talkbackTHAMES

The building accommodates a core staff and production team of about 250 people, a TV studio, two edit suites, a rehearsal space and meeting rooms.

The scheme creates a multi-storey cloister above first floor gardens. The windows in each façade of the courtyard have been replaced with doors which open onto the cloister decks which are broad enough to meet and work on.

The cloister decks are connected by bridges that span between the buildings at second and third floor levels. This creates a focus for circulation and the environment of the organisation, every office having direct access to the outside on each floor. In the centre the two-storey structure incorporates offices and communal areas around a ground floor court.

The interiors are naturally ventilated and daylit. The cloister decks provide solar shading. These decks are sheltered by a steel-framed, zinc-clad cowl on the west side, on the east side, a roof extension cantilevers over.

Materially, a minimal palate of Iroko, Douglas fir, brick and zinc, treated and finished in a variety of ways is used throughout the building.