We are an ambitious and dynamic team of designers, researchers and critical thinkers. We are confident and passionate about the work that we do, a culture that has grown out of the varied and diverse voices within. Our studio is open, thoughtful and inclusive, encouraging people to develop and progress throughout their careers.

Architectural Assistants

Architectural Assistant

LSE Bankside House

Oliver's Yard

Architects

Architect

A Temporary House for a House
Andy Groarke

Reflections on Teaching
Andy Groarke 

Taking Care of Matters
The Berlage, TU Delft 

Permanence is a Privilege
Andy Groarke, Kevin Carmody

Directors and Senior Team

Founding Director 

Senior Architect

London Wall Buildings

Warnford Court 

Architect 

British Library, Boston Spa 

Nea Paphos Mosaic Shelter 

Paddington Tower

Special Exhibitions Gallery, Science and Industry Museum Manchester

Bibliothèque nationale de France Conservation Centre 

Studio Director 

Teatro Oficina
Harvard GSD

Associate 

ArtPlay Pavilion at Dulwich Picture Gallery 

Milan Giovenale 

Rectory Farm 

7 July Memorial Tavistock Square 

Senior Architect 

Power Hall, Science and Industry Museum Manchester

Part II Architectural Assistant

Precise Approximations
Jerome Wren

469 Bethnal Green Road

Park Hill Art Space

House of Film and Media 

Aeschenplatz 6

Studio Team

Studio Assistant 

Associate

Hill House Box

Room, City, Building 
Kevin Carmody 

Historic Sites and Contemporary Access
Design Museum London



Adaptive Reuse
Lukas Barry 

Grossmarkt Theatre Pavilion
Architecture Foundation

Collective Culture
Royal College of Art 

Truman Brewery
Grow Places Podcast 

Director 

Playhouse Theatre 

BFI Southbank 

Two Pavilions 

Grossmarkt Theatre Pavilion

Project Director

Gent Waste Brick 
Architects' Journal 

Making Buildings
The Bartlett School of Architecture

Associate Director

Design Museum Gent 

Dorset County Museum 

 7 July Memorial 

Covent Garden Apartment

Windermere Jetty Museum
RIBA Building Stories

Windermere Jetty Museum

Senior Architect and Sustainability Lead 

Associate, New Business and Communications

Finance Associate

People 

The ArtPlay Pavilion reflects a rigorous commitment to sustainable construction. Its lightweight, low carbon frame is constructed entirely of UK-grown timber, processed in our partnering Sawmill in Wiltshire. The exposed reciprocal grid roof — crafted from Douglas Fir beams — is both structurally efficient and visually expressive.

The Pavilion's design prioritises natural ventilation, passive solar strategies, and low-tech, dry construction methods to minimise both operational and embodied carbon. All timber is fully traceable, with provenance tracked from forest to fabrication, ensuring environmental integrity across the supply chain.

The Making Of: The ArtPlay Pavilion

With a new garden as the building’s centrepiece, the project transforms a post-war workplace into a contemporary office that responds to modern patterns of work and embraces low-carbon principles of reuse and retention.

Located close to Old Street, the building originally reflected the corporate ambitions of its time. Sixty years on, it has been reimagined to create a more convivial, tactile, and welcoming setting, quietly repositioning it within East London’s evolving urban landscape. The transformation combines architectural, landscape, and environmental interventions that balance tradition with innovation, working with the existing fabric to extend the building’s life while reducing its carbon footprint in use.

At the heart of the project is a new garden, designed in collaboration with Tom Stuart-Smith Studio. Transforming the original plaza, this new, vibrant central space provides a generous welcome for occupants and visitors. Accessed through the existing undercroft, the garden provides a calm counterpoint to the intensity of Old Street. Informal planting and a scattered canopy of birch trees instil this new social space with a lightly shaded woodland character. The garden acts as a focus of surrounding retail and workspaces, as well as the new building reception. Large sliding doors create a direct link between the reception and the green central space, allowing for an experience that feels more open, social, and connected.

The retrofit embodies a philosophy of retention and repair, introducing carefully targeted upgrades to the existing building to secure its future. The existing structure and majority of the original finishes have been retained, significantly reducing embodied carbon while extending the building’s lifespan. New, all-electric services enable long-term decarbonisation, while maintenance and enhancement works address structural issues that had accumulated over decades of use. This measured approach reduces waste, lowers impact, and ensures the building’s resilience for generations to come.

A series of discreet architectural interventions achieve maximum impact through the smallest means, creating a workplace environment that is convivial and welcoming. New amenities include end-of-trip cycle storage and high-quality changing rooms in the basement, along with enhanced on-floor facilities. These upgrades improve wellbeing and encourage sustainable modes of travel, while strengthening the building’s social character.

The project works sensitively to understand and scrape back layers of past refurbishments to reveal more of the building’s original mid-century fabric. New interventions reinterpret, relate and amplify this character through a contemporary lens, introducing tactility, lightness, and generosity. By doing the most with the least, the retrofit not only improves environmental performance but also redefines the building as a sustainable and welcoming workplace at the heart of East London’s creative economy.

