Norton Folgate Retrofit

British Land appointed East as part of a large team to design a series of public spaces within the Elder Street Conservation Area in Shoreditch alongside project lead Alford Hall Monaghan Morris. Collaborating, we brought vacant and underused buildings back into use to create a new office lead commercial quarter, while making new connections and enhancing the public realm network of spaces and streets. East took the designs through to a successful planning outcome and was subsequently novated to Skanska to deliver the works on site. The buildings and spaces are located to the east of Shoreditch High Street; they include the former Nicholls and Clarke warehouse, land and buildings south of Bishopsgate Goodsyard and an area immediately south of Fleur de Lis Street, facing Norton Folgate and the City.

Developing the network of public spaces that link the buildings and streets, we made use of existing materials, reused split and honed granite setts, in courtyards and streets, and where appropriate we located special pieces, a large pot with a tree in Blossom Yard, a railway sleeper seat by the Goodsyard, to create minor foreground moments to an otherwise calm and robust public realm. The spaces are generally spliced into the background of the city. We believe that the network of streets and spaces we created give amenity and allow spatial choices for people to walk, meet, sit and experience this amazing, layered and rich part of London, and over time we hope they will go more and more unnoticed as life takes over.