futures factory

A renovation of 19th century iron warehouse purported to have been designed by Eiffel into a coworking, retail and exhibition space.

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Our role

Architecture

Due to the need to be sensitive to the old structure we decided that the new volume should be inserted within the building but not touch it this involved carefulling building a new concrete slab within the building and then wrapping the envelope in perforated mesh to minimise the solidity of the main building and help with the ventilation of the internal spaces. We removed some walls to change the orientation of the building so that we could form a public plaza to the south of the building and then we punctured a series of holes in the gable end of the building to the west so this could also have a frontage on the newly formed public plaza. We also provided a roof terrace to the building on the south and design for internal cafe space. All of which activated the new plaza and brought public life to the space..

Our work included

  • Concept development
  • Initial visuals + layouts
  • Design development
  • Engineering coordination
  • Tender drawings + tender process
  • Site management
  • Contract management + handover

more design

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We were looking for something special and different from the main stream, We didn't want the same cookie cutter approach we had found elsewhere. The team at COLE took us through the design process and delivered far beyond our initial expectations and we could not be more happy with the results.

— Jean Hicks

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People comment about the building when they visit, They love the way it fuses the old with the new. I love the way the light comes through the spaces in the morning it does not fail to make me smile

— Chris Stanworth