The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester is housed within some of the most historically significant buildings and structures from the modern industrial era. As part of a site-wide development plan, the museum's existing buildings are being sensitively restored to repair their historic fabric, while orientation and access between buildings, which are separated by a network of Victorian railway viaducts, is being enhanced and galleries are being transformed.

The new gallery is situated in the west end of the Grade II heritage listed New Warehouse, built in 1882 by the Great Western Railway company. The Special Exhibitions Gallery creates a new visitor route, which improves access to the New Warehouse building, linking the Lower Yard with the busiest levels of the museum above.

A generous ramped entrance at Lower Yard rehabilitates the vaulted under-croft of one of the railway viaducts, which for several years has been a dark and uninviting space for visitors. Full height fibreglass panelled walls transform the visitor welcome from outside to inside, alleviating the visual weight of the brick structures above. Each new fibreglass panel has been hand-cast and tinted with a terracotta hue to complement the surrounding weathered Victorian brickwork.

The panels are subtly back-lit, revealing the maker’s marks in their surface and gently illuminating the spatial and decorative qualities of the historic cast-iron and brick jack-arch structures.

The front-of-house area has been transformed into a bright and welcoming open plan space that provides a point of orientation for visitors. At the same time this aids the museum in resolving a series of functional requirements of circulation, accessibility, staffing and environmental control.

New interventions within the Power Hall are transformative yet discreet, so that the heritage of architecture and collections are foregrounded. Entirely new visitor circulation improves accessibility and legibility; improvements to the existing building fabric optimise energy efficiency; and new interventions into the historic facades open up new views between the city outside and the collection inside.

The project establishes a clear and accessible new route across the site from the New Warehouse, through the newly landscaped Upper Yard, and into the Power Hall. Visitors now arrive through a new central entrance that aligns this journey along the east–west axis of the original goods shed. From this point, they can look west towards the railway rolling stock and east towards the steam engines, immediately revealing the working logic of the building.

Once a shipping shed for the world’s first inter-city steam-powered passenger railway, the Power Hall now houses the UK’s largest working collection of steam, gas, and electric engines. Carmody Groarke’s project returns the Museum’s biggest single-space gallery to its original clarity, reinstating a 108-metre-long hall spanned by distinctive timber roof trusses that divide the space into two parallel bays. This creates an intuitive and inspiring environment for visitors to engage with industrial heritage.

Updated lighting, circulation, heating and control systems place sustainability at the forefront of this transformation, preserving the hall’s historic character while significantly reducing its environmental impact.

The project restores key architectural features to their original form, reinterpreting them for accessibility and clarity. Re-laid cobbles and timber floor finishes are easy to navigate and echo the building’s industrial history, and the original timber roof structure has been faithfully restored. New structural interventions – kept deliberately minimal – sensitively integrate significant repairs into the historic fabric of the building, and a high-quality, consistent material palette creates coherence between old and new.

The reconfiguration of the hall was instrumental in enacting a reorganisation of the collections and exhibition experience. A new entrance has been placed at the centre of the building, designed to enhance visibility and draw in visitors from the newly landscaped Upper Yard and the New Warehouse.

Inside the hall, the layout of the exhibition space has been reimagined. At its centre is the reinstated raised central platform, which historically allowed goods to be loaded and unloaded between trains and carriages. Reintroducing this platform restores the shed’s original working diagram and provides a powerful organisational anchor for the visitor experience. Flanked by railway rolling stock to the west and steam engines to the east, the platform creates a clear central spine for movement and interpretation.

Threaded around this platform, gently ramped walkways unlock the possibility of experiencing the museum’s collections at different levels, and are key to appreciating how the original working building operated—with trains entering at the west and carriages taking goods into the city of Manchester to the east.

New rooflights above the entrance ensure a seamless transition into the exhibition space, bringing in light while minimising solar gains and UV exposure. These units extend the spine of rooflights that illuminate the central platform, casting it in daylight and emphasising its architectural significance.

Nuanced repairs and forward-looking infrastructure upgrades create a transformative visitor experience that unlocks access to the full scope of Power Hall’s unique architectural heritage, and produces an optimised environment for collection care.

Environmental upgrades are all invisible – from the new (fully insulated) roof to the site-wide water source heat pump, to transitioning the steam engines off coal power to green-sourced electric.

Carried out in partnership with Max Fordham, the new carbon-minimising measures are part of a wider decarbonisation scheme expected to save approximately 515 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, bringing the museum into alignment with the Manchester’s 2038 net-zero carbon target. The new, low carbon heating is concealed under the adapted central platform, and the open-loop heat pump and electric steam boiler provide a highly efficient, sustainable energy source to run the historic engines.

Inside and out, historic brickwork walls and decorative stone dressings have been restored. New interventions into the historic facades open views between the city outside, and the collection inside. The vast existing window openings receive new large-format glazing to improve daylight and views, flanked by smoky grey oiled Douglas fir natural ventilation panels that recall historic timber sliding doors. The new roof construction features natural wood fibre insulation above the rafters, making it vapour permeable and compatible with its historic ‘breathable’ condition.

