Grow Places

GP 22: Truman Brewery 05: Connected Places and Flexible Spaces: with Morris + Company

• Grow Places • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Curious about how urban redevelopment projects can connect places and provide flexible spaces that are interesting and open to change? 

On this our 5th episode of our Truman Brewery Series Edmund and Jonathan from Morris + Co unravel our ambitious redevelopment project in East London. We’ll dive into the masterplan detailing how Morris + Co have designed their "Block 3" into a hub for creative workspaces, cinema, shops, cafes, restaurants and community art spaces. We will also shed light on how affordable workspaces are being integrated to support various local businesses.

Ever wondered how sustainable design can reshape urban landscapes? We discuss how early conversation with Arup engineers reveal how natural ventilation, efficient use of materials like timber and precast, and optimised floor plates can drastically cut down both embodied and operational carbon. Discover the advantages of relying on natural light and fresh air over traditional mechanical systems, and how these eco-friendly designs contribute to a more enjoyable environment for everyone. Plus, we'll explore the creation of vibrant public spaces, such as Chimney Yard and Cooperage Yard, which are crafted to foster community engagement and offer enriching outdoor experiences.

Walk with us through the evolving streets of the Truman Brewery site as we discuss the creative reuse of materials and the transformation of private spaces into engaging public areas. Highlighting areas like Dray Walk and Morris + Co's designs for Ely's Yard, we focus on blending old structures with new interventions to maintain the unique character of Brick Lane and Spitalfields. Learn about logistical challenges, from managing multiple design teams to ensuring smooth pedestrian flow and servicing of events on site are approached with optimism.

We also touch on the necessity of modern data centres within urban environments, emphasising their importance in meeting future technological demands while staying true to the area's historic fabric exemplified by "Block A" on Grey Eagle Street which is the third building Morris + Co have designed at Truman Brewery.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Grow Places podcast where we explore the virtuous circle of people, growth and place Brought to you by Grow Places and hosted by our founder, tom Larson. Today we have a special episode recorded on site at the Truman Brewery in East London, where we are excited to work in partnership with the Truman Brewery and local people in Brick Lane, spitalfields and Banglatown.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so here we are at the Truman Brewery, standing in Ellen Gardens, and we're here with the team from Morrison. Co Guys, introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about how you are influencing this site.

Speaker 3:

Hi, I'm Edmund from Morrison Company. I'm a senior associate of the company.

Speaker 4:

Hi, I'm Jonathan Jonathan Chan, morrison Company. I'm an associate at Morrison Company.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic.

Speaker 4:

And yeah, we're here at the Truman Brewery site. We're working on a master plan to redevelop the site behind us. The master plan is led by Buckley Gray. Yeoman and Morrison Company have one building on this master plan site, which is block 3, which is on this corner here.

Speaker 2:

And what does that building do? How are people going to use that in the future, once it's built?

Speaker 4:

Sure. So this building does a lot of things. On the ground floor there's a cinema, an event space, there are shops, there are cafes and restaurants, community art spaces. So it's doing a lot on the ground floor, and on the upper floors it's creative workspaces.

Speaker 2:

Wow, fantastic. Is that part of the affordable workspaces, Tom?

Speaker 5:

Yeah, there'll be an element of affordable workspaces within this building and across the site as a whole, and what Truman have got a really long history of doing, what they intend to continue to do is to support businesses that are small, medium, large and support them on their journey to try and retain businesses on site, and a large number of the businesses here have been here for five plus, sometimes even 10 plus years, and that really strengthens the sense of community on the site. So, yes, as well as the sort of strict boundaries of affordable workspace we've been planning, there'll also just be a kind of general attitude to supporting and nurturing those businesses. And yeah, definitely on this site. This is one of the larger buildings within the master plan in terms of the amount of floor space in one building but that can be divided, and part of the overall ecosystem here at Truman.

Speaker 3:

What's interesting about this building is it reads as two buildings, but really it's one that's connected through a series of bridge links and that's to drive through the connection to Allen Gardens, through to the new yards that have been developed within the master plan, and that connection is really important. On either end of the building you've got a connection through and it also allows the building to split up in more ways than you otherwise might manage and the small building becomes this really beautiful kind of clean floor plate that's really easily divisible in different manners.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's really exciting. We've never done this before at Morrison Company, which is it's essentially two buildings. There's one core in one of the buildings and then bridge links linking to the smaller building. So that smaller building is going to be incredible. It's going to have basically a sort of quadruple aspect space in this building.

Speaker 5:

So that's on this corner, isn't it? Yeah, that's right, this smaller building.

Speaker 2:

And now it in this building. It's going to be so that's so. That's on this corner, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

yeah, that's right, yeah, this smaller building and now it's not just one building on this master plan. Is there something else you might be doing for the Truman Brewery? Uh, we do have two other sites that we're doing for for the Truman Brewery. One is um the Ellie's Yard project and the other one is what's called Block A, which people probably be less familiar with. It's currently a building that's not in use and we're looking to reinvigorate that site and place a new building there.

Speaker 4:

That's a space invader building, by the way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And how do you design a data building?

Speaker 3:

That's actually been one of our biggest challenges to date. We've never as a company we're not like a data center designer but we've brought all of our intelligence and learning from other projects to try and work out how can you really animate something that's technically not animated. You know it doesn't require windows, it's an empty box with blank windows and we've looked at different ways we can generate interest on the site. As Jonathan mentioned, it's got lots of graffiti on it at present, so we're looking to reuse some of that, if we can, but also create a building that, at its lower levels, can really embrace the fact that there's a street art culture in the area and really allow that to happen and the client's really on board with that becoming a canvas to the street, and we think that's quite exciting. Over the years that might change and develop.

