Pennington Street Warehouse, Wapping

JTP’s vision to create a healthy and sustainable studio shaped around our collaborative working methodologies and designed through an extensive employee engagement process was realised when, in early 2019, we relocated our London practice to Pennington Street Warehouse in Wapping.

Constructed between 1804 and 1806, Pennington Street Warehouse is a Grade II listed former bonded warehouse with a semi-basement of brick vaulted cellars, originally used for the storage of rum and spices. The creative reuse and adaptation of the warehouse has reimagined the space appreciating the unique character of the building and its contrasting spaces; respecting its historic features and the scars of its former life.

An exemplar workspace, our new studio is designed to respond to the way we work – creative, collaborative, and project-based – enabling a major change in our working practices to provide greater flexibility, improved communication and social interaction.

Practising what we preach, we engaged with our employees in a at every step of our three-year journey with workshops, surveys, interviews and practice-wide site visits. The design of the studio encourages health, sustainability and wellbeing, and to that end, we have achieved a VOC-free environment, and a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating.

Project Delivery

Alterations to the fabric have been key to the creative reuse of the warehouse. A dramatic sense of arrival has been achieved by the creation of a single volume enclosed under a timber truss roof and topped with a glazed lantern.

– Transformation of the vaults has been achieved through the removal of four stone columns and a section of vaulted arches to create a 14m high atrium connecting the three levels and bringing natural light flooding into the vaults for the first time.

– A mezzanine has been inserted within the warehouse creating and defining new spaces whilst preserving the feeling of scale.

– At the base of the triple-height atrium is the Hub – a social
space in the heart of the studio.

– With no fixed desks, design teams are clustered around project zones. The design is rich in space typologies. An interspersed series of shared informal spaces, meeting rooms, coworking booths and intimate client areas, deliver a series of diverse work zones.