The Power Hall is the second project Carmody Groarke have delivered for the Science and Industry Museum as part of its multi-million-pound regeneration project, following the success of the award-winning Special Exhibitions Gallery completed in 2021. The transformation of the museum site seeks to situate it within a wider cultural narrative. It builds upon Manchester’s broader cultural regeneration and makes connections to other cultural institutions, notably via direct access to OMA’s multi-use cultural space Aviva Studios, which opened its doors in 2023.

Precision in architecture is an uncertain concept—there is always a degree of approximation required. Approximation bridges gaps, both literal and metaphorical. Approximation bends and breaks to cater to circumstance. Used carefully, it can recognise the potential for chaos and wilfully integrate this within an ideal whole (perhaps the closest thing possible to precision). Used artfully, it can generate fresh meaning and reveal unexpected opportunities.

To be approximate is to be tolerant. Bethnal Green Road is a tolerant site, born from messy circumstances in a part of East London that was heavily bombed during the Second World War. The resultant context is pluralistic and ad hoc. It can tolerate architecture of various scales, forms and materials.

469 Bethnal Green Road is a utilitarian building, both in conception and construction. Originally designed as a warehouse, the building is speculative by its very nature. Its functional needs, whether loads, spans or spatial configuration, are tolerant anticipating any form of future use. Unlike its neighbour—a bank—it is not representational but innately approximate. 

In its construction, the building is also ad hoc. Grey brick and block walls delineate the plot. Punched ribbon windows draw the façade. Hollow clay pots span between T-beams to define the interior carcass. Concrete piers carry the weight of it all. It is a building that is thick and thin, plain and intricate. It deserves our curiosity.

The proposed intervention extends and doubles the existing volume. Externally, the new façade is a paraphrase of the existing. Its grid is inherited from the incumbent order which regulates everything from the height of the vertical piers to their width (and the space in between). Internally, the new floors are free-spanning to match the constructional logic below but shrink in plan to align with a new structural column line. The result is a completed whole, which takes approximate measurements from the grammar of the existing condition.

Within this logic, an infinite number of permutations are possible. The building envelope, dressed in thin folded sheets of galvanised steel, consists of a careful interplay between horizontal and vertical orders. Each component operates at multiple levels (structural, environmental, spatial, contextual and/or aesthetic). Deep projecting fins are placed directly above large sliding windows and hold the outer edges, compositionally suggesting the outline of the whole. Vertical fins provide a secondary order, which corresponds to the structural load bearing system and contains perhaps the most important generative element—the bay. The bay is subsequently repeated and adjusted in a game of precise approximations across each façade.

These approximations account for localised variations that occur at all scales and at every step. In some cases, they can be quantified and anticipated. In construction, an inherently complex and unpredictable process, they can be harder to define. Constant improvisation (or approximation) is required.

The brick, as a building unit, is approximate. It is a means of achieving an overall dimension unlike frame and panel construction, which can afford to be much more precise. At 469 Bethnal Green Road, what appears regular is irregular—chaos is very near. The width between each brick pier is slightly different. No two bays are exactly the same. These variations may be anticipated and captured within the construction drawings for the façade panels which are accordingly distorted. The new is adjusted to match the incidental nature of the old. Disorder is continued in an orderly manner.

In turn, hot dip galvanising demands precision. It is an archaic process—part art, part science. Before being dipped in molten zinc, the mild steel panels are propped, dangled and stripped to allow full adhesion. When dipped, temperature and speed are key—very hot and very quick. Once dipped, the time spent in the bath correlates to the number of microns of zinc coating and so, to the longevity of the panels. Afterward, the panels are lifted, dried and carefully packed to make their way to site.

Rather like glass, it is a dry form of construction (and also very fragile). It cannot be adjusted, sawn or chiselled on site like brick. Anticipation is required to bring order. Gaps and shadows create tolerance which is crucial. Such tolerance occurs at every joint between the façade panels. These are set to a minimum where flush, and to a greater threshold where interrupted—either vertically or horizontally. The shadows resulting from the articulation of the facade soften any perceived error arising from the fabrication process and allow for supple adjustments to be made on site. Chaos is kept at arm’s length within an evolving set of rules.

Beyond repetition, anticipation, and adaptation, there is exception. Exception is a form of approximation that generates its own set of rules, gives in to the possibility of something new and invents. The corner is an exception. Here, the rules are broken as circumstance takes over. The space between the verticals is stretched. The window is narrowly avoided. The sill is omitted. The brise-soleil is contorted and axially reoriented.

The corner—an invented piece—is more approximate and more precise (and more ambiguous, too). It embodies uncertainty and imagination. Always and already surprising. Allowing for the possibility of something completely different, which has everything to do with that from which it was born.

In search of precision, it is only natural to find approximation—from the number of microns of galvanic coating to the number of folds of metal that make up the façade. Rules exist to be pushed, pulled and (exceptionally) broken. This caters for circumstance, absorbs the mess and provides the basis for invention. And if, after each and every approximation, order is still in sight, then there can be greater certainty in the whole.

Through our collaboration with artists and material experts we have tested and experimented with the possibilities that hot-dipped galvanising can provide, to reveal a material finish which offers exceptional longevity and a unique visual appearance.