Speaker 5:

Well, otherwise it would look completely out of place, right, because everything's so colorful, yeah, and you can see that here in allen gardens and well, obviously, when we we get over there onto the other side of the site, we can have a look specifically at that element in terms of the data center. But it's worth mentioning that truman already have a permission for a data center on this site here. So, running along the southern side of.

Speaker 5:

Buxler Street. On the south side here of Allen Gardens, you can see at the moment it's a blank wall which is some of the old brewery buildings and obviously when the site was a brewery it was very inward looking and the data centre permission didn't do anything to improve that. If anything, it made it worse because it was not a historic sort of inward looking aspect, it was a new building that was blank along the ground floor. So by moving that data centre use somewhere else in the state because we'll talk about it a bit later, but they are. You know we, we all need data in our lives, particularly more and more now. But maybe this is much better as something that's open and that was really the brief for the guys was to think about how do we create a really sort of active front onto allen gardens and all the benefits that come from that?

Speaker 2:

so what happens to this facade then is does that remain, or do you guys knock that down?

Speaker 4:

It's going to be knocked down actually. But we've done an audit of the materials that are being demolished and we're going to try and reuse some of the bricks and try and reuse some of the materials that are being taken down. But we'll probably go in there over to Buxton Street shortly, but you'll see that there's no pavement at all on the southern side of buxton street. So right now you just have sort of cars, that sort of whiz by no pavement space. So from a pedestrian point of view it's not great. And so, with the um, with block for the block three design, what we're doing is we're removing this wall, we're creating a much more generous pavement and we're having sort of restaurants and cafes that look, that look out onto allen gardens. So there'll be a lot more street activity, a lot more of a sort of activated.

Speaker 3:

The building is deliberately and quite generously set back from the red line boundary, so it's instead of being hard up against it, there's been a move to move it away and it steps as you move across the street. Along the street, it steps back to become more generous and set back from the chimney, which is obviously like a great monument of the site fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So really activating the street frontage, is that the right wording? Yeah fantastic for making the street, great to sit and eat, yeah, fantastic. And then you know, so you're going to remove this. And will it be the? Um, the, the office or the commercial space? Um, right there, or will you be?

Speaker 3:

above, above the ground yeah and at some, in some instances, we have a mezzanine layer as well.

Speaker 3:

So in the main building we've got two layers so that we can fit in what's proposed to be a cinema with big cinema screens and be a really like engaging space for you to come with the bar on one of the new corners facing the new square, which is in a square that should host different activities as well, so it'd be really vibrant and interesting space. And then, above that, yeah, what you'll see is is office floor plates, but the office floor plates themselves are. They're animated and interesting. There's terraces on various levels, setbacks to reduce the impact of the mass as we move up the building, and in some key corners of the building we've got some little areas of interest for artwork and so on fantastic, and is that going to be one of the highest buildings on the site at all?

Speaker 3:

yeah, I think it's one of the highest that's proposed at the moment yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that.

Speaker 5:

So, yes, it is one of the one of the larger buildings and I think that's a really important aspect of this development site. Really, you know we're so close to liverpool street, we're in the highest um p-tal, which is the accessibility um score that every area of london gets um because it's close to liverpool Street, as I say, but also Shoreditch High Street station, bus links, pedestrian links and cycle links. So identifying the site is a really key part of that brief. And yeah, the buildings that we're proposing are equivalent height to taller buildings in the constant elevation area which are the brewery buildings themselves. And you know, that aspect to the park is something that, as Edmund was saying particularly there about this kind of layering that we're looking to do to kind of introduce an element of distance between the park and the building, but while still building responsibly with the land.

Speaker 2:

And what kind of materials are we talking? I mean sort of what's it going to look like on the outside?

Speaker 4:

so it's going to be a brick building, a brick and concrete building. Really, as part of our process we look a lot at the context and what the buildings are made out of in the, in the sort of historical context, and we're finding that brick is a predominant material. So it seems pretty obvious to make it a brick building if we want it to be sort of contextual. But what we've done is we've been looking, we've been studying quite hard at the sort of the tones of the existing brickwork. So looking at the existing brickwork in the boiler house in block H of the Truman Brewery and collating this sort of collection of tones and colours and therefore sort of choosing new tones that will complement those existing ones.

Speaker 2:

So picking up those colours and running them through, and just for context for people who don't work on it, block H is the existing historic frontage onto Block H is the long one over there on the. The cream-coloured. Why don't we take a walk and walk there, yeah great. That's the best way to see it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, it's a very forensic exercise. We try not to just, you know, point at a yellow brick and point at a red brick. It goes much more deep than that and we try and develop the whole. We call it taxonomy of the area, which is just a way of categorizing different elements what the windows are like, what the proportions are like, what the materials are doing. Is the area predominantly brick or concrete or precast? What's the overriding, you know, rhythm of the area? Is it big buildings, small buildings? That's right. You keep going, keep going, keep going and eventually you start to, you know, and from walking around the area you get an understanding of what might actually work, depending on what kind of building you're wanting to develop and deliver. And in this case, as Jonathan says, we've, we've looked at something that feels quite of the area and respects the history and tradition of the area through the use and kind of treatment of the materiality.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and how are you predicting? You know, um, I mean a long, a long, sorry. A big part of our sort of what we need to do, of the brief, is to project sort of long into the future that you know what you're designing is going to be fit for purpose in 20, 30, maybe even 400 years.

