Architectural & Design

Collective
Location: 54 Brushfield Street, Spitalfields, London, E1 6AG
Size: 4,337 sq.ft.

The Mission:

To revitalise a now-defunct 18th century public house as an exciting, authentic and inclusive space for the local community and creative scene, delivering a design capable of uniting patrons from the relatively disparate worlds of London’s finance, tech and new media.

 

Our Response:

Working closely in partnership with British branding and communications collective Storey & Co - an agency that articulates stories to promote and reignite local communities - we redeveloped the 350-person pub to encompass a checkerboard of functions. Reimagined as a Barrell House X kitchen, the ground floor is now split across three key sections: a main bar; a mezzanine dining area with DJ booth (afforded by the building’s unusually high ceilings) and a fully functioning ‘show cellar’ that allows visitors a vista onto the inner workings of the pub, framing the venue’s working-class roots with a unique sense of theatre.

 

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Other design highlights include a series of custom-engineered fittings; an expansive pewter bar with copper and green marble finishing, an open fire and a statement ‘gunshot’ glass installation. To add a more luxurious, modernist sensibility in parts, we also added Crittall-style steel-framed windows and reimagined the exterior via large panels of glass with bronze surrounds, recessed within monumental slabs of white-grey Portland stone.