Kensal Road

Offering employment use displaced from a super-prime development elsewhere in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, this speculative office building represents a new typology in its neighbourhood. It sits off Ladbroke Grove close to the Grand Union Canal in an area of piecemeal semi-industrial development where the land value is still relatively low: the site was once occupied by an industrial laundry. With the area now zoned for larger-scale employment use, our building is intended to attract creative and cultural businesses.

The design is simple and flexible, a stack of adaptable floorplates around a central atrium that can be configured for a single tenancy or many. The brief for creative occupiers is reflected in both the generous, well-lit volumes and our attitude to the internal finishes, which are intentionally utilitarian and use rammed concrete to give a raw yet refined gallery feel