Speaker 4:

We were joking that 400 years might be the brief, but you know how are you designing for the future, as it were well, I think, when you're designing workplace buildings, it's important to to think about that question, about about future adaptability, and so what this really is is a sort of modern version of the Victorian warehouse. So it's a building that's designed, but it's not overly designed. It allows things to happen. We're thinking about floor to ceiling heights, thinking about how the building is constructed structurally so that the building can, in future, be adapted you know, floor plates being taken out in future or or put back in. So we're looking at, looking at a building that's going to be pre-cast concrete structure with beams and and slabs that can be removed and timber slabs that can be removed, and this sort of sense of adaptability is really important when, when designing a new building.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we've. We've. You know the client's been quite keen to to push the idea of longevity and adaptability and we we have undertaken studies where we've looked at, well, what if one day this was to become a residential building and and so on, and studies like that. And again I think we talked about earlier, how might the building divide up in different ways. So with a commercial building, you don't know necessarily at this stage if it's going to be one large tenant that comes in and takes the floors or is it going to actually serve lots of little businesses and smaller businesses, which might be more appropriate for this area. So we've made sure the building's very flexible and can accommodate all those different types of uses.

Speaker 2:

And what about the sustainability credentials? I mean, that's obviously going to have to be a huge factor as well. How has this been designed that you know it can serve everyone, as well as the planet?

Speaker 3:

It's been a very, very thorough process and we've worked really closely with Arup engineers to really push the boundaries of, to go beyond kind of what's considered best practice and really look at future proofing it. So you know, the buildings are fully naturally ventilated, the floor plates have been optimized, the structure, as Jonathan said, is very efficient. It uses timber and precast. It can be demountable. What else have we done?

Speaker 4:

So when you're talking about the building's impact on the planet, you're talking about carbon, essentially, and there's embodied carbon, which is all the carbon that goes into the materials in the construction, and then there's operational carbon, which is the energy expended during the building's use.

Speaker 4:

So, in terms's operational carbon, which is the energy expended during the building's use, so in terms of embodied carbon, we've been really lean with the materials, as Ed says, the structure's been optimized. The beams are only as thick as they need to be and we're using as much timber as we can sort of regenerative materials. We're using as much timber as we can sort of regenerative materials. And then, in terms of the operational carbon, as Ed says, it's a naturally ventilated building. So, with our engineers, arup, we've worked hard to design the building, the building shape, to enable natural ventilation to happen, and this is something that you know they've pushed us on and that's been a really great sort of collaborative process where we've been designing this building from what they call first principles, which is getting the shape right, which enables air to flow through. Yeah, that's been great.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, traditionally you might develop a large floor plate office building and the developer might just assume that you ventilate it mechanically, and that has been the sort of school of thought for quite a long time. But moving beyond that, you have to think about the depth of the building. Can you get ventilation naturally into the middle of the building? That's something we're doing here which is really interesting and has kind of pushed us to think about the building slightly differently. The core gets larger, so the efficiency is slightly lower than you might normally have in a commercial building of this nature.

Speaker 2:

but the client's been really keen to actually embrace that to future-proof this building so we're promoting natural daylight over electronic light, for example, potentially, and fresh air over air conditioning, which, as we know, you know, can contribute to the co2s yeah, yeah ands, yeah, and we've come inside the site now.

Speaker 5:

We were just on the other side of this wall in the park, but we're only 100 metres from Brick Lane and, as I said, probably 10 minutes more from Liverpool Street, and it's dead quiet here, the air quality is amazing.

Speaker 5:

As I said, it's very quiet, it's very relaxing and that allows us to promote some of these ideas about just open the windows, you know, control the temperature that way, um, and then that actually having a positive impact on the public realm that we're proposing as well, so that you kind of don't feel like you have these kind of corporate sealed boxes. It's much more about people living, working, enjoying the space, kind of being integrated and having that connection between the buildings but also between the ground, what's happening ground and what's happening above, and you can see that in the the way that the building approaches the yards, can't you?

Speaker 3:

yeah, absolutely so. On the smaller of the two buildings the building that's over there the entire south face of that building is being given over to external terraces, so that not only does that work really well operationally because it protects the building from too much direct sunlight, but it also provides people using the building with fantastic outdoor space to use and to go out and just take a breath of fresh air and take a break from looking at their screen.

Speaker 2:

So the tall part, if I may, is going to be over here or over there.

Speaker 4:

The tallest part of block three is going to be pretty much where I'm standing. Essentially, the tallest part of the building is about here. The heights of the building step down to the eastern side. And they also step down towards the chimney as well and the shape of the building. The massing is set back away from the chimney to enable the chimney to sort of breeze on the skyline.

Speaker 2:

Great and how will the building sort of meet the public realm and the urban sort of these spaces here that you know for the viewers at home? I guess the bits that anyone can go into and sit and enjoy Maybe they're basking in the sun or maybe they're having a coffee. You know what kind of impact is that going to create for the space in here?

Speaker 5:

Yeah, let's walk and talk, because then you can. Yeah, sure, we can try, and let's try and map it out where we are so we're still under the building here inside the building, so we're inside we're in the cinema.

