Office S&M has completed the retrofit of their own office, to create a space that suits their process, which is based on people-centric design, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability.

The practice believes that design is a social act and therefore the main space is geared around communal activity, with sofas for discussion, breakout sketching areas, and places to make and display models. This is their response to hybrid working – the team needs a balance of flexibility and studio atmosphere. Meanwhile a full-width wall of material samples keeps pertinent ideas and inspirations at the top of everyone’s minds, while allowing for individual personalisation within the office.

The new space inhabits an existing building – the Bootstrap Workspace in Dalston – whic represents another key tenet of the practice: do more with less. It also seems appropriate that the former purpose of our office was for a paint-making business. Colourful walls and furniture bring a smile to the faces of staff and visitors alike, bringing joy and leading to greater productivity. More than this, the office delivers wellbeing improvements to its occupants, with more plants than people for biophilic benefits, to more technical solutions such as air purifiers and ergonomic workstations.

A light touch was taken to the studio design with exposed concrete beams overhead and a meeting room separated from the rest of the room thanks to sheets of recycled-plastic-bottle loft insulation. This material provides excellent acoustic insulation and it glows from within like a lightbox. For this element, the office was used as a laboratory, as with all projects, Office S&M love to think about innovative ways to use materials that are both practical and fun.

Team:

Architect: Office S&M  

Contractor: YG Builders Ltd

Photographer: Ellen Christina Hancock