London’s music scene has transformed its tune in the past 10 years, with the action shifting east to King’s Cross. This left Sony Music British isles in a tough place when the firm or else beloved the Kensington place of work that MoreySmith experienced built for it again in 2008 (and then afterwards refreshed in 2018), it sooner or later realized that it required to start out preparing for a relocation. “If they could have picked up their initial place of work and moved it, that would have been their perfect alternative,” says Linda Morey-Burrows, the principal director at MoreySmith. But as the pandemic ushered in new performing designs, her firm’s style for Sony Music UK’s new King’s Cross headquarters progressed into an even more substantial rethink.
Photograph by Billy Bolton.
Like all the finest sophomore albums, the end outcome (which opened this 12 months in a new developing at 2 Canal Reach) experiments with refreshing suggestions even though creating upon the core appeal of its predecessor. Any individual familiar with Sony Music UK’s previous digs will no doubt realize the new office’s cafeteria, which is a reimagining of a equivalent house that sat at the coronary heart of the company’s previous location. “When you move homes, you never want to entirely begin yet again,” states Morey-Burrows. “You have to have a several factors that you liked in the old residence to be in the new a person. Normally it seems like you’ve misplaced your persona alongside the way.”
Image by Billy Bolton.
Photograph by Fiona Smallshaw.
More substantial alterations enjoy out in the office’s workspace configuration, which was informed by employees interviews but also on-the-ground observations. “We hired a staff to go to their current office environment in Kensington and watch people today for 10 days, just to get insights into what they ended up actually performing,” clarifies Shonagh Gardiner, a senior affiliate at MoreySmith. “Sometimes men and women say that they are always at a desk, but then you see that’s not seriously the case — they’re doing the job on resourceful matters that come about far more collaboratively. Having that knowledge permitted us to back again up some new proposals. And then COVID transpired, and everybody shed their desks anyway.”
Photo by Billy Bolton.
In the close, functioning arrangements ended up made the decision on a per-label basis, with some of Sony’s manufacturers — which include RCA, Ministry of Sound and Columbia — preserving a one particular-to-just one ratio of workers to desks, and other folks keen to embrace much more lounge-like environments with sofas and laptop tables.
Photo by Billy Bolton.
This displays MoreySmith’s overall strategy to operating with the several divisions and departments that fall under the Sony Tunes umbrella. “It was essentially a single challenge with 25 clients,” states Gardiner. “And we genuinely preferred to make absolutely sure that all of the teams felt represented in the new creating.”
The layout agency resolved to divide and conquer, assigning diverse staff to different labels to be certain visible directions that mirrored their distinct identities. As a result, Columbia’s zone is clad in grooved concrete, even though RCA’s is outlined by an orange corrugated metal. “It’s nearly like a office retail outlet, exactly where you’re instantaneously informed that you’re in a diverse brand’s location due to the fact of a different visible encounter,” Gardiner claims.
Image by Billy Bolton.
Photo by Fiona Smallshaw.
The problem then became making certain that these various zones continue to felt like element of a cohesive total. Indeed, although the branding of every single space is distinctive, the general style stays flexible enough to guidance long run changes if labels finish up growing or contracting. “Architecturally, they are all built very in the same way. How they’re wrapped, dressed and lit, which is the place the dissimilarities are — in the cladding or graphics,” suggests Morey-Burrows.
Photo by Fiona Smallshaw.
Picture by Hufton+Crow.
MoreySmith invested related energy in acquiring approaches to convey workers alongside one another all through the workday. Sony Music UK’s previous headquarters (which, funnily plenty of, was found in a former office keep making) was distribute across only two flooring, making certain frequent possibility encounters. This new locale, spanning 6 floors, essential a additional intentional circulation tactic to boost interconnectivity.
As a result, two well known staircases — a person black, one particular purple — were inserted into the setting up in brilliant, open spaces that produce visual links to regions that employees may not or else pass by way of. A communal rooftop and live effectiveness venue are other well known social hotspots, both for staff and for guests.
Photo by Billy Bolton.
Of training course, Sony Songs UK’s numerous labels also have a different vital component in widespread: incredible acoustics. “Obviously, tunes is key,” says Morey-Burrows. Yet accomplishing the sought after audio high-quality essential some savvy design and style interventions. “The way the constructing was constructed, there wasn’t any acoustic lining in the external wall. So we have been worried that we were likely to be spilling out loud songs into King’s Cross, where by all of the structures are quite shut together,” Morey-Burrows points out.
To really guarantee that the areas do Sony Music’s albums justice, MoreySmith partnered with acoustics advisor Sandy Brown and the A/V group at Mix. The staff additional a secondary glazing to develop a cozy sonic buffer between the creating and its neighbours, and then wrapped numerous of the studios in their individual focused acoustic enclosure. Soundproof pods introduce another desired destination for person listening.
Photo by Billy Bolton.
Picture by Fiona Smallshaw.
Relatively unexpectedly, the ultimate ingredient of MoreySmith’s design is a quiet library spot. “The café is a superior place to perform if you want to get absent from your have section, but they enjoy acquiring audio enjoying rather loud there,” Morey-Burrows explains. “And some folks in our interviews claimed, even though they enjoy that place, they just can’t get the job done in it. So we wished to give them a quiet spot which is variety of a distinctive vibe from the rest of the setting up.” Like a delicate ballad in an album whole of bangers, the library reiterates the art of a well-crafted combine.