Soho so good

Architectural Review, The, Dec, 1994 by Penny McGuire

In spite of the increasing invasion of sleaze, London's Soho is still, for historical and picturesque reasons, a desirable address for film and publishing companies, for the agents that serve them, and for the restaurants and pubs that nourish them. On Dean Street, on the west side -- where media chic is served by the Groucho Club and Blacks -- Soho 601 Productions has installed itself in luminous new offices designed by Gollifer Associates. The company produces compute(-generated 3D images for various purposes, including pop and promotional films and videos of wonderful sophistication.

The offices, containing a series of computer workstations, a meeting room, kitchen and store, are at street level. They were inserted into an old showroom cluttered by ugly false ceilings and partitions. Having cleared these away, the architects were left with a deep narrow spice running clear back from the street to the rear, where it overlooks the Dickensian jumble of back extensions and fire escapes that is characteristic of Soho.

Staff in this business are dedicated to it, working intensely with complex programs and staring at computer screens for long periods. Such claustrophobic engagement, particularly with the strange version of reality generated by these machines, inspired a design that plays on the real/virtual world, by using the simple means of light and reflection.

Although narrow, the space was strongly proportioned and open. These positive virtues were left intact, and workstations set in a row against one wall, so leaving a free and shining passage of space behind and around them. Running back from the glazed wall onto the street, they are screened from public view and divided by panels of perforated metal, floating against thin columns. The panels appear opaque during the day but let daylight through; at night, when the space is lit from within, they become insubstantial and gauzy. Light and reflection dissolve space within this narrow channel, for the rear wall dividing the office from the meeting room and kitchen behind is mirrored, and the watery coloured rubber covering the floor is, like water, reflective.

In these vaguely unreal surroundings, one's eye is caught by the cabling, carried against the wall by a silver metal conduit, spilling thickly from the powerful machines, coiling against the wall like a mass of virtually live things.