of existing buildings with adaptive reuse will attenuate the peak demand on the national grid, which is under growing pressure due to the electrification of buildings and transportation..
Yet this building has been reborn as.Great Western Studios.
, an incubator to hundreds of creative businesses.Northern Light floods through the central atrium of the new building, illuminating the work spaces and exhibition areas of artists, sculptors, jewellery makers, fashion designers and architects.That people like these are drawn to the building is affirmation of everything the design set out to achieve.
We caught up with the team who run the space as well as some of the residents to see why the space works so well for them.... KRISTI MINCHIN, GREAT WESTERN STUDIOS.With only two metres separating the roof of the building from the A40 Westway and The Grand Union Canal only five meters from the walls of the building, the triangular structure of Great Western Studios is in a unique urban position.
Partway between Notting Hill and Paddington in West London, the space was originally an old paint factory, which the owners enlisted award-winning architect, Bryden Wood, to turn into studio space for the artistic community back in 2009.
After the successful completion of the first project, Bryden Wood was commissioned a second time in 2017 to add a further two storeys to the building to create a total of 104 studio spaces.. GWS’ Marketing Executive, Kristi Minchin, says she was initially attracted to the building by the talent and creative energy of its occupants who include artists, architects, fashion brands, and creative tech companies.At Bryden Wood, it’s a guiding principle that we never compromise the design to fit the system.
Rather, our aim is to allow a level of flexibility in the components to resolve the tension between the need for optimisation and variability – what the market wants, or clients need.For example, with the Platform to superstructure, we have a series of standard connection brackets, which link the beams and columns.
The same brackets are used consistently and they are colour-coded.This makes it easy to teach people how to do the assembly and they become very quick at doing it.
(Editor: Modern Canopies)