Gateway West

BREEAM Outstanding workspace in the heart of White City’s new Growth & Innovation Hub

Gateway West is a new workspace building located on a prominent corner in the heart of White City Place, West London’s new media, technology and creative industries hub. It sits as part of a wider masterplan for the Gateway Site, consisting of three new commercial buildings off Wood Lane – Gateway West, Gateway Central and Gateway East.

Gateway West is a significantly smaller building than its larger commercial neighbours, sitting at the very edge of the Gateway Site and White City Place. The design approach was clear – to craft a building that could be at once modest in scale (adhering to existing outline planning consent parameters) but assertive in character, confidently anchoring the west side of the Gateway Site, defining a new streetscape and crucially mediating between two distinct urban contexts.

Whilst born as part of White City Place, an emerging and evolving creative campus mostly articulated in metal and glass, Gateway West’s sculpted masonry facades draw from the character of older, lower neighbouring city fragments built in brick – predominantly nearby 20th century housing estates, solid in feel but with irregular layered planes, asymmetric gables and muted architectural flourishes.

White City Estate housing blocks form a counterpoint to the new and upcoming developments nearby.

Gateway West seeks to forge a relationship between the older, smaller, more traditional environment of the remaining housing and sheds and the emerging commercial and creative developments, with a building that is at once modern in its premise yet compact in scale and handcrafted in its delivery. Gateway West sits confidently among its larger neighbours to anchor the west side of the Gateway Site and was conceived of as a ‘rock’ with a sculpted presence, in contrast to the surrounding commercial buildings with expressed structural frames and lightweight cladding.

Its brickwork is recessed and textured to form a range of entrances, balconies, piers, and feature windows that address the different context to each side in turn, whether public or private, busily trafficked or pedestrian.

The textured brickwork of Gateway West, framed by neighbouring Gateway Central (Allies and Morrison). Photographer: Billy Choi.

Facades are sculpted in brick, precast concrete and ceramic, monolithic in appearance with a subtle but palpable visual and tactile character. Bricks have been selected for their mottled colour and irregular texture, articulated in a rich mix of brick bonds, lending a muted complexity to each elevation.

Exploratory Sketch
Exploratory Sketch
Exploratory Sketch
Exploratory Sketch
Early exploratory sketches looking at the Gateway site as it appears in various long and close views
Exploratory Sketch
Exploratory Sketch
Exploratory Sketch
Exploratory Sketch

The public garden sits adjacent to the main building entrance, providing a new green pedestrian link between existing streets, as well as a tranquil place to dwell. The garden is naturalistic in feel, densely planted with shade loving woodland species and includes climbing plants that rise up against a feature textured brickwork wall, whilst the biodiverse green roof has been planted with sedum and native wildflowers.

New landscaping elements have collectively more than doubled the sites levels of biodiversity prior to redevelopment.

The project team set out to make an environmentally pioneering building, driven by passive design concepts and long-life loose-fit design principles, aspiring to simultaneously enhance the immediate urban and natural environment, reduce whole life carbon and improve occupant wellbeing.

Gateway West has obtained a BREEAM Outstanding rating.

Three storeys of attractive, speculative workspace share multiple outlooks, a warm material palette, hybrid natural ventilation and good daylight. Open and flexible layouts, designed for single or multiple tenant(s) with subdivision, are edged with angular nooks that lend themselves to break-out spaces or meeting rooms. On the ground floor, a generous and welcoming room can be used as reception or workspace.

Further information

Data

Location
White City, London
Project type
Workplace and learning
Budget
£12M
Status
Complete
Floor area
3541m2

Credits

Client
Stanhope
Team
Jay Gort, Chris Neve, Jonathan Mann, Dominic Dudley
Collaborators
Allies and Morrison (masterplan architect), AKT II (structural engineer and facade consultant), SWECO (services and fire engineer), HED (landscape designer), Sandy Brown (acoustic engineer), IM2 (CDM consultant), Deloitte (quantity surveyor), Butler & Young (approved inspector), Gerald Eve (planning consultant), AVR (visualiser), Vectos (traffic consultant), LBHF (planning authority), GIA (daylight/sunlight assessor), AECOM (environmental impact assessor), Tavernor Consultancy (visual impact assessor), Grain (model), Sweco (sustainability and ecology).
Construction Manager
Sir Robert McAlpine
Model Views
Grain
Photographer
David Grandorge

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