LIGHTING

AHMM Studio at
White Collar Factory
Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
BY CHRIS FOGES

WHEN THE architecture firm Allford

Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) was
looking for a second studio near its London
base, it found an irresistible opportunity at
White Collar Factory, a 16-story office
tower designed by the practice. Its cavernous
basement, which extends under an adjacent
courtyard, was never intended as a work-
space but had a powerful, robust character,
room for a staff of 110, and lots of potential.
There was only one catch: “It had every-
thing we like in a building,” says practice
partner Simon Allford, “except windows.”
The lack of daylight and views has been
addressed by a sophisticated lighting scheme
that also supports AHMM’s vision of the
studio as its “skunkworks”—a flexible set-
ting for creative experiment—and chimes
with the building’s industrial aesthetic.
Leaving the raw concrete shell exposed,
the architects inserted steel mezzanines on
two sides of the 26-foot-high space, linked
by a bridge over the reception area, where a
glazed elevator shaft provides a modicum of
borrowed daylight. Under one mezzanine,
painted concrete-block walls separate open-
fronted bays. Below the other mezzanine,
meeting rooms are constructed from a mod-
ular demountable plywood wall system,
originally designed by AHMM for Google’s
London headquarters.
In the middle, where the floor-level drops
and four small skylights puncture the vault-
ed concrete ceiling, a generous double-
height studio hums with activity. Overhead,
a regular array of can-shaped pendants
hangs between castellated steel beams,
distinct in pistachio green. Designed for use
in areas with high ceilings, the matte-black
cylinders have a high lumen output from
both ends. With strong light bouncing off
the pale ceiling and a cornflower yellow
carpet, the whole studio glows.
The skylights above the central space
create an important connection to the out-
side world and some daylight—“even a tiny
bit is vital,” says Allford—but not enough to
regulate its occupants’ circadian rhythms,
the 24-hour internal clock essential to
Human-centric lighting, such as tunable-white pendants in the main hall (above), augments existing healthy sleep and general well-being. To
skylights to transform White Collar Factory’s deep basement into a vibrant hub for its architect. compensate, the quality of electric light

164 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD JUNE 2022

 Tiers of flexible work areas (right and bottom)
flanking the central space are illuminated by
modular track lighting that creates pleasing,
effective environments for numerous activities.

adjusts to create natural-seeming variations:

cool white in the early morning, brightening
toward the middle of the day, and warming
in the afternoon. The evolution is impercep-
tible, but, when the cycle is sped up, the
change in ambience is striking.
That demonstration is one of dozens of
scenes available at the touch of a button. The
whole installation is controlled via Bluetooth
from an app on a phone and tablet, so it can
be managed from anywhere in the building
and beyond.
The behavior of individual fixtures can be
altered to support alternative desk configura-
tions, or to suit the preferences of someone
seated below. “London offices provide a
standard 200 lux at desk level,” says Allford—
“a kind of uniformity nobody actually wants.”
There’s potential for dramatic effects too.
Allford had in mind Eero Saarinen’s trick of
taking clients into a darkened room and
turning on a single light over a model. “There
is theater in the presentation of architecture,”
he says, “and lighting adds to the story.”
Adaptability was most important in the
peripheral zones, where the intention was to
make something akin to MIT’s demolished
Building 20, a temporary structure built
during World War II that inhabitants felt
free to modify, liberating their creative work.
One mezzanine is currently an incubator,
allowing in a few fledgling architecture
practices. Another might become a model
shop. Track lighting was chosen to permit
change of use in the time it takes to relocate a
fixture or to plug in a new one. “It’s an ex-
pensive option,” says Allford, “but you can
reinvent the character of spaces without
replacing finishes.”
For these low-ceilinged areas, AHMM
selected downlights with a shallow housing
and wide beams. Anti-dazzle louvers disguise
the source of light so that attention is focused
PHOTOGRAPHY: © ERCO GMBH/MARTINA FERRERA

on its effect. Track-mounted wall-washers

enhance the apparent brightness of the room, Credits SIZE: 16,000 square feet
since we register the illumination of vertical ARCHITECT: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris — COST: $2.5 million
surfaces more strongly than light on a hori- Simon Allford, Stephen Taylor, Adam Burgess, COMPLETION DATE: September 2020
zontal plane. The sunny sheen on blockwork Bryn Williams, Stephen Harker, design team

partitions below the mezzanine is particularly ENGINEER: Akera Engineers (structural)

effective, seeming to imply a source of day-
light somewhere out of sight. Real windows
might have been ideal, but, walking around
the atmospheric basement brought to life by
light, I didn’t miss them at all. n
Sources
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Contrakt Limited
LIGHTING: ERCO Lighting (downlights, ambient
CONSULTANTS: Sandy Brown (acoustics); BRCS and task lighting, and controls)
(building inspection/fire); Erco (lighting)
CLIENT: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
OWNER: Derwent London

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