JamesPlumb converts Victorian tannery into London HQ for PSLab

Blocky concrete plinths dominate lighting model PSLab’s London HQ, which native studio JamesPlumb has designed to evoke “quiet brutalism”.

Tucked down a quiet facet avenue in south London’s Bermondsey neighbourhood, PSLab’s HQ occupies a Victorian-era tannery – a spot the place animal hides are processed to supply leather-based.

The lighting model, which initially launched in Beirut, tasked JamesPlumb with reworking the historic constructing right into a sequence of “outlined but intertwined” work areas the place its workers may simply work together and collaborate.

“All of us agreed from very early on that the important thing was for it to not be an workplace, nor a showroom – however to change into a house for PSLab in London,” mentioned the studio’s founders, James Russell and Hannah Plumb, who had first labored with PSLab on the design of an Aesop retailer in London again in 2015.

“We admire and respect one another’s methods of working – on the coronary heart of any venture is not only the aesthetic – however the way it feels to inhabit the surroundings,” they advised Dezeen.

The studio utterly stripped again the constructing to show its industrial shell, solely forsaking its bare-brick partitions, metal columns and a variety of sunken pits that might have as soon as been used to dye animal hides.

These pits have been stuffed with concrete to create a collection of different-height plinths, their blocky form a refined reference to monolithic buildings that Russell and Plumb got here throughout in a ebook known as Bunker Archaeology by French thinker Paul Virilio.

The plinths present workers with an off-the-cuff place to perch and work in the course of the day, however can even function auditorium-style bench seating when the model hosts large-scale occasions.

A few of them have been topped with slabs of concrete to create extra formal work desks, whereas others have been dressed with linen-covered horsehair cushions to provide some areas a comfy, lounge-like really feel.

Planters have additionally been built-in into a number of of the plinths which, mixed with the potted timber and leafy vines that path from the ceiling, are supposed to channel the verdant greenhouses of the Orto Botanico backyard in Palermo, Italy.

“The inventive course of the venture was knowledgeable by a large number of inspirations,” Russell and Plumb defined.

“By means of all of those we developed this sense of what we known as a ‘quiet brutalism’, an inside concrete panorama, strong and everlasting, but inviting to the hand and to inhabit,” the pair continued.

“Textures, deliberate imperfections, and intentional refined misalignments all helped to deliver a extra human really feel.”

Over 350 items of black iron had been used to construct a gantry instantly above the plinths. It has been fitted with a number of spotlights that may be adjusted to create dramatic lighting for talks or product displays.

“The [lighting] scheme within the house was impressed by our work course of, all of us needed the expertise of the house to really feel in a way just like the expertise of working with us,” PSLab’s founder, Dimitri Saddi, advised Dezeen.

“The lights will not be merchandise showcased on a shelf – it isn’t a showroom in that sense – as a substitute they’re a part of the residing house itself and the place to begin of a dialogue on the chances of sunshine and shadow to be tailor-made to every venture.”

A gridded metal framework that shows pattern supplies, fashions and lighting prototypes has been erected on one facet of the room, appearing as a “backbone” between the principle workplace ground and the atelier house.

Beechwood drawers run alongside the underside, whereas increased cabinets are accessed by a standard library-style ladder.

Typical factory-style doorways shut off a non-public assembly room with almost-black partitions, which has been completed with a mustard-yellow bench and seating by Finnish designer Yrjö Kukkapuro.

That is the most recent venture by south London-based JamesPlumb, which creates design objects in addition to interiors.

Final 12 months, the studio used rubble salvaged from demolition websites to style a group of delicate chandeliers and candelabras.

It additionally designed an Aesop department within the English metropolis of Tub, decking out the store ground with reclaimed chapel tiles and tough chunks of stone.

Images is by Rory Gardiner. Movie was shot and directed by Lana Daher.