Unlike ‘applied’ finishes to metal, such as polyester powder coating (PPC), hot-dip galvanising creates a metallurgic reaction which effectively fuses the molten zinc to the base steel, and becomes integral to the steel. The primary benefit of this is to increase the corrosion resistance of the steel, but it also creates a highly unique visual finish, created by the ‘spangle’ of crystalised zinc that forms on the surface of the steel.

 furthered our material research into galvanising, in the form of a small workshop building which was entirely clad in galvanised steel, extending the artist’s existing studio facilities in London.

The use of hot dipped galvanised steel as a cladding material was chosen because of its ability to be both robust as well as create an intriguing aesthetic appearance. This was achieved through a rigorous research and prototyping process, with direct engagement with galvanising plants to understand how the process of hot dip galvanising could be controlled to achieve the desired precision of panel junctions and visual appearance.

To reach the desired material finish, each galvanising test refined the base steel specification and optimised the pre-folded form of the panel, so that the finished result yielded long lasting corrosion protection and an elemental, sculptural like quality to the finished building. Newly galvanised steel appears initially bright and reflective, but slowly softens as the surfaces oxidises, increasing its atmospheric resistance over time and mellowing into its setting. The research and development of this material technique has been applied to our project in Bethnal Green, which applies the same principles on a larger, city scale. 

Testing Hot Dipped Galvanised Steel 

 has been featured in Domus' April 2025 issue which focuses on the theme of 'Metal'. Entitled 'Leggero Equilibrio/Lightweight Equilibrium', the article explores the project's innovative use of aluminium and was selected for the issue by Domus' 2025 guest editor, Bjarke Ingels. 

Published in Domus n. 1100, 2025 - Courtesy of Archivio Domus - © Editoriale Domus S.p.A.

Covent Garden Apartment
Domus

Together with Shedkm and MAX Architects, we have been granted planning approval by Wandsworth Borough Council for a major redevelopment of the old Wandsworth Gasworks.

The project aims to transform the former west London gasworks into 620 homes, a riverside park and entertainment space. Drawing inspiration from Wandsworth's history, the new design will rejuvenate the site with environment, community and heritage in mind.

Within Shedkm's wider masterplan, Carmody Groarke will contribute 178 homes and 789m² of retail space, reviving the previously derelict site.

Nestled into the bankside of a riverbend beside a railway bridge, the design is shaped by the confluence of natural and infrastructural components. The tall, multi-residential building aspires to nurture a place-making quality in response to its unique setting, while retail spaces tucked into the railway arches further encourage community activation.

Wandsworth Gasworks

Carmody Groarke has transformed a former 1970s textile workshop on Bethnal Green Road into a contemporary, low-carbon workspace, offering a compelling model for urban reuse. Once slated for demolition, our client Unity Land recognised the potential to retain, reuse and reinvent the building. The result is a deep retrofit strategy that prioritises sustainability, structural retention, and architectural clarity.

This part of East London was heavily bombed during the Second World War, resulting in streetscapes characterised by fine-grain plots that vary in height, style, and age. Its urban tapestry— born from the speculative development of irregular plots— is unquestionably part of London’s high street character but it also recalls parts of other cities such as New York’s Soho district, with its skinny-framed buildings jostling for attention.

The project preserves and extends a grey-brick warehouse, doubling its usable area with a lightweight galvanized steel and Douglas fir addition. Adding three new storeys to the height of the existing structure increases the presence and improves the proportions of the corner building. Set on a narrow site above a Central Line vent tunnel, the design for the corner site retains the full concrete frame and foundations which now support a materially distinct but spatially consistent structure that replaces concrete with more sustainable components.


The result is a building that balances robustness with adaptability. Approximately 2,200 sqm of flexible workspace has been created, with minimal intervention and a focus on long-term efficiency. A striking new galvanised steel façade — just 3mm thick — is shaped into deep window reveals and horizontal fins, providing passive solar shading and a sense of depth to the façades, giving the whole ensemble a new elegance and gravity with very sparing use of material. This new façade responds to and complements the retained grey-brick base, yielding a coherent architectural expression that is both contemporary and contextual.

Internally, the layout is designed for future-proof adaptability. Free-spanning floors, modular fit-outs, and restrained finishes contribute to reducing lifecycle costs while maximising flexibility. Natural light is prioritised throughout, achieved through the use of sliding doors as windows. Exposed galvanised steel and Douglas fir timbers reference the site’s industrial past while simultaneously creating a warm, modern working environment reminiscent of a contemporary warehouse.


The ground floor has been opened up to reengage with the street, transforming a once-closed frontage into an active edge. Designed with flexibility in mind, the commercial unit can support a range of tenants, creating a vibrant threshold between the building and its urban context.


The entrance sequence has been completely reimagined to promote accessibility and visibility. A newly introduced staircase links all levels, while provisions for active commuting — including secure bike storage, showers, and changing facilities — reflect the project’s sustainability ethos.

The environmental strategy combines passive and active measures. By retaining the entire concrete frame, the design avoids the significant embodied carbon of new construction, instead focusing on low-carbon materials and reversible construction. The extension's components are bolted and demountable, allowing for future disassembly and reuse. Passive measures such as internal insulation, optimal glazing, and natural ventilation support year-round energy efficiency, supplemented by electric and renewable energy sources.


