6 Babmaes Street

Pioneering a new breed of workspace in 2021, we recycled a disused 1970’s building for The Crown Estate to provide shared social and wellbeing amenities for their St James’s business community.

Client The Crown Estate
Sector Workplace
Size 625m²
Location St James’s, London

6 Babmaes Street launched in 2021 – as office workers were emerging from lockdown into a radically evolved landscape – with a new concept for social and wellbeing provision.

Our imaginative retrofit of a disused 1970’s building delivered a standalone social space as a relaxed environment for events, collaboration, networking and wellbeing activities for The Crown Estate’s office customers in St James’s.

We celebrated the existing raw concrete shell and combined it with finely crafted interiors to create a characterful urban sanctuary with a variety of spaces for people to connect and re-charge.

Existing building shell

Mel Reeves, Workspace Director at The Crown Estate
‘6 Babmaes Street was new type of space for The Crown Estate, so it was really important the architects were collaborative and understood what we wanted to achieve. Fathom came on the journey with us and embraced our vision down to the smallest detail.’

A choice of social spaces

Our honest approach to the original structure established a raw geometric grid defining different spaces.

The ground floor entrance features a grid of turquoise and white terrazzo floor tiles, with a curved timber reception desk and arrival lounge setting the tone for the spaces above. Concierge, lockers and changing rooms were provided, plus a function room for wellness classes, exhibitions, talks and pop-up events – separated from the entrance area with a sliding screen.

At first floor, informal co-working spaces were created in a series of intimate seating areas at high and low level. Four booths with sage green banquettes feature high level planting and large-scale bespoke artworks. Above the banquettes, a continuous rooflight washes the walls with natural light. Opposite the booths, a series of rooms enclosed with textured glass and timber screens provide formal space for meetings, as well as two phone booths with geometric patterned cork tiles.

Entrance and informal meeting spaces

The second floor offers a more convivial lounge space for people to relax and socialise, planned as a series of comfortable seating areas with oak strip flooring, large rugs and a mixture of vintage and contemporary furnishings and objects. Sliding timber and glass partitions allow flexibility, and an open plan kitchenette with a generous shared table offers opportunities for communal dining.

A new third floor rooftop provides outdoor space with high and low-level seating, a living wall and festoon lighting to create a comfortable entertaining area. Planted screens, beds and climbers provide pollen, berries and seeds to support local biodiversity. A separate meeting room, The Potting Shed, is characterised by a playful jungle theme with planting and a bespoke mural.

Design for connection

Connections to nature, tactile finishes, a mixture of vintage and contemporary furniture and artwork by local artists combine to create a calm and welcoming atmosphere.

At 6 Babmaes Street, we maximised natural light throughout with large windows and newly created rooflights, adding a layer of greenery at high and low level.

The interior concept for an urban sanctuary – inspired by 1970’s art and culture – created formal and informal areas defined with bold patterned rugs, vintage and contemporary furniture and a mixture of floor, table, track and feature pendant lights. Sliding glazed and timber screens act as flexible partitions between areas on each floor.

1970s inspired palette and artwork

Distinct character was created by counterbalancing textured retro materials such as hessian, fluted glass and macramé – reflecting the coarse exposed concrete beams – with finer crafted finishes such as curved timber joinery, polished terrazzo and brushed metalwork. Suspended acoustic ceiling panels finished with timber and rattan hang within the existing structural frame.

Bespoke paintings, murals and rugs draw on 1970’s geometric artworks with bold shapes and colours affording the spaces a distinct character, while a mixture of upcycled vintage and contemporary furniture and finishes share a modern retro palette.

An inherently sustainable retrofit

Fathom’s approach is an intelligent re-use in line with BREEAM and WELL principles, preserving the main structure to avoid unnecessary demolition and minimising costly interventions.

The Crown Estate asked us to recycle and upgrade the disused building to extend its lifespan by ten years.

Externally we finished the reconfigured elevation in a distinctive sage green render, accentuating the building’s street presence and complementing the tonal palette of stone and brick locally.

We reinforced the building’s horizontal axis with a ground floor cornice, dark grey window frames and a fully glazed multi-purpose space animating the street.

Internally, adaptations included improved circulation, new glazed rooflights and a rooftop terrace.

We sourced and upcycled vintage furniture pieces including chairs, tables and credenzas to reduce the amount of new furniture being manufactured, keeping costs down and adding original elements to reinforce the design aesthetic.

The new rooftop terrace created 200m²of ecologically rich space to enhance biodiversity and local air quality, as well as reducing rainwater run-off.

Artist collaborations

We worked with artists Sophie Coe and Rob Crabtree on bespoke commissions to define a distinct identity for 6 Babmaes Street.

London based artist Sophie Coe was commissioned to create a series of three framed artworks. With a background in architecture, she had an in depth understanding of buildings and collaborative design.

Sophie’s trio of artworks for the ground floor wellness space were inspired by seascapes, each using different techniques to create a sense of escape and calm. On the first floor, Sophie’s large-scale 1970’s inspired triptych was created to echo the interior design aesthetic.

We commissioned Rob Crabtree to design murals with motifs drawn from the building and interiors, applied directly onto the walls. Rob’s work combines features of physical and digital spaces to create distinctive artworks which draw on traditional paintings and graffiti.

On the first floor, he created four murals as bold geometric compositions with overlapping planes, using colours drawn from the space and adding contrasting elements.

In The Potting Shed meeting room, Rob’s mural breaks away from the building and creates a sense of escape on the rooftop. Trees, birds and large-scale foliage cover the wall, complimenting the botanic inspired furniture and objects. Hand painted in mixed mediums, the mural adds an element of fun to the rooftop garden space.

Credits

Architect Fathom Architects
Interior Design Fathom Architects with initial concept by Avroko
Planning Consultant Gerald Eve
Project Manager TFT
Contractor BW: Workplace Experts
Structure Price & Myers
Services Watkins Payne
Environmental Consultant TFT
Lighting Design Lighting Design International
IT Consultant Cordless
Fire Consultant Jeremy Gardner Associates
Acoustic Consultant Clarke Saunders
Photography James Balston

Recognition

FX Awards Winner
FRAME Awards Honourable Mention
Dezeen Awards Longlist
Mix Awards Shortlist
Design Week Awards Shortlist
NLA Awards Shortlist

Project Information

Credits

Recognition