The Modern House

St Alphege Hall is a mid-rise brick building dating from 1931. It was built as a church hall for the congregation of St Alphege on Lancaster Street. The church has since been demolished, leading to the gradual decline of the church hall. When The Modern House took on the lease to convert it into their new offices it had suffered from ad-hoc adaptions over the years to operate as an office space, and had fallen into disrepair.

Our approach to the retrofit of the building was to strip back the superfluous layers to take the building back to its characterful base, then use The Modern House monochrome off-white and off-black to contrast the existing and new elements. 

At the centre of our scheme for offices - in the main open-plan studio - is a bespoke demountable desk structure. It can be adjusted in a sequence of simple moves to completely change the interior, functioning differently in both its extended and stored modes. The desks fold away and can be hung at the perimeter of the space, to mimic grand salon-style panelling. 

The desk templates were developed through 3D modelling and fabricated in Valchromat (engineered coloured wood) off-site through collaboration with Tom Graham Workshop. They demonstrate our interest in designing out waste by maximising simple standard sheets or components.

Potted plants hang overhead, suspended from a metal grid affixed to the ceiling - adding visual interest whilst dampening the acoustics and neutralising air pollutants.

The space also contains a number of original artworks by former clients of The Modern House, including John Virtue, Darren Almond and Michael Craig-Martin. The desks set the design language for all bespoke fittings throughout the fit-out. Other key pieces include a meeting table designed by Max Lamb and a dining table designed by Faye Toogood, which are also fabricated from Valchromat.