37 Coate Street

Over its lifespan, it’s been adapted many times shifting between industrial, residential and workshop uses. dRMM took on the building in early 2024 inheriting a space that had acquired layers of partitions and alterations, obscuring its original structure. Slowly stripping back these additions, whilst simultaneously documenting discarded materials to assess their reuse potential, revealed multiple iterations of the building. This initial approach sought to understand its essence; not to restore it to an original state but to build on whichever historical interventions remained useful.

The retained structure intuitively pointed to where circulation, services and workspace would be placed in the studio, while new interventions were deliberately limited, introduced only to improve performance or long-term usability.

The studio has recently restructured its leadership and reaffirmed its focus on collaborative working and responsible design. Coate Street Studio has been designed as an extension to these values, envisioned as an environment that supports experimentation, discussion and creative exchange across the team. This meant prioritising a large open-plan ground floor that would function as a flexible working and meeting area, side-by-side with a kitchen and social zone – spaces that have always been the heart of dRMM studio life.

A central timber staircase, a large and active workshop and predominantly timber joinery speak to the studio’s ongoing research and experimental material application. Colour is also a protagonist within the space, with bold reds, teals and yellows reaffirming dRMM’s penchant for vibrant tones. A custom Richard Woods door surround on the studio’s Coate Street entrance recalls the team’s work on the artist’s home and studio close by.

Plywood linings that were reworked into joinery and furniture – the kitchen and lighting is new. Materials recovered during construction were reused wherever possible: all the timber flooring was retained and mineral wool insulation from the strip-out was relocated for acoustic treatment. Surplus cross-laminated timber from Populo Living, sourced through London’s emerging circular economy, was used to form the new staircase, the treads for which were fabricated by Yes Make at Tipping Point East.

Environmental upgrades were introduced selectively and with a long-term view. The building now operates as an all-electric workspace, supported by improved insulation, new triple-glazed windows, energy-efficient lighting and a high-efficiency heat pump. Daylight has been increased through a new cut-out to the first floor, where the new staircase has been inserted. The retrofit has been designed to be hospitable to further improvements, including additional insulation or future rooftop photovoltaics.

Environmental performance can be constantly overseen, through regular readings and POEs that can occur without administrative or access setbacks, whilst on a more everyday level, spaces can be adjusted according to what people need.

Lessons from Coate Street Studio’s retrofit feed directly into future projects, helping to build on dRMM’s prioritisation of pragmatism and agility over nostalgia in re-use design. Coate Street Studio prioritises reuse, limits new construction, and allows existing structure and fabric to shape a space that itself can change over time. The result is a resilient, low-carbon workplace with frugality as a creative constraint, not a limitation.