of rooms stacked over three floors and a basement workshop for making and storing models. It has proved surprisingly adaptable as a working environment and we are constantly adapting and rethinking how best to use the different spaces. There is little traffic around, other than delivery vans and the occasional camera crew filming period movies, and when the weather permits we like to spill out onto the pavement at lunch or for coffee breaks.

The studio in Zurich is quite different. Located in Kreis 4, an area that in recent years has become home to many creative practices, it is a large, bright open-plan space on the second floor of a purpose-built office building on Badenerstrasse, the longest street in Zurich. The studio space is flexible, easily adapted to the requirements of different projects and ideally suited to a smaller team working in close collaboration. Here all stages of design happen in sight and within earshot of everyone and conversations are held in many different languages against the background of the passing trams and the general buzz of the city.

As our projects in Belgium are now an increasingly significant proportion of our work, we have established a satellite studio in Brussels as a base for our local staff and a hub for London-based architects working on projects currently on site in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Hasselt. The studio is on the first floor of an industrial building in Anderlecht, a former paper factory, which we share with Atelier KANAL, the dedicated site office for the art and cultural centre we are working on together with noAarchitecten and EM2N.