Pentagram | William Russell
Pentagram, the world's largest independent design consultancy, known for their iconic work, has relocated to North London. After 41 years in Notting Hill, the London partners now work from The Old Sorting House in Islington.
Located on the corner of Essex Road and Packington Street, close to Angel Tube station, the Victorian building was originally developed for the Royal Mail.
William Russell, former Pentagram Partner, has created a new London home and studio for the practice. A deep understanding of Pentagram’s creative process, together with a long-standing personal connection helped to form Russell’s architectural approach.
The new building has been thoughtfully reconfigured over three floors to include workshops, presentation rooms, event spaces, canteen, meeting rooms and public gallery space.
The Creation of the Osh Gallery (Old Sorting House) at the front of the Pentagram building reflects a similar layout and approach to the historical Notting Hill office. Creating an independent public space to promote contemporary design and creativity.
Created in collaboration with MCVI and multidisciplinary designers Six Wu and Michael Corsar. The gallery’s movable partitions and interchangeable colour panels allow the space to adapt to different events and exhibitions. Enabling the space to display different content in a controlled and thoughtful way.
William Russell, founder of William Russell Architects, and Jon Marshall, Partner at Pentagram expand on the design approach behind the building.
Every aspect of the building was carefully considered, guided by a desire to carry forward the memory of the previous Needham Road office.
Understanding the role and function of each floor was fundamental to the design process. Significant thought was given to any key changes, particularly decisions around floor functionality, circulation, public-facing areas, and building entrances.
Establishing a clear identity and purpose for each of the three floors early on helped organise both the building and the way the practice operates within it. This approach helped inform design details and visual cues that deliberately reference the previous home, not the same, but as an evolved, refreshed, and reclaimed interpretation.
Materials were introduced with care to ensure they enhanced rather than detracted from the existing architecture. They help unify the building while also maintaining continuity between their past and present buildings.
“Considerable care, investment, and ongoing collaboration throughout the design process ensured the building would be fit for purpose from day one and adaptable for the next 20 years” William Russell, Architect
Long bespoke bookcases divide the open-plan floor, serving as mobile partitions to create semiprivate meeting areas or moved aside for larger events. New partitions and internal glazing have been used throughout to divide spaces and form meeting rooms.
The conference rooms have been designed with adaptability in mind, easily reconfigurable to suit different types of meetings, presentations, and collaborative sessions. Client boards showing Pentagrams breadth of work.
The resulting workspace is understated and self-assured, designed for ten award-winning partners and their teams. The design achieves a simple, coherent design language that flows seamlessly throughout the entire space.
Circulation spaces use simple materials combined with creative work and potted plant displays to transition between open plan and meeting rooms areas.
Creative work is showcased around the building. Marina Willers "Overlooked" series of prints, a celebration of London’s street covers and their often intricate designs.
Multiple meeting rooms are formed around a central table and flanked by two feature walls. A video wall and presentation wall with coloured acoustic panels used to help differentiate each room.
Presentation walls are formed from the ON&ON shelving system using mini shelves and acoustic coloured panels by AllSfär.
Workspaces have been organised into teams on the mezzanine floor. Bookended with purpose built storage, and printing areas used to break up and divide creative teams.
Pentagram has always maintained its own workshops, which now occupy the ground floor and continue to play an essential role in the life of the studio.
William and Jon explain further around their desire to use British-designed and British-made furniture. New furniture needed to function as a flexible system, making ON&ON a suitable choice to pair with the Morse table system by British designer John Tree.
“ We were looking for a more elegant way of designing our walls, and the ON&ON shelving system provides additional flexibility, with reduced reliance on fixed modules, and the ability to create longer, cleaner spans.” J Marshall, Partner
The result is a new but familiar home that shapes behaviour, supports productivity, and reinforces Pentagram’s creative ethos, now and into the future.
If any Architects or design studios are interested in learning more about our shelving systems, feel free to arrange a studio visit via our website or contact us directly.
