Heradesign helps create a cultural icon Story by Knauf Ceiling Solutions Heradesign helps create a cultural icon Sea Containers Story by BDG architecture + design Sea Containers

Heradesign helps create a cultural icon

Knauf Ceiling Solutions as Acoustic Ceiling Solution

Global advertising and marketing agencies, Ogilvy & Mather UK and MEC, have moved their creative businesses to the iconic Sea Containers on the South Bank. Collaborative working is at the heart of this ambitious project. BDG Architecture + design in partnership with Matheson Whiteley have created a dynamic workplace that is designed to drive integration and innovation. They achieved this by placing the office spaces in the lower parts of the building and reserved the upper floors for open areas where staff and clients can meet overlooking world-renowned views across the Thames. Moving to Sea Containers has helped bring Ogilvy & Mather into the cultural and creative heart of London.


A large-scale 200-person amphitheatre plays a prominent role in this vision. Heradesign ceilings from Knauf AMF are fitted in the amphitheatre.


BDG architects Toby Neilson and Elena Angulo explained how Heradesign fulfilled the brief. “For such a key space in the building, we looked for high quality materials with natural qualities that would provide the aesthetic we wanted and the appropriate acoustic properties. We wanted to create an atmosphere that would feel less corporative and closer to a theatre. Heradesign matched our architectural approach and its surface design was more contemporary and organic than other products.”


Heradesign is a range of high-performance ceiling and wall panels manufactured from sustainably sourced wood-wool. With its distinctive woven surface, Heradesign brings a natural warmth and visual energy to interiors. This visual appeal has been used to great effect in the amphitheatre which has been designed to accommodate a variety of activities from small and intimate gatherings to large presentations and meetings. To help maintain a comfortable acoustic level for this multi-functional space, Heradesign provides outstanding Class A sound absorption to reduce reverberation and enhance speech intelligibility.


Heradesign’s versatility is unmatched when it comes to creating truly unique designs. Heradesign can be specified in any colour and can be matched to swatches or fabric. Its flexibility offers a number of hanging options: fitted as a suspended ceiling, hung as rafts or fins, or directly onto walls or ceilings. BDG architecture + design specified Heradesign in black for the amphitheatre. The panels are fitted directly to the ceiling and sit above the lights to disguise other ceiling services. The matt black surface is non-reflective which helps create optimum lighting conditions for when the amphitheatre is used for presentations.


Toby Neilson and Elena Angulo are thrilled with the bespoke design for Ogilvy’s London HQ and plan to use Heradesign for future projects: “Working with Heradesign and Knauf AMF has been very successful. Heradesign has delivered on quality and performance. The installation and co-ordination with other ceiling devices was very simple. We are currently working on a number of projects where we are looking to use Heradesign.”


If your project has demanding acoustic and aesthetic needs that require a unique approach, contact Knauf AMF at [email protected] or visit www.amfceilings/heradesign to make an appointment with your area manager.

Sea Containers

BDG architecture + design as Architects

History Sea Containers House was designed in 1974 by Warren Platneras a waterfront hotel to promote British tourism. Upon completion, due to an economic downturn, the building was immediately converted to office use – but was inherently never entirely fit for purpose.In 2013 the BDG Architecture + Design won an invited competition, in conjunction with Matheson Whiteley, to create 20,300 sqm of workspace for a group of ten advertising and media companies, which previously were located across a number of sites throughout London.


The existing building consisted of three elements: a concrete frame, two-storey ‘River Terrace’ cantilevering over the Thames Path – complete with concrete waffle slabs, a Central Stack of low, horizontal concrete floor plates and a recently completed two-storey ‘Sky Terrace’, steel framed, glazed roof extension. The design concept proposes a specific response to each type of space.


Context Located at the Eastern end of the Southbank the Sea Containers building occupies a significant portion of the ‘cultural mile’ river frontage, linkingthe National Theatre and Queen Elizabeth Hall complex to the West and the Tate Modern and Globe Theatre to the East. From early conception BDG imagined the Sea Containers building as a missing link in this procession of large, urban, character buildings along the Thames. Taking design queues from the brutal,shuttered concrete of Denys Lasdun’sNational Theatre and the Hayward gallery and the smooth concrete landscapes of the Tate modern turbine hall and theTate tanks.


River Terrace - Design and Definition Overlooking the Thames the lower floors of the Sea Containers building are defined internally by the muscular quality of the existing waffle concrete structural system. Expressing this inherent character was seen as essential to the client and design team who were keen to let the existing building ‘guide’ the team to the most appropriate design responses. Exposed services and new power floated wearing screeds in the most heavily trafficked areas blur the boundaries between typical office, public and cultural buildings, creating spaces with a hybrid feel where staff and visitors are encouraged to touch down and work in comfortable, private settings - as you might commonly find in a theatre foyer or art gallery.


Working closely with ARUP Engineers – the original structural engineers for the building – ‘soft spots’ were identified in the existing structure to create a dramatic opening and coloured glass staircase link through the waffle slab.


Central Stack – Work space The central stack consists of six floors of low, horizontal plates. These are divided conceptually into three towers with vertical links between them.The East and West towers contain workspace for various companies, connected by new simple internal stairs and openings. Photo 03 The middle tower is dedicated to shared spaces, break out and cafes, configured to support informal working and chance encounters. These spaces act as a buffer zone between individual companies in the East and West towers, allowing them to expand temporarily without additional fit-out or capital costs.


Within this central space, a cascading terrace of new slab openings, stairs and suspended concrete platforms creates long diagonal vistas through the building, reorganising the structure into a collection of neighbourhoods connected by common areas – a direct reference to the city itself. This arrangement of steps and platforms creates a number of ‘accidental’ sitting and working spaces with floors and ceilings doubling as seating and workbenches.


Other work floors are connected by asingle dramatic helical stair, cast in-situ with rough sawn timber formwork to unashamedly replicate the shuttering seen on the exterior of the National Gallery.


Sky Terrace By locating working space in the lower parts of the building, the upper two floors are liberated for shared staff and hospitality uses, including a 200-person timber lined amphitheatre - retro fitted into the fabric of the existing structure by reinforcing and retaining the glazed façade and removing approx. 200m2 of rib-deck slab. A café, bistro, private dining room and new roof terrace are also located here giving optimum views over London to the North, East and West – and democratic access to all building users.


These spaces double as work settings – from small and intimate to large and noisy – and together define a shared architectural identity for the group companies.


Urban Scale Many buildings along the Thames Path have become important London landmarks. The Royal Festival Hall, National Theatre, Tate Modern, Oxo Tower and Shakespeare’s Globe are all established cultural points. At an urban scale, the ambition of the Sea Containers fit outwas to make shared and common activities visible from the river, drawing it back into the cultural, creative and commercial life of the Thames.

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