Speaker 4:

This is incredible we're in the cinema right now. We've just watched the latest marvel spider-man 27 interesting spider 7. Yeah, that's right so now we're moving out onto Chimney Yard. Okay, so Chimney Yard is going to be roughly here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Chimney Yard. There are two sort of major yards in the new master plan, okay, chimney Yard over here and Cupridge Yard over there. So shortly we'll have a look at the Cupridge building, which is beautiful. Chimney Yard is more the events yard. It's sort of more formal in character. It's going to have the cinema entrance, like fronting onto this yard, so it's going to have lots of sort of activity around the yard. But also the yard itself is going to be really well utilized. There's going to be lots of seating, there's sort of going to be awnings, there's going to be lots of planting as well. So we've been working really hard with space up the um, the landscape architects, to really green up these spaces. So, um, so that you know when you, when you're in these spaces, you know not only is there a lot of greenery to look at, but it's also greenery for shading as well and for air quality.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and really important, I guess, as we move forward through climate change and need more shade and shelter et cetera. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I suppose, the buildings. Even though it's a commercial building, the actual entrance to that commercial building is only one structural bay wide. It's. You know, it's only about seven meters wide, but the whole circumference of the building is given over as much as it can be to public uses. Yeah, cinema, cafes, bars, restaurants and all of all of those are also looking at absolutely maximizing every little space we can. So wherever we've been able to push a subsidiary use of the office in, then we try and create an active space, yeah, for the public, and that's been a very thorough exercise. It's the whole master plan, kind of working together to work out what's the best place for all of these different uses. And you know so often the building. You just get to design one building and you do the best you can for that site. But this has been working with different architects, different collaborators and taking on their advice and helping the whole space work together holistically so so designing sort of the ground floor user experience really with it's been.

Speaker 4:

It's been a lot of fun because you know we're basically essentially what we're doing is we're designing an extension of Brick Lane, these new yards, all the new passages, the new lanes. In terms of feel, we want it to just be seamless with what already exists. So for block three, what we've done is we've taken a look, we've done a study of lots of different shop units on Dray Walk, on Brick Lane. We've measured everything up, we've created these little kind of cute little physical models to really understand the character and the space, the sort of, the scale of these spaces. And so all of these studies, hopefully we can show you as well some of these models. But all of these studies inform the proposal for the ground floor plane, ie proportions of openings, heights of doors and things like that, so that architecturally it's sort of seamless as you walk from Brick Lane to here.

Speaker 2:

I love that idea of the extension of Brick Lane. I mean, the more Brick Lane we have in our lives, the better. Right. It conjures up such a fantastic image in our heads and we all understand cool. Just more of the good stuff.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, but in a really much more contemporary setting, I think, um yeah, and one that hopefully, I'm sure, will bring through that character as well. And, and you know, we we were talking to space hub and they were talking about not sterilizing anything. You know that's the last thing we want to do is strip anything of its character. It has to sort of speak to the existing way that people are living and working in these spaces.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so where we are right now is you really get a sense of the change there will be, because here, you know, we're surrounded by industrial, former industrial buildings, but over here, you know, behind there is the gardens that were it previously. There's obviously zero connection. You wouldn't even know they were there if you came from the south. So by driving that route through the buildings and with the building being connected with bridges above, we're going to create this really amazing and interesting route through, which will be a very unique little slice of London, and we're really keen to not just do ground spaces but to work with different scales of spaces, Because if you walk through Brick Lane, some of the most exciting spaces are the ones where you know, this is a little bit tight and interesting, or?

Speaker 3:

Dray Walk. You know a very good example of something that in the hustle and bustle of the sunshine there's people sitting around. It's just this really, really rich and vivid space. We really want to bring that to this development, not to create something that otherwise you know. Potentially you get these grand spaces that can feel a bit sterile. There's not enough people. This is absolutely the opposite of that. That's been pushed at every step of the way by all of the different design team.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely, and sort of bestowing different characters on the different parts of the master plan. So I mentioned chimney yard back over there. Now we're standing in Cooperage Yard, which is the smaller, it's more domestic in scale, it's a lot greener. Actually there's going to be a little pocket park kind of next to that chimney there. It's going to be amazing. So if you envisage that chimney there behind that chimney is going to be the smaller of the block, three buildings, and then just to the left of it is a new thoroughfare to Allen Gardens, as Edmund said, and in this thoroughfare you're going to have these bridges that sort of fly over your head. So this passage, what we're calling Kew Bridge Passage, is a really exciting space. It's quite a sort of unique space in that these passages, these, these uh, these, these passages fly overhead. They're very reminiscent of, um, the entrance to dray walk. You know, you kind of have those, those two bridges, one over, one over your head as you go into dray walk, and then the other, um, across, sort of across brick lane.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah so that kind of feeling of things flying over your head um, that's, that's gonna what, that's what's gonna happen there and and these bridges, they're going to be inhabited by people On the tops of these bridges. It enables more external amenity space for people in the offices to sort of step out onto the bridges and be able to look south and north towards Allen Gardens. And in terms of the architectural language of these bricks themselves, they're quite industrial in character. So from the bridges you'll be able to see the sort of overground bridge, the big steel yeah.

Speaker 4:

And the bridges themselves have this sort of truss-like kind of architectural language.

Speaker 2:

So they mimic what's existing in the area. Sort of riffing on okay you mentioned that you were going to try and salvage as much of the wall, the existing brick wall, as possible and then reuse that in the space. What other materials are you or sort of methodologies, ways are you designing that that might help kind of reuse what we have here on the site?

Speaker 4:

uh, well, as I said there's, there's been a huge audit of all the materials in all the buildings basically. So we've kind of got the shopping list of steel beams, kind of metal cladding bricks, these gates, where are they? Yeah, there's a gate with a sort of Salvador Dali oh the blue gate yeah, the blue one, yeah, ok, so the plan is to reuse that gate and we're going to try and hang it off an existing steel beam that's going to come from Block U, yeah, from this one here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So just trying to reuse as much material as possible, I suppose it brings an element of fun and sort of serendipity into the building as well again not being too strict or sterile, as architects might be seen to be sometimes of actually embracing what can we use and what happens if we throw that against a building or between two buildings? And how does this all start to come together and perhaps actually create something richer than if we were just to design something completely new and standalone? And that's the ethos and that's been what we've been trying to push as much as we can.

