Artists' Ateliers London Design District / BAROZZI VEIGA

The Design District on the Greenwich Peninsula is a one-hectare riverside site with 16 new buildings that will provide an affordable base for creative businesses to trade, interact and grow. Eight emerging architectural practices from across Europe were each given a pair of buildings and asked to work blind, without knowing what the others were designed. The result is a provocative diversity of color and form in a new neighbourhood devoted to design, art, tech, craft, and music. In this kind of undefined and evolving context, devoid of urban references, the project defines two very pragmatic buildings – industrial containers that maximize the flexibility of the interior and explore the use of basic construction systems. The project plays with the imagination of an artist’s studio, emphasizing the use of light in a workspace defined by large windows, double-height rooms, and certain raw materiality.