A BREEAM Excellent rating is being targeted, with post-occupancy evaluation planned to assess real-world performance. Designed with a 50-year lifespan in mind, this project provides a replicable model for workspace regeneration in dense urban contexts.


As a project, 469 Bethnal Green Road is a strategic act of addition rather than erasure — redefining the role of the existing building within East London and extending its life and civic presence with minimal material use. It becomes a prototype for buildings found on every high street.

A competition winning proposal by Carmody Groarke and Sheppard Robson for the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) reimagines Bankside House as a place for affordable, healthy and socially rich student life. The project responds to LSE’s ambition to provide exceptional student accommodation in one of the most vibrant parts of London, directly behind Tate Modern. The building will positively contribute to the London skyline marking a visible commitment to high-quality student living in the heart of the city. 

At the centre of the proposal is a simple but powerful question: how can a large group of students live well together? The response is both architectural and social. Rather than a single structure, the accommodation is conceived as three distinct buildings—three ‘houses’—each forming a community of around 650 students. Together they support a diversity of experience while fostering a strong sense of belonging.

This tripartite structure allows the project to maintain the intimacy and identity of smaller-scale living while meeting the large-scale demands of the brief. Each building will have its own character and its own social heart allowing students to identify not only with the wider LSE community but also with their own ‘house’.

Together, the three houses form a new urban cluster, cascading to frame the Tate Modern chimney as the centrepiece of the Southbank composition from Millenium Bridge. The spaces in between the houses are aligned to relate to major city landmarks of St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern.




The houses are given a unified composition against the city skyline by their light-coloured precast facades and are grounded by a continuous base of Portland stone, whilst the pavilions are made from wood, giving a warm, welcoming character inside.

The triangular plan form of each house is composed of three bars, with each bar made up of different student room types. A student common room on each level is orientated to panoramic views of the Thames, from the Houses of Parliament to the City of London.

Between these three houses, two-storey pavilions at ground level accommodate the entrance hall and shared student amenity spaces. These pavilions bring the buildings to the ground, reinforcing the architectural rhythm and providing a communal threshold between each ‘house’.

A shared entrance, a collective threshold


Although expressed as three separate buildings, the scheme is unified at ground level by a shared arrival sequence. All residents and visitors enter through a single entrance hall—accessed via multiple doors—which acts as a collective threshold between the city and the student community. Oriented between the LSE campus and Tate Modern, this generous 24-hour ground floor is conceived as a ‘living room’.

Amenity and social spaces are distributed across the three buildings, supporting smaller, more manageable clusters within the larger whole. The interconnected lower floors and accessible garden terraces extend this sense of shared community and continuous movement through the site.

The design aspires to the highest standards of environmental and social sustainability. It targets Passivhaus certification, BREEAM Outstanding and WELL certification. These ambitions speak to a broader vision of student life that values comfort, health and long-term environmental responsibility as foundations for academic success and personal wellbeing.

The French national library collection comprises over 40 million documents, ranging from books and manuscripts to maps, medals, photographs and video, currently stored across two central locations in Paris and a wider network of smaller sites throughout the city.

Over the past three decades, existing facilities have struggled to keep pace with evolving standards of collection care, and the rate of growth of the collection means repositories are projected to reach capacity in the near future. In response to these challenges, the new conservation centre aims to create a world-class archive for the preservation of French cultural heritage, setting a new standard for excellence in library conservation and management.

The project encompasses two buildings within a 12,000m2 masterplan: a 150m-long passive archive building for state-of-the-art collection storage, and an administrative building containing office space and conservation processes. Designed to meet the highest international conservation standards, the centre ensures the optimal protection of collections while providing an exceptional work environment for BnF staff.

Located on the former Amiens hospital north site, the initiative forms part of an urban plan to establish a new cultural centre to the north, and create a new landmark dedicated to preservation, innovation, and sustainability.

Envisioned as a fragment of territory, the site’s surroundings are carefully designed to form a unified, recognizable space open to the city. With a minimal footprint and a focus on preserving open areas, the project responds sensitively to its existing context. Its compact, efficient buildings use minimal materials and free up space around the site, while thoughtfully laid out circulation and parking allow a layered, immersive landscape to unfold. The design enhances the site’s spatial rhythm, creating a sustainable and enduring environment that feels both integrated and generous.

As a major cultural facility with national reach, the conservation centre strengthens Amiens’ identity and contributes to the renewal of its urban landscape. Embodied in two distinct yet interconnected buildings, the project reflects the BnF’s commitment to a low-carbon future — aiming to become the most sustainable archive centre ever built.

The archive building will store and protect the renowned French national library collection, one of the oldest in the world. The building will contain a vast single room providing over 260 linear km of storage space, with fully automated storage and retrieval systems operated by state-of-the-art robotic technology.

The building will be highly airtight to create passive temperate control, significantly reducing energy consumption in operation, and maintain a low-oxygen environment to protect the collection from fire and water damage.

Externally, an expressive steel exoskeleton enveloped in an evanescent stainless steel mesh gives the building a distinctive identity and presence. Metal curtain walls combine robustness and durability with a restrained industrial aesthetic, and the mesh envelope intercepts heavy rainfall and filters solar radiation, while allowing air to circulate and preserving visibility.