Speaker 2:

Will you clean the graffiti off first?

Speaker 3:

No, oh no. Why do we do that?

Speaker 2:

So that's going to be part of it is it?

Speaker 5:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 5:

It's about retaining as much of that spirit as we can, and whether that's through new interventions or whether it's through reuse and it's important to remember that this is, although this is part of the truman brewery estate in terms of the ownership, where we're standing now, this isn't public.

Speaker 5:

You don't come in here unless there's a specific event on it's actually closed private site. As you can see, there's um operations and management functions here, but we will be counter to that. We will be standing in a truly new, vibrant public space and series of public spaces, which is, you know, there's not many opportunities to do this in cities like London these days, to really have that impact of turning something fundamentally private into something sort of openly public. And as we walk now back towards Dray Walk, some of those references that that Ed and Jonathan were picking up on we'll be able to see. And the other two buildings that we're going to talk about here with Morris Company are more insertions into the live areas of the site, if you want to call it that. They're already public facing aspects of the site. And that brings, you know, some of the same considerations, doesn't it?

Speaker 5:

but also some interesting new perspectives as well.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's a really interesting point about this space we're in, because I honestly didn't really know it was a space at all.

Speaker 3:

It's completely private. It's completely walled off and it's such a central part of the city and it is such an incredible and rare opportunity to have a plot this large to be redeveloped, opened up to the public and absolutely maximise what it can be. And I think that you know we're really excited to be part of the journey the Truman Brewery is going on to open this up and develop it for the future.

Speaker 2:

Is this sort of one of your most complex sites, or is it straightforward?

Speaker 3:

Oh no, it's definitely, definitely one of the more complex ones. Yeah, of course, as I mentioned before it's it's not a standalone building. It's working with a series of other architects and design teams to bring different designs together and how they sit together, how do they feel together, the scale of them, the interaction of them, and positioning a building where we are adjacent to the park and on the corner of the master plan has been a real challenge for us. To find the right language, the right massing, the right form and an overall approach of the building to really, you know, maximise what we think is a very rare and amazing opportunity.

Speaker 4:

And also you know that the other challenges that we've faced on this project is that you know, block three is the largest plot on the master plan site and you know, on a master plan site like this, there are infrastructural considerations that need to be taken into account, for example, a loading bay. Where do you get your deliveries? Where is the logistics hub? Because, because we happen to be the largest site, all of that, all of the all of that stuff, all of that infrastructural stuff that makes the master plan tick, goes into block three. It's sort of placed on that corner there. But we've tried to be quite playful about it. You know, we've accepted that there is a loading bay. We've literally just walked through a loading bay here. What we're doing is we're not shutting it off, we're actually creating these picture windows into the loading bay, so that people can actually see this height for kids.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, right.

Speaker 4:

We've got a series of picture windows into the loading bay and they're all orientated at different heights, so you've got some for adults, some for kids, so everybody can look in to see the functionality of the master plan site.

Speaker 5:

You can see now we're on Dray Walk and the vibrancy of the place, but also just how tight it is. You've got people walking.

Speaker 5:

We've had to stop to allow this group through, but in sort of traditional urban planning terms that would be seen as a negative thing. But actually it's real character, full of the area and something that is worth celebrating and trying to hang on to. So you know the feel of the new development. It should feel very much of shimaburi, but it should also feel very much of brick lane, spit films, of bangladesh town. Yeah and um, we're not trying to, we're not trying to create a pastiche, we're not trying to sort of, you know, absolutely replicate what is already here, because this is unique. We're trying to create something equally interesting but that feels really, really of that place.

Speaker 5:

And as we we move down Dray Walk towards, towards Ely's Yard. This may be a good aspect here, isn't it? Because you get to see the view all the way along. Yeah, new Dray Walk, which is already consented. That's part of the Woodrow Street scheme, it's really consented. We're on Dray Walk now and then now we're looking west back towards Ely's Yard, in the foreground Block A, behind that, with the Invader and the Shepherd Ferry artwork on it, and beyond to the towers of Liverpool Street and the City of London. Maybe, ed, this is a good point to talk about Ellie's Yard.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean this is one of the key views that we've been thinking about the whole time designing the Ellie's Yard building. Stray Walk is such an amazing thoroughfare. The connection between the two parts of the master plan is really key and at the ground floor level here there'll be an entrance and then the building will sit, kind sit just where we're looking. It sits to the north of Ellie's yard. Currently on the site there's this buffalo wings, there's various food stalls and so on, and where the footprint of the building goes, we're looking to be super generous with as much as we can to open that up and make that public facing, be that for food trucks, be that for events. So the yard extends into the building, so you get covered yard space and you get the current open yard space. So the building's not working against what's there but actually enhances what's there and optimises what's there.

Speaker 3:

A lot of the current uses of the yard are quite chaotic. There's toilets, there's hoardings, there's all sorts going on. It's really back-of-house functions and what the building enables us to do is place some of those away from the public, hide them away, be that below ground or to the periphery of the site, and then really open this up for the public. So this is a really amazing opportunity this site to really develop LATR for the future and to enhance it, not just to create more of the same, but to create something that complements what's already there. And we think the internal yard space can be really amazing. It's kind of eight metres tall space, just very simple, very large grid concrete columns in there and very flexible space that can be used for a whole load of different kind of public events.

