At Crinan Street, GPAD took a warehouse building and provided a complete refresh in order to create a modern and accessible office space that celebrates its Victorian heritage whilst providing workspace fort for the 21st century.

The brief from the client was to design a high quality workspace to provide creative businesses an alternative environment to the traditional office. The building’s Victorian Warehouse heritage provided both opportunities and challenges. Located within the King’s Cross Conservation Area, we were able to utilise the location’s industrial heritage to design characterful interventions that made the most of the building’s charm. At the same time, the original building provided inadequate access, and it was therefore a key priority to provide access to all floors. The design response achieved this by providing a modern intervention in the form of a passenger lift, which also highlighted the building’s heritage through the use of a glass back panel, providing users a visual connection to the building’s past when travelling to each floor, balancing function with aesthetics.

Upon entering the building, employees and visitors are greeted by a newly refurbished, fully accessible reception, with high quality design features throughout. Curved Italian Organza tiles create a lasting impression on arrival, the first of its kind installed in the UK. A series of contemporary chandelier lights combined with LED light strips wash the wall tiles with light, creating a focal point of playful shadows across the undulating surface. The four upper floors offer voluminous open plan office areas, with original raw feature brick walls and exposed Victorian columns paying homage to the site’s industrial heritage. A new roof extension and a new office space housed in a deep basement addition with its own access added further value to the client’s investment in creating a desirable workspace.

Close collaboration and strong personal relationships were required throughout the project and we developed strong relationships with the project team, contractor and sub consultants. This focus on working together was essential when a change of subcontractors meant the feature staircase had to be redesigned during construction. A collaborative team approach ensured the project team was able to replicate the staircase design and deliver the project on time.

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