Coalbrook’s London showroom nods to Industrial Revolution

Colebrook showrooms and coworking studios are inspired by the Industrial Revolution

Architectural and interior design studio Holloway Li was inspired by the Industrial Revolution’s mechanical code for new showrooms and co-working spaces in Clerkenwell, London. Created for the bathroom brand Colebrook, the market building incorporates cast iron, brass and utilitarian designs to cover the rich physicality of the era.

Hollowway Lee nods to the history of Colebrook, named after Coalbrookdale, the world’s first railway-bridged town in Midlands. The design, which emerges from an unexpected combination of materials, has created both a showroom and drop space. -The workshop is free to use in the London design community.

1st floor-resin panel © Nicholas Worley

The design unit was created from brass tubes in collaboration with Bard & Braziler, with custom fittings by Bard and Blackwood placed next to the industrial cast displaying the product. The material is created from a digital model of a Victorian bathroom, creating an attractive foil of brightly colored resin cast, created in collaboration with a company that normally manufactures carved interiors of London Buses. increase. “Traditional shaped casts (decorative cornice and molding details, cast tiles, sash windows) are destroyed by the materiality of the resin, which looks almost liquid,” said Alex Holloway, creative director of Holloway Li. I am saying. “Resin” “dematerializes the shape of the cast in that it is crystalline, ethereal, or fluid, depending on the position of the viewer and the angle of light.”

With a destructive twist, it brings a fascinating contrast to the ground floor. There they are set for what looks like an industrial chimney background. In the basement, Colebrook shower displays are assembled against the backdrop of cast iron panels created at an Essex-based foundry. The chimney and boiler are the result of a collaboration with a new South London metalworking studio. The stone staircase leading to the space, cut from a single block of limestone, is carved in the field and finished with rough edges.

“We explored the shapes and atmospheres that lie in our collective cultural memory, either as a result of live encounters or through references we saw in movies and television,” said Praveen Paragamage, lead designer of the Holloway Li project. Says. “These forms of industry are landmarks of the bygone, and their power comes from their ability to recall lost processes.” §