34 Case Study Creative Quarters continued

Less colorful, but still just as fun, Architecture 00’s C1 boasts a basketball court on its roof and a metal mesh net as the building’s envelope, allowing floor-to-ceiling sliding windows to fully open without the need for a balustrade. From above, the orange basketball court makes for a good photo, in contrast to the proudly gray building, while at ground level, the mesh provides porosity, allowing the building to be easily read. With its corner plot, the bright orange makes C1 a handy portal to the area. D1, by contrast, also by Architecture 00, is much more understated, eschewing any netting but retaining a set of expressive concrete decks.

Unlike any other firm, 6a architects opted for two almost identical buildings, both easily recognizable by their dramatic slanting roofs.

“If you do two buildings and one is better than the other, shouldn’t you just do the better one twice?” Tom Emerson, cofounder of 6a, related to AN in 2020. The two buildings, A2 and B2, are in part inspired by the late American artist Richard Artschwager, attempting, as Emerson remarked, to turn his “graphic, Pop Art expression into a sculptural form.” Architecturally, this manifests as a pair of buildings that celebrate the layers of construction, with a diagrid imprinted onto the slanted roof. “It’s not an explicit reference but allowed us to enjoy working with these architectural products and layers which are ordinary in themselves but together can be interesting and playful,” added Emerson.

Previous spread: London’s Design District exhibits a museum surveylike variety of facade treatments, including window walls, extruded aluminum, metal mesh, diamond-shaped grids, and Cor-ten steel.

Top, left: Oversized brick pillars support the base of David Kohn Architects’ A4, topped by a DESIGN DISTRICT sign. Headless female nudes by Damien Hirst adorn its corners.

Left: A green grid referencing James Stirling’s Staatsgalerie frames glass blocks, masonry, and windows in A4’s facade.

Mole Architects takes the opposite approach. “Mole’s two buildings [C2 and D2] are different from each other—one compact and angular, the other stacked like a ziggurat,” said director Meredith Bowles. “[They] play one against the other, the larger one heavy and solid, the smaller one with changing colors, like the flame of burning gas.” Internally, however, the two share the same sensibilities:

Above: A corrugated aluminum facade meets the slanted diagonal roof of 6a architects’ twin A2 and B2 buildings.

Made entirely from timber, they evoke the qualities of an old warehouse. C2 features stepped sides and diagonal Cor-ten cladding, while D2 serves up a shimmering facade—or more precisely, pyramidal profiled cladding with a two-tone color that changes with the direction of the light. Fins surrounding the windows in dichroic glass refract colored light over the facades. “The colors are inspired by a gas flame,” said Bowles, who added that the buildings are a nod to Victorian gas holders that originally occupied the site.

Along with its layout of the district, HNNA contributed two buildings: D3, which remains