Stitched Together

Not quite Shoreditch, not quite The City, and just on the edge of Spitalfields: you couldn’t blame the newly developed Norton Folgate if it had a personality crisis. Especially as its 30,000-plus sqm of mainly office space is spread across six buildings, with four architects involved in realising the project for developer British Land. Sensitive restoration and in-keeping new buildings have allayed any fears that Norton Folgate was going to blight a historic area with its size and overly shiny newness – and Universal Design Studio’s interiors for these buildings tread the same careful path.

“Each building has its own narrative, characterised by the history of the site,” says Carly Sweeney, director of Universal Design Studio. “Making sure that something is properly embedded in the neighbourhood, and feels authentic and of its place, is something we do inherently.”

In the wedge-shaped Nicholls and Clarke building – named after the builder’s merchant that originally had a shopfront here – the story starts in the lobby area, where a pair of custom-made enamel tables refer back to the building’s past, when Victorian glass merchants occupied the warehouses and, later, Nicholls and Clarke’s art deco showroom displayed enamelled appliances and Vitrolite splashbacks.

Made by enamel specialists AJ Wells (a firm more used to making Tube signs for TFL), they’re the colour of single cream, which, as Sweeney explains, is a standard colour that’s the same as the one used for Agas, and this little nod to domesticity is little hint of what’s to come. A long glass wall, screened off by linen shades, has a run of oak joinery at its based, topped with a series of irregular metal mesh sculptures by Fabio Vogel, their wavy moulded forms and varying scales forming a contrast to the sharp triangular shape of the room.

It seems unusual to have such fully formed interiors (right down to the books and artwork) without an end client, but as Carly Sweeney, the studio’s director, explains, “the floorplates were quite challenging shapes, and not the easiest to make them not feel awkward; because we’ve done a lot of work on other workplaces, we brought that level of rigour, practicality and thoroughness.” On the office floors, the layouts have been optimised by cutting off the nose of the wedge to create private meeting space, that, thanks to glass on both sides of its acute angle, feels like you are thrust right into the view beyond. The meeting table – another AJ Wells enamel piece – sits on plush carpet, surrounded by upholstered chairs. With a tonal palette of peach/nude and other warm shades, “I think we’ve been quite bold with the colour, at least for a typical commercial development,” says Sweeney.

The top floor has a bookable boardroom, with another – much larger – enamel table in the same peachy shade, made from several tessellating pieces that flow down the room. On the floor are square end-grain blocks of pine, its tree-rings forming a natural pattern that adds a little movement, with sheer curtains for cocooning cosiness when required. “The whole thing is about adding warmth and character,” says Sweeney. “Everything that we did in this project, we wanted to feel soft, but not blobby… there’s a kind of control to all the softness.”

The other half of the building is where the original warehouse was, and includes a communal lounge area, replicated over three levels, with a large open space populated by seating (both new and vintage) sitting on soft natural rugs, with powder blue accents to add a fresh contrast to the warm tones; additional meeting rooms sit off to one side. The feel is more like a hotel lobby than workspace, with expertly styled books, artwork and accessories. Not wanting to cover up original features like exposed brickwork, conduits and ducting have been kept on show: “There’s a level of honesty; we didn’t want to build anything that wasn’t really necessary,” says Sweeney.

Sweeney is particularly proud of the work that the studio has done with British furniture-maker and joiner Benchmark, whose work appears on every floor. Solid American red oak has been used to form partitions between the office areas and meeting rooms, also incorporating storage, AV and acoustically isolated booths for calls.

“We wanted to make sure that it was built to last – not made of veneer that couldn’t withstand being bashed about it bit – almost becoming a new layer within the building,” says Sweeney of the joinery. Responding to the design team’s push for sustainability, Benchmark guided them to American red oak because of its abundance, and used only mechanical fixings (no glue) so it could be easily be reconfigured, dismantled and reused. An oiled finish, rather than lacquered, makes repairing any damage easier, too.

Universal Design Studio has also finished the interiors for a second building, its entrance off a shopfront on Norton Folgate and the inside split between original fabric and new build. “It was quite unusual because the palette had to suit the contemporary architecture, but also the really characterful architecture,” says Sweeney, with the latter including a low-beamed attic where the layout is dictated by the space between each truss, and, at the end of the room, original Victorian fireplaces set into the exposed brick walls provide a focal point for breakout areas with sofas and chairs. “It’s about creating these little pockets that feel like you’re home, like you’re at ease. A comfortable, familiar environment,” says Sweeney.

In the new part, the studio softens the newness of it with a large curtain made by south London based weaver Lara Pain – a homage to the Huguenot silk weavers that once worked here – which skims past a stainless steel kitchen, industrial heaviness meeting the delicacy and transparency of the hand made.

Throughout the project, Universal Design Studio worked with styling/procurement company Interior Address to add books, art and accessories that make you want to move in. “We really want to create stories with our design,” says Sweeney. “Everything is here for a reason, and it’s been considered. We’re trying to be as thoughtful and as thorough and as true to the concept as possible.”