Thames & Hudson’s new London HQ heroes its books
Thames & Hudson has a new London HQ designed by Vertus Designworks and MarshKeene architects.
The book publisher has moved from an office in Holborn’s old Post Office building into the 16,000-sq-ft former Gagosian gallery in King’s Cross.
The company had been at its last base for 25 years, but wanted a new London home that allowed for more collaboration between departments and which better showcased its publications.
The previous office – designed by architects John McAslan & Partners – was over five floors and featured exposed services, and exposed ply, says Vertus Designworks’ head of design, Max Crichton.
“The staff were siloed in small cubicles, and there wasn’t much cross-departmental collaboration,” he says.
The Gagosian on Britannia Street closed in 2023 after two decades. A gallery of vast proportions, its biggest room was 28m long and almost 6m high.
Vertus, a design and build construction firm, had already transformed the space into a basic shell and core CAT A fit-out with architects Stanton Williams, installing polished concrete floors, timber-lined mezzanines, and exposed services.
Vertus’ design arm, Vertus Designworks, was then brought into design the interiors for Thames & Hudson.
“We developed the spatial strategy, the look and feel and layout,” says Crichton, while MarshKeene handled the design details and technical drawings. The finishes and colour palette were a joint effort.
As part of the remodelling, a mezzanine was installed to give more floor space. In order to bring some trees in, holes were cut in the mezzanine, which was then extended, to make up for the lost space.
The display of books was a key consideration, so that they could be seen easily by clients and authors. A leading publisher of illustrated books, Thames & Hudson has more than 2,000 titles in print.
A set of bookcases that stands in the town hall area was brought over from the High Holborn office. And there are bookshelves lining the ‘street’ or spine of the building, where books are displayed with their front covers on show.
The previous office had been designed with fixed desks – each person typically having a dedicated space. Here, it is mostly open-plan hot-desking. Some departments, including international rights and children’s books, are clustered in zones on the mezzanine.
On the ground floor, designers hot-desk in the double-height space, and sales and HR also have their own “neighbourhoods.”
“The ambition is that nobody has a permanent desk, because they want to promote cross-departmental collaboration,” Crichton says. A few of the most senior people have private offices. In total the lay-out provides seating for 180 people.
The office incorporates the colour palette of Thames & Hudson’s dolphin mosaic. Founded in 1949 by an Austrian and a German émigré, the company’s name was chosen to reflect its international ambitions and references the rivers of London and New York.
That idea was represented in its logo by two dolphins, symbolising friendship and intelligence, one facing east, one west, suggesting a transatlantic connection.
The designers selected an olive green from the mosaic for the bookshelves and the frames of the glazed partitions. The walls are painted an off-white typical of art galleries. Clayworks plaster – a natural clay textured material – was applied to add a sense of warmth under the mezzanine, and on the entrance areas above the cladding in ash on the lower parts of the walls.
That was added as a nod to Stanton Williams’ ash balustrade on the mezzanine, and the joinery is also ash. The reception desk is recycled plastic from Smith Plastics.
“It’s pared back and neutral to allow the books to shout,” Crichton says.
The client brought in soft furnishings such as the semi-circular grey sofa and the colourful chairs in the kitchen and meeting rooms, designed to add a sense of fun.
Meanwhile, the dolphin mosaic, which started life on the doorstep of Thames & Hudson’s Bloomsbury office is now on the wall of the Britannia Street foyer.