We completed the final phase of this new centre for the promotion of public art on a brownfield site in Hackney, East London. The boomerang shaped building contains artist studios, event and exhibition space and offices, as well as a large roof terrace along the railway arches. Amoeba shaped windows overlook the park and provide a friendly backdrop to the local playground.

Hothouse In Use

Hothouse, named after the 18th century Loddiges Nursery (in its time the world’s largest botanical hothouse which once stood nearby) has transformed an awkward piece of brownfield land in London into a vibrant new creative cluster for artists, design professionals and the local community.

The plot of land on which Hothouse sits is narrow and awkward, squeezed between the public park of London Fields and the mainline railway viaduct out of Liverpool Street. The three-storey, boomerang-shaped building hugs the London Fields boundary and provides a friendly face to the park (it has already been noticed that people are using the park later at night since it opened), whilst its other face is designed to perform to 20,000 commuters passing on the railway every day.

The railway façade is a staggered brick wall providing a buffer to the noise and vibration of passing trains, with full-length slot windows, inset at angles, maximising light and ventilation. The park façade is very different. Amoeba-shaped windows, hand-made by local blacksmiths, punctuate two bands of brickwork which sandwich a continuous band of glazing, bringing light into the main office and studio space.

The centre provides much-needed affordable live/work space for artists and other creative organisations to work and collaborate. It houses a multi-purpose conference/exhibition space, training facilities, two artist-in-residence live work studios, two roof studios and a large roof terrace for public art displays and events. Hothouse also provides a new creative office and studio space for Free Form Arts Trust, a pioneering charity that promotes urban regeneration through arts and artists.

Additional studios and workshops are located within the converted arches of the adjacent railway viaduct. A courtyard, created between the new building and the existing railway arches, will be used for events such as a Sunday market.

The main space, occupied by Free Form Arts Trust, is inspiring, double-height and open plan, with a series of smaller flexible spaces around it and a mezzanine library above which includes an archive dedicated to the original Loddiges hothouse. Spaces have also been provided for incubating emerging local creative businesses and for hot-desking.

The interior materials palette is kept to a minimum; to let the art activities do the talking. The interior is mostly white, accented with southern yellow pine panelling and translucent fibreglass. Industrial light fittings, partly surface-mounted, partly recessed in plywood lined boxes are used and trunking and pipework is exposed.

Imaginative, sustainable initiatives have been implemented. The rooftop gallery takes the form of a glass-louvred corridor and features a glass roof incorporating photovoltaic panels, which provide shading whilst generating power. All excess power is supplied back into the grid – a panel indicates how much energy is being saved. A brick has been chosen that will look good throughout the building’s life and can recycled at the end of it. The building is naturally ventilated throughout. Recycled glass has been supplied by one of Free Form’s initiatives, the Green Bottle Unit.