Yellow Building, Monsoon Accessorize London, Notting Hill Office Architecture, Architect, Photos

The Yellow Building London

Notting Hill Offices for Monsoon Accessorize, southeast England design by AHMM, UK

post updated 11 Jan 2021 ; 26 Sep 2008

The Yellow Building

Location: northwest London
Date built: 2008
Design: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris – AHMM

Photographs © Tim Soar

Address: 1 Nicholas Road, Notting Hill, north west London, W11 4AN

Client: Nottingdale Ltd / Monsoon Accessorize
Completed: Mar 2008
Value: £32m

The Yellow Building is the development of a series of commercial buildings and additional uses on a large site on the edge of Notting Hill close to the new White City Shopping centre.

This landmark headquarters for fashion company Monsoon Accessorize is a 15,000m2 seven-level atrium building which can accommodate, in addition to offices and design studios several full size mock ups of the Monsoon shops. Intended to read as a creative powerhouse, the building has a dramatic top lit atrium down the middle open floors and either sides, bridge links and a great open staircase running from bottom to top.

The Yellow Building images / information from Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris – AHMM

The Yellow Building is an environmentally smart, thermally massive, structurally light building that suggests the office of the future can be as delightful to work in as the factories of the past are to re-inhabit. A seven-storey, yellow-striped volume crowned in a saw-tooth roof stands as a landmark on London’s West Cross Route. A muscular, diagonal concrete grid wraps around the building to define the architecture – both outside and in – and provide structural rigidity without the need for supporting cores.

A muscular, diagonal concrete grid wraps around the building to define the architecture – both outside and in – and provide structural rigidity without the need for supporting cores. Internally, the concrete lattice lines the full-height atrium which links all levels of the 161,500 square foot building and acts as part art gallery, part social space and part event space.

To maximise connections between staff, the large open, unobstructed floors span either side of the central atrium, which both allows light to penetrate deep into the building and holds the main circulation stair that takes inhabitants on a promenade of their organisation. In stripping away the detritus of detailing that defines so much commercial space, the project demonstrates better ways to work and play and speculate (both financially and architecturally).

Location: 1 Nicholas Road, London, W11 4AN

London, England, UK