Workplace · London, England · Concept Study
Fitzroy Works
Creative office for an advertising and marketing agency, ~650 m²
Design Question
How does the character of the past carry the energy of the future?
Site & Context
The building is one of Fitzrovia's typical narrow-fronted, deep-plan Georgian and Victorian conversions, a shell that suits the area's long history of advertising agencies, design studios and media companies. The typology brings a clear constraint: windows only at the front and back, with the middle of the plan lacking daylight. The office therefore builds a spatial hierarchy of proximity to light and mode of work, with window edges for focus and the middle of the plan for meetings and presentations.
Fitzrovia shells are usually pulled toward one of two extremes: a museum-like restoration, or a startup fit-out that ignores the building. Fitzroy Works rejects both. The building keeps its own discipline of brick, plaster, timber and height, while curated, energetic and playful interventions invite people in. The result is not an old building with new furniture but a conscious dialogue between two layers of time.
Materials & Palette
The building keeps its own palette: London stock brick, warm lime plaster, black steel window frames and oak floors, none of it changed. The colour laid on top is not random. Each hue marks a function: coral for the most social moment, mustard for welcome, sage for calm internal meetings, burgundy for the warmth of the shared kitchen, cobalt for small moments of quiet focus, teal for the energy of the large communal space and charcoal as the dramatic ground of the creative studio. Seven colours for seven behaviours, and none mixes with another because none tries to do two jobs at once.
Design Intent
Fitzroy Works invites the energy of today into the shell of the past without denying it. The building remembers, and the living layer, room by room, speaks about the present.