Speaker 2:

So where does the data center fit into all of this?

Speaker 3:

So the data center is the building behind, which is really on the other side of that brick wall. So currently we couldn't walk there, you'd have to go all the way around, and it takes on that building there that's been empty for about 35 years or so I can see the broken windows.

Speaker 3:

So we've been in there with the client and with Tom and we've seen the state of the building. Because it used to be a storehouse for the brewery. They had to take off the roofs, we think, to remove some of the really large vats that were used there. That's left it without a roof for about 30 years. So inside it kind of looks like a deserted kind of forest. It's like something out of the Walking Dead in there. It's very interesting, but it's meant the building structure is really battered and bruised.

Speaker 3:

So although we have looked at the options for retention of that building, it's not really feasible for moving that site forward into the future. So the building now it takes on some of the language of the building. So at lower levels we have similar banding. We're also looking at the graffiti on the building. Can we keep some of that, reuse some of the language of the building? So at lower levels we have similar banding. We're also looking at the graffiti on the building. Can we keep some of that, reuse some of that? Can we create a building that's a canvas for more graffiti in the future? And at upper levels we're creating something that's just something that represents the city. It's something interesting as you walk around. It plays with rhythm and verticality and there's some moments that speak to the city in kind of various slightly abstract ways that we think are quite interesting.

Speaker 2:

So what do you mean by that? Is it an artwork or an architectural design of a wall?

Speaker 3:

So the lower levels, I think it's very simple architecture, that is, can enhance all of the street art and so on. And at upper levels we're using a very thin, very light, slightly reflective metal material and we're playing with the rhythm and we're inserting different shapes into that so that it feels a little bit, a little bit fun and interesting and you wouldn't be quite sure if you were walking around. You wouldn't think why is there a data center here? You wouldn't know what it was. Just be like, what's that interesting building that's sort of shimmering in the distance behind the master plan?

Speaker 4:

it's quite a structural sculptural thing, isn't it yeah? Yeah, it's a sort of brick plinth, not akin to what's there already, but on top of it it's sort of the sculptural metal sort of object.

Speaker 3:

It's kind of a rare opportunity, because buildings are so much about fenestration, they're so much about the windows and the openings and the rhythm that creates, whereas if you design a building in the absence of that, what do you do? You know, it could just be a blank box, but that would be really dull and uninteresting. It wouldn't feel inspired in the way that we feel inspired by the area and doing a building in the area.

Speaker 2:

So that's why we've really challenged ourselves to come up with something quite unique and there's highly technical work that needs to go into a data center as well.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely yeah, and vibrations.

Speaker 2:

I mean Tom's already mentioned we're in the middle of really fantastic sort of transportation links here. Inevitably, there's a lot of stuff happening beneath us yeah. So, you know you've got to get the engineering right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So on the data center we're working in very, very close collaboration with Arup. They're helping on the actual technical data center side of things. So the layouts and how that all works, and our focus has really been the narrative of the building, the form of the building, the appearance of the building and the facade of the building, and working together I think we'll hopefully create something which is a kind of pioneering level of data center for the future for a city center site.

Speaker 5:

Fantastic, yeah, and we'll wander over there in a second and we can have a look at that. But you're also there's going to be a new connection through onto Grey Eagle Street from the yard which at the moment, obviously, this is a closed space within the confines of the brewery, and block A actually was a piece of land separate from the main brewery site, so outside of the brewery walls, if you want to call it that, but we're kind of inside the brewery walls now and there's a really unique character to that that we're trying to preserve but also think about. Well, can extra routes in be beneficial for the Truman site but also for the adjacent streets? And then what does that do to this public space? Because, yes, there's a building going here, roughly where these, as Ed says, these kind of sort of ad hoc food trucks and toilets and generators are. That all gets kind of formalized and replaced in a new building which, which I can talk about.

Speaker 5:

But then how does that then address the the yard? Because we're very, very aware about you know how fondly this space is held in a lot of people's minds. You knowically, there was a building here. There used to be a brewery building on this site as well, but that's some time ago. Most people's living memory it's an interesting kind of centrepiece to the experience of being on Truman. So how do we enhance that really?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a space that's very dynamic, like right now we can see it's used for logistics. You know there's big trucks, there's lorries, there's constant movement, there's people kind of coordinating the pedestrian flow and how that works. The yard will still serve those purposes, but with the building here there'll be a sort of dedicated internal yard space that will always be kind of accessible. And there's a perfect example.

Speaker 4:

Perfect example. Well done, edmund.

Speaker 5:

So let's try not to get run over as we move down here.

Speaker 2:

It's a big challenge with this podcast is mostly not getting hit by a car at some point.

Speaker 5:

But this is a key example of that isn't it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it is. So the management of that and how that works is something that's been looked at as part of the positioning of the new building. And, as Tom says, we're aware that this is a very fondly looked at yard. It serves at the weekend, you have great events here and so on, so it's really protecting that use and, we think, enhancing it with the very generous internal space as well. So the two complement one another, because if you look at the yard, it's quite broken down, quite bitty. It's evolved over time, whereas if you take a holistic view, you could think how can I enhance what's there? How can we improve it? How can we make certain elements of it much more efficient? How can we hide away the dirt and you know the dirt and the detritus and put those inside of the new building somewhere? How can the bins be serviced better? How can all you know, all of these different components come together to create, you know, a new ellies yard that works um, hopefully, we hope, even better into the future yeah.

