The internal spaces are designed to maximise connection between staff. The large open, unobstructed floors span either side of the linear atrium, which both allows light to penetrate deep into the building and ACCOMMODATES the main circulation stair which takes the inhabitants on a promenade of their organisation. The generous landings also act as informal galleries for art, meeting and break out spaces. Throughout the building the interior space of neutral white is punctuated by the earthy grey tones of the unpainted muscular concrete frame. The office floors have been fitted out as a combination of open plan, shared offices, showrooms and workshops. The dividing walls are all to be used to hang the minor and major works of the Monsoon Arts Trust’s collection which is drawn from the countries where the collection is produced and acts as an inspiration for future fashion collections.
At Ground and Mezzanine a double height space runs E-W cutting across the N-S axis of the atrium. This space overlays a number of key functions: it is a point of arrival offering an explanation of the building as WELL as opening up views of the atrium above; a venue, every few months for a fashion show and party; with a cafe adjacent it acts as an informal meeting space; and it also allows for a permanent gallery which houses the larger pieces of the Monsoon Arts Trust’s dynamic and growing collection including the Carsten Holler’s Mirror Carousel, 2005. This new space, cruciform on plan, also creates four mezzanines linked by bridges which double up as high level viewing galleries.
The new building is part office, part workshop, part gallery, part HQ, part speculative office. It has stripped away the detritus of detailing that defines so much commercial space and as such suggests there are better ways to work and play and speculate (both financially and architecturally). The Yellow Building is an environmentally smart, thermally massive, structurally light building that suggests that the office of the future can be as delightful to occupy as the factories of the past are to re-inhabit.