KnoxBhavan Architects has transformed a former shop in Peckham into a health-conscious, beautiful new studio to house their practice.
The impressive front façade features a concrete picture frame ‘shop window’ over-sailed by a floating thin-edged canopy. As you step inside, a dramatic three-storey-high hall greets you, offering views up to a mezzanine meeting room, down to a large multiuse space and across a glass bridge to the entrance hall and drawing office beyond.

A communal oak worktable runs down the centre of the drawing office, which is lined with personalised staff cupboards faced with douglas fir veneer. Above, two long linear roof lights have been carefully designed to flood the space with natural light, while avoiding direct sunlight falling onto the computer screens. The large south-facing window overlooks a moat, home to the practice’s koi carp. Concrete lily-pads cross the moat to the tranquil, brick-lined courtyard garden beyond.

A mirrored glass aperture from the drawing office provides a visual link between the office and the mezzanine meeting room above. The innovative mezzanine floor construction is ultra thin, which was critical to allow three floors to be introduced into the available space.

Below, the excavated basement provides extra space, housing a new model-making workshop, kitchen, library, storage and a multi-use area with moveable furniture, which can be transformed to accommodate presentations, displays, staff lunches and crits.