BackBefore Spanish studio Selgascano revamped the place, two mayor english artists, photographer John Cowan and architect Richard Rogers, occupied the building for their own businesses. The site is located in the Holland Park district of west London. Two sheds of different heights, a mezzanine with a pitched roof, and a radical colonization of the passage between them give rise to a variable section that accommodates a wide range of activities. The program includes, apart from the office workspace, a library, a covered courtyard, a single-height diaphanous hall with private studios, and a double-height one where booths find their spots and corridors find their way amid thirty trees growing indoors.
Thanks to technological innovations and the collaboration of the engineer Adam Ritchie, users can enjoy London’s tenuous and diffuse light indoors. A long roof with a double skin of transparent plastic covers the courtyard to protect it against rain while insulating it thermally. The gap between the two layers is filled with soad suds, which flow out towards the facade when no longer needed, and natural light streams in again.