The slender column structure takes formal clues from the city’s high gothic cathedral buttress structures. The slight taper also provides a technical advantage, giving the columns greater stability to allow for a more efficient use of material. The space between the mesh envelope and the inner building structure creates a protective layer, improving the building’s environmental performance while softening its visual impact to create a subtle, almost ethereal monumentality.

The visual unity of the building’s exterior is intercepted only by the large windows on its western façade, where a sequence of spaces designed to accommodate staff and visitors overlook the city of Amiens. Here, a viewing gallery into the west end of the archive building provides an innovative opportunity for public engagement with the collection and the building’s conservation technologies.

The workplace building is strategically placed in front of the archive, offering elevated views of the city centre landmarks. The building will house space and functionalities for modern digitisation of the historic collection, as well as day-to-day collection care and management.

The building stands out for the simplicity of its horizontal composition, harmoniously integrated with the surrounding landscape. Its stone and glass façades, structured by sunshades and vertical columns, express a passive environmental design focused on the long-term comfort of its occupants. Anchored to the ground by a concrete base and a gallery that follows the site’s contours, the project draws inspiration from Auguste Perret’s work, particularly the Amiens train station ensemble, through the clarity of its prefabricated structure and its rigorous, rhythmic order.

Director Andy Groarke was interviewed by Pamela Buxton for the RIBA Journal Contacts Book series, where he discussed the practice's focus on materiality and craft, highlighting key collaborators.

Andy mentioned the practice’s work with Hargreaves Foundry and Local Works, emphasising their role in material innovation, as well as long-time partner Harry Montresor for specialist façade design. He also recognised Elemental for their airtightness solutions, showcasing how these collaborations have been instrumental in shaping the practice's projects.

Carmody Groarke Contacts Book
RIBA Journal 

Associate Director Lukas Barry recently spoke to Tom Larsson, Grow Places and Dominique Staindl, South Facing, discussing the unique challenges and wider creative opportunities within the historic Truman Brewery site and our approach to heritage, conservation and environmental sustainability.

Director Andy Groarke recently delivered a lecture at The Berlage, Tu Delft entitled ‘Taking Care of Matters’.

The lecture began with an introduction to a number of key themes and guiding principles that run through the studio's work, including the lifespan of temporary and permanent projects, the adaption and reuse of existing buildings, the relationship between artists and architects and the accumulation of references and precedents that influence the character of a building.

This was followed by a conversation on the design and construction of two significant projects, 

The proposal retains as much of the existing 1980s office building as possible. Strategic zones of the highly optimised pre-stressed concrete structure are removed to introduce light and air into the deep floor plan.

The three-storey timber extension and new five-storey pavilion building maximise the potential loading of the existing structure without major alterations to the existing foundations.

The existing building presents itself as a fortress to the city, raised on a podium above ground level that prevents any access through the site. Three new ramps connect the surrounding streets to a podium level courtyard filled with low level planting, semi-mature trees and new public uses.

Dual aspect apartments are arranged around a series of garden courtyards and roof terraces. Generous external decks create space for sociable chance encounters between neighbours.

Three new legible street addresses connect visitors to four levels of existing basement. Cavernous existing spaces previously built as plant rooms and car parking are accessible for new public and cultural activities.

The existing commercial identity of the building is altered by wrapping balconies around its perimeter and the addition of duplex apartments as a barrel-vaulted crown. The highly rusticated solid horizontal bands provide each apartment with its own external balcony and create an acoustic buffer from the road below.

The site that Warnford Court sits on dates from the mid 17th Century, when the Square Mile emerged as a major centre of trade and commerce. Today the current four-storey stone building, built in 1884, is overshadowed by the post-war commercial developments that have been increasingly superimposed onto the historic scale of streets and alleyways that surround the Bank of England. Warnford Court remains as an outlier in architectural scale and character and provides rare streetscape views with open skies and connection to one of the few remaining pocket gardens within the City.

The project doubles the useable area of the existing office building, through the addition of a stepped ziggurat roof extension. The proposed building form minimises overshadowing to the street and provides richly planted external terraces, as well as much needed greening to the City.

The building’s environmental performance will be upgraded to modern use, with the new floors designed to be naturally ventilated spaces. The proposals maintain the legibility of the historic building, threading new structure through the existing rear lightwells, and balancing lightly on the perimeter loadbearing stone walls.

Structural innovation and façade composition

The façade reconciles the formal character of the new frame above with the intricate pattern of windows and pilasters below. The façades will be made from limestone ashlar with a high fossil content, in contrast to the smooth face of the existing stone, giving a sedimentary hierarchy to the new masonry.

When faced with the common challenge of an architectural brief with high ambitions and a low budget, young practices often resort to unorthodox ways of making a project happen.

One such strategy is using materials that were not intended for the building industry. At Carmody Groarke, this curiosity in experimenting with unexpected or even ‘low-culture’ materials has helped us stay close to the craft of making architecture: whether it’s improvising architectural pavilions with the rigging familiar to rock band roadies; or sheathing museums in the industrial chainmail used in abattoir protective equipment; or even taking glass reinforced plastic (GRP) from the boat-builder’s yard to adorn our national institutions.