Speaker 4:

So yeah it's. I think it's about sort of tightening up that sort of sort of logistical question about how Ellie's Yard functions, but then it's also about the character. You know, Ellie's Yard is such a well-loved space in London, I think. Actually even with the addition of the new building it's about preserving that character. I think the feeling of the yard is going to be quite similar. It's still going to be, you know, trucks moving around, logistics, just sort of very sort of haphazard in nature.

Speaker 2:

I'd love to know, when you sit down together and sort of solve the challenges of this space, how do you want people to feel when they're here in five years time, ten years time? What does that look like for you as designers?

Speaker 3:

oh uh. It's a very challenging question. I suppose you don't know how things will evolve and people use spaces, but I hope that we will. We'll create a building, as I say, that formalizes some of the informal manner of the yard at the moment, but it it allows all of that kind of informal spill and different uses of the space people just sitting on curbs and the street sides to all still all still happen while also creating this new, quite, quite amazing internal space that can also be used for different events or to hide from the rainfall, which we know is there kind of 80 of the air in Britain, as we've experienced over the last couple of weeks yeah yeah, I think people, we would like people to sort of feel like these new buildings that are being provided are still very much of the area, consistent with the area, so let's say that they don't feel alien.

Speaker 4:

It's not like we're building glass blocks that are on the other side of that street. We're working quite hard to introduce architecture. That is very much of the area.

Speaker 3:

You almost want the building to be there and for people to feel like, oh okay, this just feels like it was before, but actually I can use these other spaces. They've done this, they've done that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, created these new connections.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, one of the key was we just had to walk around the entire block, whereas now, as part of working on these two buildings is we'll open up the wall right here so that we can create a desire line which goes straight through this way, kind of east-west to Commercial Street. So people will be able to get to the Truman Brewery directly this way and also for those residential areas which are up here to the north and to the west, they'll be able to come straight into the Truman Brewery and access all of the amazing amenities on offer over there. That's kind of key component to improving the current way the yard functions, we think yeah, because we're now, as Ed says, on that little walk we've just done.

Speaker 5:

We're now outside of the brewery wall, as it was per se, which is this amazingly colourful, vibrant surface here. On the other side of this is Elie's Yard and those food trucks that we referred to, and then somewhere around here, Ed is where this new passage yeah, it's just around here and then there'll be a ramp as well, so that it's all level access for any wheelchair users.

Speaker 3:

And we are totally imagining that the new part of the building at ground floor is pretty blanked off, so it can be a new canvas here for the future as well.

Speaker 2:

Of course. What's going to happen to this bridge here?

Speaker 3:

So the bridge we are planning to retain. The bridge is a really interesting piece of infrastructure and we feel like it would be a shame to remove it. It feels very much of the space. It historically connected, obviously, these two buildings but now does not connect them. It's like a blank wall at one end. So it's really a remaining piece of infrastructure which harks back to the past and we're planning to retain it so our new building will profit up. And the juxtaposition between the new build and where it hits our building we think is kind of really interesting, unique piece of architecture and, you know, it feels like something worth celebrating.

Speaker 4:

It's a great piece of wayfinding, we feel so. You know, this is Grey Eagle Street. It's pretty quiet but a lot of people coming down from Shoreditch High Street will be coming down this road and hopefully going through the new entrance that we're opening up there. And actually this bit of infrastructure is almost a greeting from Truman Brewery. It's in the very recognizable sort of concrete and brick materiality of the brewery and it's a sort of hello really. So we thought it would have been a shame to demolish this bridge.

Speaker 2:

A bit like the other side of Dray Walk.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, exactly, you can see you know, the brewery here has got a really long history. You know, 350 years or so there's been a brewery on Truman's site, but actually the majority of the large buildings so this one behind us here, the bridge to the derelict building here and actually the buildings on the other side you can tell they're all out of the same brick. They were all built around the same time, I think in the 70s. Most of the larger brewery buildings were built here and then that adds a character to the area.

Speaker 5:

As the guys were saying, in urban planning terms you would never really be able to justify doing this today in terms of building over a street like this, but the fact that it exists is something quite interesting and of the area and this building behind us here is one of the existing brewing builders. That's actually a data center already and there's actually a couple of other data centers on site as well, hidden within the, the, the um, the other large buildings on site, um, and again, I don't think if you ask many people who experience truman brewery, they wouldn't know that data sets were there and it doesn't really affect their experience. They probably wouldn't um sort of react either way. And um, yeah, but that is the large data center here, and then we're proposing on this site, here adjacent to the existing data center, that there is a a new building here which provides that use is it?

Speaker 2:

why would we build a data center in the middle of london? Is that the best use of this space, or is it what the client wants? Therefore, it's what has to happen no.

Speaker 5:

So we definitely need data centers.

Speaker 5:

Everyone knows how much they use their phone, use their devices, know how much server power is used by the cloud for storing things.

Speaker 5:

We're only at the tip of the iceberg of artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles and all of those other use cases that will require a massive amount of data storage in urban areas, around urban areas. So there is definitely a needs case for that from the, the kind of the, the operator demand side, in terms of the customer side, in terms of the, the planning position, as we mentioned already, there's a permission for a large data center over on the facing allen gardens and that doesn't really contribute a great deal to allen gardens. The data center we're proposing here is smaller than that one and is located adjacent to the other data centres. So in kind of land use terms, but also in actually a needs case, I think it's quite a strong position for that. Now, clearly, you know, other uses for this site or for other sites may deliver different benefits, whether that's more activity, whether that's more housing, more workspace. But as part of a mixed-use scheme, which this is, which is delivering a huge number of different uses, different public benefits, we see this as part of that mix really.

