'Big Red Workplace' at 245 Hammersmith Road is Completed
11 storey building opens onto public park promising year round community events
Architectural practice Sheppard Robson has announced that Hammersmith's newest and most colourful office building at 245 Hammersmith Road has been completed.
The landmark £200 million 11 storey building, created with the practice's interior design group ID:SR, has been built on behalf of owners Legal & General and Mitsubishi Estate, who have dubbed it the Big Red Workplace.
They say it is the largest single office building to be built in Hammersmith for more than 20 years, and will create up to 2,000 local jobs.
As well as offices, the building will offer shops, a cafe and public spaces open to the whole community, where it promises to hold year round events such as pop-up eateries and open air screenings.
Unlike Bechtel House, which formerly occupied the site, the new design is made up of two parallel wings connected by a central core. This means the building has been stepped back from Hammersmith Road, with a new landscaped piazza at the front.
The entrance, pictured above, features a grand arch with a landscaped staircase and funicular lift, which connects the high street and piazza to a rear podium park, which brings an underused public space back to life.
Sheppard Robson says the red angled window surrounds, made with organic red dye, were chosen to " create a dialogue" with the architecture of the adjacent Conservation Area where terracotta brick is commonplace.
The architect adds: " The ground floor functions as an extension of the public piazza, evoking a generous civic hall, while featuring a variety of more intimate settings to promote collaborative working. The interior draws on the English tradition of Arts and Crafts fused with industrial heritage, reflecting the history of the Hammersmith neighbourhood.
"The use of raw materials—as featured in the open-grid metal ceilings and lighting details—melds with hand-crafted furniture to create an atmosphere that is at once familial and industrial."
The reception also features a three-dimensional tapestry designed by Sheppard Robson architect and artist Patricia de Isidoro. Titled Three thousand Threads, it creator says it is an homage to all the hands involved in the crafting of the building.
Lee Bennet, Partner at Sheppard Robson, says: "A dour 70’s block once stood here, behind it, a barren windswept podium hidden from Hammersmith. The new building creates super-flexible floorspace wrapped in a bold and environmentally responsive, angular red façade that continually and delightfully changes tone, rewarding the gaze from multiple vantage points, including Hammersmith Road, the newly created arrival square, and the revived, elevated podium park."
Yuichiro Shioda, Managing Director & CEO of Mitsubishi Estate London Limited, says: "It is always gratifying to deliver a finished new building and, in 245 Hammersmith Road, we have created something that makes a positive contribution to both the local occupier market and the local community."
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February 21, 2020