We first experimented with the use of GRP as an architectural finish on our project for a temporary events space - the 

, completed in 2013. The Filling Station was located within the heart of the King’s Cross district in London, an area undergoing massive regeneration, shifting from its post-industrial past to become a vibrant mixed-use office and higher education hub. The site, alongside the Regent’s Canal, was a long and thin triangular plot located at the junction of two busy roads. Formerly used as a petrol station, it had a simple and pragmatic character. The brief for the project was to transform the residual structures into a hospitality space, featuring a small restaurant and outdoor space for cultural events.

The central architectural challenge was to create an inspiring and usable events space in an otherwise inhospitable location. Through design studies the idea of using a ‘screen’ emerged, which could offer both acoustic protection from the traffic and prevailing winds as well as create an arresting visual identity for the temporary project. The screen was intended to partially envelop the open forecourt of the former petrol station, creating a semi-enclosed space that utilised the existing canopy as a roof.

In order to create an optimum level of comfort, it was determined that the protective screen should be over 3m (10ft) high. Due to the presence of shallow petrol storage tanks and transport tunnels under the ground slab, which prevented structural anchors being placed into the ground, the screen would need also to be structurally self-supporting. Furthermore, the Filling Station was conceived as a ‘meanwhile’ project – the temporary and opportunist use of a vacant lot, later to be ‘permanently’ developed as part of the wider Kings Cross redevelopment. The budget and construction process needed to be proportionate therefore to its lifespan of between 3-5 years.

We tested several materials for the screen, from corrugated metal sheets to stretched textiles – each discounted due to its lack of durability or structural integrity, or excessive cost – before the chance encounter with a boat builder led us to the idea of using Glass Reinforced Plastic.

Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) or ‘Fibreglass’ as it is commonly known, is a composite plastic material made from the combination of a synthetic glass strand fabric sheet bound together with a thermosetting resin plastic – often an epoxy resin. The flexible synthetic glass fabric can be laid in sheet form or into complex moulds, with the resin applied to cure-in-place the GRP into bespoke shapes. The resulting composite material gains strength from the hard-setting resin which is reinforced with the synthetic glass strands, rather like structural concrete with reinforcement bar. However, unlike other hard-setting structural materials, the recipe of GRP can be adapted to be vividly coloured, transparent, translucent, or opaque, and has fascinating optical qualities because of its material makeup.

The designs developed for the screen exploited the material characteristics of GRP, which were elevated in turn to form the architectural identity of the project. To solve the problem of the site’s enclosure we needed to create a screen height of over 3m without significant sub-structure, in a form that would give integrity with as little weight as possible. Through the physical testing of forms which at 3.5m high could be rigid and self-supporting, the concave shape with flange returns was evolved. When repeated to make a contiguous screen, this resulted in a continuous, lyrical, fluted architectural form.

The material density of GRP is extremely low – around 1.4g/cm3 (compared to concrete at 2.3g/cm3, glass at 2.70g/cm3 and steel at 7.75g/cm3) – and it has a relatively high tensile strength, meaning it can be made into large rigid shapes which touch the ground relatively lightly. Furthermore, because of the way it is made – as a composite of laid glass textiles and bound with clear resin – it has a high light transmission, usually over 50% (depending on the resin used).

It was this light transmissive quality that became the architectural identity of the project. The materiality of the translucent screens took on very different characteristics in natural and artificial light and provided a strong identity for the site, by day and by night. By day, the GRP panels had an unexpectedly solid, cementitious appearance. At night however, a lamp backlit each panel to make them appear to glow, revealing their textile buildup.

The hand-made quality of the screen was achieved by the layering of rolled-on resin and glass fabric sheets into a mould. The shape and profile of this plywood mould created the structural integrity of the GRP panel’s cast form. Forming the material against this mould results in a clear smooth face on the side in contact with it, and on the other a rough texture that bears the layers of resin bound fabric. The imperfections incurred by this hand-laid process refract incident light, highlighting tiny bubbles and giving an opalescent tone reminiscent of the material’s petrochemical origins. The artisanal effect challenges the perception of plastics as a pristine, mechanically engineered material.

The completed project showcased GRP as an innovative and unique option for architectural finishes. Against materials more typically used in external cladding or decorative applications, GRP becomes an attractive option due to its high durability, aesthetic variability, and relatively low cost. Its cost is derived from GRP being the composite of two relatively inexpensive materials, plus its low fabrication threshold.

The material characteristics of the binding resin gives each panel a high resistance to water absorption (0.2%) and a low UV deterioration rate. Furthermore, the lamination of strong glass-synthetic reinforcement with the high strength of set resin gives the material a resilience to impact, and shatter resistance. In the context of the Filling Station, with its high volume of passing traffic, these performance characteristics made GRP the choice material.

The strength of the material is created from the chemical bond that occurs when thermosetting resin creates irreversible cross-link bound polymers, which fuse together with the fabric sheets. This gives the material its long life and durability, but it is also its significant drawback. Thermoset plastics such as epoxy resin are impossible to re-shape or reuse – unlike thermoplastics which can be melted and reformed. Perhaps more concerning is the potential long-term environmental impact of microplastics, which essentially never go away. This is an important consideration when thinking of the sustainable possibilities of GRP as architectural finish. The proposed application of a material with an extremely long-life span on a temporary project raised an obvious contradiction.

