Yan Ki Lee / Architecture and Interiors

totalscape:
work/live business incubators for the creative industries

A design study which proposes flexible new architectural strategies to support the growth of start-up creative businesses living and working on the same site.

click for images

The growing economic importance of the creative industries has not been lost on social regeneration agencies who are keen to attract them to deprived inner-city areas to help stimulate urban improvement. Combined working and living in one unit makes sense for fledgling creative businesses, but the work/live incubator capable of supporting new creative communities in such an holistic way is a relatively under-developed building type (as opposed to residential property which accommodates some homeworking). This project set out to understand the working and living patterns of start-up creative firms, leading to new architectural proposals to help them grow yet maintain a work-life balance.

The project began with an evaluation of Westferry Studios in London Docklands, the UK's first social housing work/live development by the Peabody Trust. Trinity Buoy Wharf was then adopted as a test-site for an alternative work/live campus which caters for the different stages of growth, as well as giving greater adaptability by allowing occupants to define their own 'unit' within a grid framework. Flexibility within the individual 'unit' is further enhanced by the use of interchangeable architectural components to adjust the balance between working and living.

more about Yanki Lee

Research partner: Peabody Trust in a consortium with Geoffrey Reid Associates, GMW Partnership, Jones Lang LaSalle, Gestetner and Roneo Office Systems

next  | list  |  previous