Sky High

The Conran name will forever be associated with the rebirth of London’s docks. The original Design Museum was in a converted banana warehouse on (the then-run-down) Shad Thames, redesigned by Conran Roche, paving the way for later development at Canary Wharf and beyond. More recently, the practice (now known as Conran and Partners) has another watery location to serve as inspiration, with a show apartment in one of the first fruits of the redeveloped Canada Water – once a major docking point for timber-carrying ships to offload their cargo.

The Founding is a 35-storey residential tower designed by Allies and Morrison for developer British Land, with interiors by Conran and Partners, including a newly unveiled show apartment on the 15th floor. “The architecture is warehouse-inspired and we pulled on that for the interiors as well,” says Conran and Partners’ Simon Kincaid. Called the Sky Gallery, the apartment has exposed concrete ceilings and Crittall-like windows.

“Some of the furnishings are quite monochromatic or stylised in their aesthetic,” says Kincaid, including sharp sculptural pieces such as Gerrit Thomas Rietveld’s Zig Zag chair; but this has been softened by airy sheer curtains, warm-toned neutral walls, and the playfulness of the pair of Tacchini Orsola armchairs, a 1970s design by Gastone Rinaldi. Some of the more elevated materials also contrast with the no-nonsense industrial envelope: the plush velvet of those Tacchini chairs, the moiré fabric on the bespoke headboard in one of the bedrooms, or the creamy travertine of Gubi’s Epic dining table.

The Sky Gallery is so-named not only for its views but for the curation of the artworks within it, giving the interiors personality and individuality. Conran and Partners was able to pick from British Land’s own art collection in deciding what to put on the walls. In the living area, the bright orange painting (in household paint on MDF) by Ian Davenport is bold in both colour and scale, but elsewhere the designers have gone for more modestly sized pieces that invite you to lean in and take a closer look, such as the Hockney etching in one of the bedrooms.

“With a commercial residential project, you still want to feel like it’s individual, and the artwork presents that opportunity,” says Kincaid. “We wanted to make sure it looked plausible that someone is living there.” That extends to smaller, personality-filled details, including a handmade paper lamp from Béton Brut and Lemon’s African mahogany Riviera plinth.

If this apartment might seem to belong to a reserved art collector, Conran and Partners’ communal and amenity areas (which it also designed)  are a little more extroverted. “There’s a strong sense of arrival, much like you would have in a hotel,” says Kincaid: the double-height lobby lounge leads – via striking iron helical staircase – to a mezzanine co-working area.

With The Founding, Conran and Partners continues a legacy of transforming once-industrial landscapes into vibrant, desirable destinations. Here, thoughtful design creates a place that feels real and lived-in despite the ground-up urban renewal.