Repurpose, retrofit and wider applications

If we are to use material components that long outlive the spaces they serve, we must consider the many ways in which they might be repurposed. In 2016, three years after the Filling Station opened, our studio was appointed to design another ‘meanwhile’ project, this time for Maggie’s – a charitable organisation that builds well-designed spaces to provide therapeutic care and support those living with cancer. With an extremely limited budget, our brief was to build an interim centre that could last up to 15 years at a hospital near Liverpool. To make the project possible, we improvised with many ‘readymade’ construction methods and materials including portacabins and temporary works, but we also reused the GRP screens from the Filling Station – thereby giving them a new lease of life.

 borrows existing structures, in this case site cabins, arranged efficiently together around mature trees on the site. The Centre is enveloped in the same curvaceous GRP screens, creating a mixture of inside and outside spaces. The design for the Maggie’s centre re-used approximately 150 of the Filling Station panels, braced by scaffolding in much the same way as its precursor. The nature of the site, with its open setting, increased the potential for strong contrasts in light. As a result, the scaffolding structure became visible through silhouettes as one moved around the centre – an unintended but pleasant consequence of the screens being placed in a new environment.

This reincarnation of material components – especially one as identifiable as the GRP panels – raises an interesting question about architectural identity. The reuse of a humble brick from one wall to another is seen as virtuous, so why not a bespoke architectural finish such as a GRP screen? Its use on temporary projects remains in question, but we are in no doubt of its ability to form a strong architectural identity. Both it’s aesthetic qualities – varying in response to light, both natural and artificial – and its plastic qualities – the way it can be formed into bespoke shapes – have been adopted into the lexicon of our permanent projects.

In 2018 we completed a refurbishment of the 

 which used GRP screens as a form of backlit fascia within a cantilevered canopy, announcing a bold new entrance under Waterloo Bridge. More recently, the same technique has been used to great effect in our new entrance space for the 

, similarly announcing a new public entrance in a dark under croft. The material’s ability to transmit light and its unusual textural quality were both important in our choice to use GRP for these important institutional entrances.

Challenges of using GRP as an internal finish in a public building

Having experimented successfully with GRP in external settings, the opportunity arose to use the same material as an internal wall-lining finish, which presented new challenges. Most recently, as part of a masterplan for the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, we have designed a new Special Exhibitions Gallery, reinvigorating the under crofts of its historic railway viaducts – which date back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The location of the new gallery was in a part of the site that was not immediately obvious or signposted as an entrance point, so the architectural challenge was to create a legible and engaging welcome to the new gallery.

With our experience of exploiting the formal and aesthetic qualities of GRP, we felt that this was an ideal material to inspire curiosity in visitors to the Science and Industry Museum. In addition to which, we thought GRP would be tough enough to hold its own architectural presence beside the robust historic fabric, and could be back illuminated to make the railway arches more welcoming.

The two challenges in this latest project were to give the GRP an appropriate fire-rating for use in public building and to experiment with colour tinting so it could take on a terracotta hue in correspondence with its historic context. To address these two criteria the specialist subcontractor experimented with multiple ‘recipes’ to achieve a unique composition and effect. By integrating a clear fire retardant into the resin mix, prior to its application in the mould, we were able to achieve a compliant Class 1 specification (which is the second highest surface spread of flame categorised by UK Building Regulations) whilst retaining the material’s textured translucency for artificial lighting. By further adding colour pigments to the GRP and transforming its appearance with low-energy LED backlighting, we were able to create a harmonious composition of old and new materials, each reinforcing the presence of the other. The result is a highly unusual and intriguing material quality that invites the visitor to investigate further – which seems fitting for a museum dedicated to the subject of scientific endeavour and experimentation.

In our research and implementation of GRP, in architectural projects of very different character and purpose, we have been impressed by the versatility of this very low cost and unorthodox material. We must be mindful of our environmental responsibilities in using such materials, which have their origins in industrial processes, and were developed to be resistant to the natural processes of weathering and decay. Unlike other more building materials used in the construction industry – such as brick, timber, or steel – there are indeed limits to GRP’s ability to be recycled again and again because of its highly specific, cast form. However, its longevity, robustness, and high-quality artisanal appearance can indeed be seen as a virtue and – as some of our projects have proved – can be creatively repurposed to serve more than one building project.

Roller application of resin compound onto glass-fibres. The ‘cast’ is made against a plywood former which was used to create tens of GRP scalloped-shaped moulds.

The scallop-shaped moulds were strapped to a scaffolding substructure beneath the petrol station canopy to create the unique identity of the Filling Station for its short three-year lifespan in London’s King’s Cross.

By day the GRP had a monolithic, solid, almost cementitious quality to the surface. By night the GRP was back-illuminated to give the Filling Station its ‘events’ identity.

Following the end of the Filling Station’s project life the GRP panels were repurposed in a temporary Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre in Liverpool.

Back-illuminated GRP was again used to give a bold new identity for the frontispiece to the British Film Institute’s new entrance building facing the River Thames in London.

GRP panels made with a unique terracotta pigment recipe harmonise with the Victorian viaduct and form the new Special Exhibitions Gallery entrance to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester.