Douglas House is a minimal workspace located in London, United Kingdom, designed by Note (design studio). The overall architecture dictated the rationale for the workspace floorplan to a significant extent, which offered us the opportunity to re-conceive the layout so that it flows on a horizontal axis rather than the previous layout that awkwardly connected the building vertically. Douglas House is a 47,000 sq ft building at 131–151 Great Titchfield Street on the Langham Estate in the West End. When TOG acquired the lease, the 1930s block was devoted to functional but uninspiring office space. TOG had previously called onNote to design the interiors of its office space Summit House in Holborn and were hugely impressed with the way the Stockholm-based practice was able to translate the art deco exterior into a high-level contemporary design that complemented and enhanced the Grade II-listed building. Douglas House’s post-war architecture offers less for both design teams to respond to creatively, so the challenge here was to give it a strong identity that would enable it to hold its own against its more dramatic neighbors in Fitzrovia.

The most striking feature of the design is a curvilinear wall of glass blocks that runs the entire length of the ground floor. Based on the idea of a hand-drawn line, the wall creates a sense of light, transparency and openness throughout the space, which is split into three ‘rooms’ by the building’s two stair cores. As well as creating a passage between the rooms at the rear, the wall creates a visual connection between them with material intensity and unexpectedly fluid wavy forms, echoed in the custom-made lighting rafts. On the other side is a bank of courtyard-style meeting rooms, each with a unique layout created by the irregularity of the wall’s shape. The wall also marks a shift in the interior color palette, with warm woody neutral sand desert shades defining the communal spaces and break-out areas and cooler, softer blues used in the meeting rooms and working areas where concentration and focus are required.

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