181 Harris Street or Harris Street Studios, contained an existing building constructed circa 1880 with two storeys on Harris Street, occupied by Simon Johnson Gourmet foods, and a dilapidated single storey wing enclosing a small damp courtyard and opening to Little Mount Street to the west. The adjacent ‘Bonnington and Company Building’, at No 179 Harris Street, also owned by our client, Red Balloon, is an item of environmental heritage.

Our brief was to provide additional Grade B commercial floor space and carparking. Our solution was to create studio spaces around a central courtyard atrium space with vertical circulation in a mini ‘campus like’ arrangement. Both thenSimon Johnson (Cheese room) Store and the adjacent ‘Bonnington and Company Building’ now connect visually to this space, with a display window in the Cheese Room. The stair system has been carefully designed so that the existing windows now benefit from a garden view and can potentially link to the ‘Red Balloon Campus’ in the future. The final FSR is 1.6:1.