Cremer Street

‘Brickfields’ in Hoxton is a new small business centre developed by Workspace Group, housing 98 studios ranging in size from 12 to 400 m2. Located next to Hoxton Overground station, and in between the Kingsland and Hackney Road, it has been built on the site of a low-ceilinged, dark tenement factory built in the 1980s, increasing the amount of workspace by about 50%.

We designed this new small business centre to have the robust, generous character of an old factory. The building is a steel frame construction bearing on the foundations of its demolished predecessor, with studios on either side of a long central light-court. Built for the long-term, the excellent daylight, frame construction and generous services zone offer durable characteristics as well as scope for adjustment and change.

Its brick exterior steps and folds in response to the medieval texture and Georgian proportions of the surrounding conservation area. The street facades are one brick thick, ground-bearing construction, in a purply-brown klinker brick that has the depth and warmth of weathered stocks but also reflective sheen that lightens the building in the shifting daylight.

Workspace’s research shows that small firms trade extensively with others in the same building. In response, we have designed the common parts of the new business centre to be intimate but a little theatrical – with long views between the informal seating on the light court bridges, and the meeting rooms and streetfront café on the ground floor. The tenant businesses share this sociable space, animated by the passage of sunlight across the warm brick, steel and wood of the interior.