Four-blocked, brick-faced office building stepping away from an 11-storey tower, with a rich mixture of tenancies.

Derwent London
Shoreditch, London
£40 million
128,000 square feet

  • Sensitive location adjacent to the Grade I-listed Bunhill Fields burial ground
  • High quality office building will include a café, retail units and affordable workspaces
  • 11-storey tower steps down to five storeys to west of development
  • Mix of uses responds to high demand in the Tech City area around Old Street
  • Ambition that building will be as robust and flexible as London’s stock of Victorian structures
  • Generous floor-to-ceiling heights, fully openable windows and mixed-mode ventilation
  • Tenant amenities include roof terraces and communal breakout space

Client: Derwent London
Structural Engineer: Heyne Tillett Steel
Services Engineer: WSP

Related research

Workplaces

Related work

R7 Blossom TVC
Roundtable Event: Circular Biodiversity Held at our Featherstone rooftop pavilion; featuring 400sqft of planting, and 100% biodiversity net gain
The Featherstone Building EC1 reached completion last week and the campus can now be viewed in its entirety in Old Street. But how did it get to this point? According to David Storring, Director at Morris+Company, it was the unique level of testing and model making in the early stages of design that created such an impactful building. The team took an iterative approach to model making, using different scales to discern the ultimate effect of the building. They studied the texture, materiality, and light, recording the shadows cast on each individual brick. For the façade, @moco_arch examined the local urban landscape in detail, using photography and sampling to create a material classification library. From this, they identified opportunities to include varying scallop lintel details and balustrade designs.
The inspiration behind The Featherstone Building Joe Morris speak about how we referenced the industrial history of Old Street through the design features on the façade, including the scalloped Juliette balconies and the contrasting brickwork. This is one of a series of videos created with Derwent
Featherstone Building Works on site
@derwent_london Demolition is complete and Skanska take over the site from today to build our latest project The Featherstone Building EC1 – exciting times! Located on the corner of City Road and Featherstone Street and fondly known as White Collar Factory’s little sister.
@derwent_london Planning permission was obtained in February 2016 for a 125,000 sq ft office development - an 81% floor area uplift. Demolition of the existing two buildings finishes in early September 2019 with the scheme due for completion in 2022.
Demolition almost complete down on site
New entrance visual
1:1 mock up
1:1 mock up
Mockup detail
Featherstone mockup 02
Featherstone mockup 01
Mockup balustrade detail
Mullion casting
The Next Generation of Buildings As featured in Space Magazine by Derwent London
Options matrix With models
Testing Collection
Lintel
A Collage of Models & Materials
Staggered Volumes Exploring a broken rhythm proposal of five regular volumes staggered in plan and in height.
Samples Pallet The collection of facade materials including brick, precast and metal window frames.
Testing balustrades Exploring different rods and rail designs.
Bay Window Tests An exploration of the design of the solid infill panels.
Bay Tests Testing brick, frame, lintel and cornice colour and textures.
Testing The Bay Using casts to test lintel form and texture.
Entrance study
Lintels & Mullions Testing the metal window lintel and mullion profiles.
Aerial View of the 4 interlocking volumes and Bunhill Fields.
Massing model testing
Facade Looking at differences through the use of models
Quick sketch Getting those ideas on paper
Dissecting the Historical Context A forensic analysis of the site context by creating drawings of the local facade elements in elevation & plan.
Dissecting the Historical Context A forensic analysis of the site context by drawing local facade elements in elevation & plan.
Clerkenwell facades A study of local context
Clerkenwell facades A study of local context
Refining and testing Height and dimensions
Model study Within context of local buildings
Massing models Cut from foam
Massing study

The Featherstone Building