In large cities, it is increasingly common to opt for the rehabilitation and recovery of old buildings to adapt them to current living standards. This practice is very interesting for many reasons. One of them is that allows to maintain the personality and history of each urban space, instead of promoting a homogenization that ends up reducing interest and depersonalizing. There are many examples, from old palaces that are converted into headquarters for large companies, public administrations or hotels, to simple houses that are enabled as housing or work spaces. The possibilities are very varied.
In London we have found another example that has caught our attention, in a rehabilitation project for turn an old building into an architecture studio.
With Cassion Castle Architects, the London studio Pearson Lloyd has designed and modernized an old Victorian workshop to house its own facilities. In addition to the workspace itself, the complex is completed with workshops, meeting rooms and an exhibition space.
Yorkton Workshops, which is the name given to this space, is located on Yorkton Street in East London. Actually, It is a building of two halves, a Victorian and a modern one. The Victorian part, where there are spaces for meetings and events, maintains the essence of that time when London was the capital of the world, but with a very intimate and domestic touch.
See him retained the original features and, where possible, the building’s constituent materials, including bricks, beams and steel, have been reused and recycled. “This is not only a more energy efficient and low-carbon approach that responds to today’s material shortages, but also ensures that the building retains its historic industrial aesthetic and remains true to its local architectural context.” they state on their website.
Its more modern half is a factory building from the 1990s, built to replace a previous fire-damaged structure, where the workshops and main studio space are located. The two are connected by an outdoor garden area, deep in the heart of the building, and a bridge between old and new., which will allow both structures to be expressed as different but connected. Remaining elements of the outer shell were updated, including the bearing floor concrete slabs, and new roofs were added. A large industrial steel staircase now welcomes guests to the entrance area.
Pearson Lloyd I wanted to keep the feeling of being in a workshop and chose the materials for the project accordingly. Along with this, work was also done so that Yorkton Workshops also have an outdoor garden a roof terrace linking the victorian and warehouse wings and a gallery space.
In the immediate future, the size and versatility of the space creates a unique opportunity to use the studio as a laboratory to explore new models of the workplace. As designers, the focus of Pearson Lloyd requires that products and spaces develop iteratively in response to physical interactions in the real world.
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