Architecture studio Piercy & Organization has resurrected a fire-ravaged creating as offices in London’s Shoreditch, reinstating the ornate facade at the front and adding a faceted brass framework at the rear .
From the street, the new Two Tabernacle Street creating seems considerably like its Victorian predecessor, which was nearly entirely destroyed by a fire in 2010.
But from the back it now boasts a golden framework with large balconies and windows.
Piercy & Company was brought in by developer Durley Investment Corporation to transform the L-shaped site into offices ideal for Shoreditch’s thriving media and technological innovation sector.
Despite being tempted to demolish the ruined framework and start off afresh, the team felt it would be a lot more appropriate to honour the building’s heritage at the front and hide the more contemporary additions behind.
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“We have been attracted by the eccentricity of the facade, which stood out in Tabernacle Street where numerous of the Victorian buildings have been replaced,” architect and studio director Stuart Piercy explained.
“While we recognised the temptation to generate a modern contextual developing, the playfulness of the original led us to discover the choice of reconstruction,” he told Dezeen.
“By rebuilding it, we have been in a position to create an exciting journey from a a lot more conventional Victorian entrance to gallery-like workspaces produced by the dramatic, faceted kind and big locations of glazing.”
Piercy’s group meticulously measured and catalogued surviving details of the outdated facade, and used them as the basis for the “painstaking” reconstruction.
“We recorded all the profiles of the architraves and copings,” explained the architect. “Then we experimented with to re-use what we could, so many of the bricks and some mouldings were cleaned up and reused.”
“We had to create the facade last as it was the only entry to the site – variety of retreating and developing on the way out.”
The new six-storey rear construction is only visible to the property’s occupants and its neighbours, so the layout staff could be more adventurous with its approach.
The team chose to wrap both the walls and the sloping rooftops in brass sheets.
“The website is really difficult to accessibility so we essential a materials that will weather gently and want extremely little servicing,” said Piercy. “The form required a malleable materials to generate the folds.”
There are six floors of offices in total, including one in the basement. They all characteristic ceiling heights of three metres, which were developed by relocating electrical services into a central bulkhead and leaving the concrete soffit exposed.
Huge expenditures of curtain-wall glazing aids to guarantee sufficient light permeates the constructing, and there are also a quantity of skylights.
A double-height lobby was developed at the building’s entrance, ignored by a little 1st-floor gallery.
Here, brickwork is left either exposed or whitewashed, while period characteristics – like detailed cornicing and a ceiling rose – are coupled with contemporary specifics that contain oak wall panelling and a chandelier by New York designer Bec Brittain.
3 floors of meeting rooms are found over, dealing with out above Tabernacle Street via classic sash and casement windows.
Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.
Web site plan 
Top floor plan 
West-to-east segment 
North-to-south area Dezeen