Speaker 2:

So presumably this is going to be the coolest data centre in London.

Speaker 3:

I hope so. Who knows? I suppose at ground floor level you probably won't really realise it's a data centre. It'll be covered in graffiti, it'll change over time, there'll be people going in and out, it'll look like they're doing a job of some kind that you're not sure about and there'll be graffiti all over the building that will be changing all the time.

Speaker 5:

My answer is much worse this time. Yeah, I think coolness is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? If you're a 15-year-old computer science student, a tour around that would be a pretty good way to spend a Saturday.

Speaker 2:

The inside and the outside, exactly.

Speaker 5:

But in different senses, maybe not so much, but I think we see it as something, you know, really really beneficial, but we're not dismissing the fact that you know it will in some senses, you know, not be maybe as active as other uses could be. But actually, when you look at this as a site as a whole, the success of this site, of this place, already happens with these uses and actually some of these, these so-called inactive frontages as you can see from from the artwork and the way that people kind of inhabit and take them on can actually become something, something really interesting in their own right in some ways this, I mean this site has been inactive for a long time and it's been almost well used in a weird sort of way, through the walls, becoming indoctrinated, different graffiti everywhere, helch everywhere and all the others.

Speaker 3:

And the new building will continue that. In a lot of ways It'll be two stories, very similar height and it'll be a very similar kind of canvas for people to do graffiti on. Then the upper levels are where it changes and it becomes something a little bit more sculptural, a little bit more looking and thinking about the city in the background and you know, the upper levels of existing buildings, which are using metal of different varieties and and tones and levels of reflectability, reflect the fences everywhere. There's all of these different contextual references that come in to the top of the building and try to make it something sculptural, interesting, something that you're not quite sure what it is you're seeing as you walk through the city, but it might just pique your interest, you might think, oh, that's a really interesting background, what's going on there?

Speaker 4:

And it becomes this more the upper levels are more about the medium and the city scale of the building as you walk around the building, I think in terms of the character of the ground floor level. You know this is Grey Eagle Street, I think from this street between here and Commercial, it's pretty quiet. It's a quiet residential area and actually I think to introduce coffee shops and sort of you know huge retail here would probably be the wrong move. Actually, sort of retaining the quietness of this, of this area, is actually probably yeah, and you can see that.

Speaker 5:

You know, maybe if we we have a wanderer down here, you'll be able to see that change.

Speaker 5:

Um, it's worth saying as well that adjacent to our site here you've got a very large telephone exchange which is a bt property.

Speaker 5:

Um, so this, this sort of urban course around here is quite diverse. You know, you've got the brewery buildings, you've got, as I say, the large kind of infrastructural pieces which this proposal would kind of form part of. And then, as Edmund and Jonathan were saying, we're now on Calvin Street and as we move west along Calvin Street up towards Commercial Street, you see there's actually then, um, some really lovely kind of quite quiet residential streets that are that are here, that we're addressing as well. So behind behind me here along this, this is the, the edge of the site, here, essentially this, this party wall, so we'll be infilling this here um which, you know, these kind of edge spaces between the pavement, which is essentially the public land, and then the private land of the site. You know, there's much better ways that we can deal with this hedge condition than is there currently. And so we think, yeah, that's an aspiration. Very much of the project is to make the building feel like it stitches back in some of these street passes.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, the pavement gets quite narrow here, so the building steps back a little bit so that we get at least two metres around the whole building and it doesn't create these slightly strange spaces that are behind a chain but not really used.

Speaker 3:

One of the things that we're looking at on this elevation this elevation that we're looking at now is the adjacent residential building and the rhythm of that and also the historic residential that used to be on the site here, and we're playing with the rhythm of those windows and the scale of those windows and creating an imprint, a sort of a texture on our building that references that in kind of different subtle ways. And we're playing with the juxtaposition of that and also the requirements of the data centre to create a kind of rich layering rather than just something that's only one idea and quite flat.

Speaker 4:

So in the 19th century this terrace would have continued to that corner, to where that sort of concrete upstand is. That's pretty much the line of the old street. So really, what we're doing is we're bringing that back, reintroducing that old proportion.

Speaker 3:

So the height of the lower, the plinth, as we call it, is basically the same height as these residential buildings. So that goes across and meets, and then the upper levels are set quite far, quite far back from that you can see that people have terraces up here and I'm sort of half wondering what's gonna.

Speaker 2:

Will there be an extension that is publicly accessible on the top of the building or I mean unfortunately because of the, the use of a data center.

Speaker 3:

It's very high security. It's, I think I think there's like five levels of security before you can get in. So although we have, we have talked about and we like the idea of creating public terraces or accessibility with this type of building, it's not, it's not really suitable. So those uses are all crammed into the other buildings as much as we can, but the building does step back significantly and what we're doing on those terraces is we're trying to plant them as much as we can so they'll be these real biodiverse spaces. They also they'll give kind of interesting greenery as you look around. Can we get trees up there, as much planting as possible as what we're pushing for these large terraces, to make the spaces kind of interesting and feel really very vibrant and green so planting alongside plant plant.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, planting in the plant.

Speaker 2:

Thank you both so much for your time today and for walking us through everything you're going to impact and touch and change and improve on the Truman Brewery redevelopment site. It's been a real pleasure and you brought the sunshine. You're the first people that we've interviewed who have brought some sunshine along with you, so thanks so much, Ed Jonathan.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for your time, thank you, thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you for listening to the grow places podcast. For more information, visit growplacescom and follow us at. We grow places across all social channels. See you next time.