Design District’s Bureau is the creative crowd’s new London playground

Bureau opens in London Design District, offering a new creative club for members to work and play

Large meeting room table with chairs
(Image credit: Alex Upton)

Launching with London Design District at the Greenwich Peninsula this month, Bureau is the capital's newest workspace offering. Balanced between office architecture and members’ club, Bureau has landed to provide post-pandemic respite to the city’s tired creative workforce – a step away from both traditional office space and working-from-home set-ups, and a clearly defined concept that stands apart from co-working space peers. 

With interiors designed by architect Roz Barr, this creative club is the latest evolution in its genre – a ‘hybrid third space’, combining the freedom and flexibility of home working, with the focused structure, support, and sociability provided by the office environment, its creators explain. 

Barr’s ideas on what constitutes the perfect modern workspace were already in development, as the architect gathered notes from past, pre-pandemic projects, such as Selfridges’ creative studios. But with Bureau and the pandemic, everything sped up. The architect told us back in February, when we previewed Bureau’s space: ‘With Selfridges it wasn’t about fitting in desks for everyone, it was about creating a studio culture, pin-up areas, places for informal meetings, places you could take your laptop and work in peace. There were freelancers coming in and out, working on particular projects. All that experience fed into Bureau.’

elegant interior with pale colours at the Bureau coworking space which opens at the Design District

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

The space is also conceived as an elegant, sophisticated environment that mixes pale tones and natural materials – bold colours exist but are refined and measured, while attention to detail and a craft led approach ensure quality of design. Both hotdesking and fixed desk options are available, placing flexibility at the heart of the concept. Meanwhile, measures are taken to ensure Covid safety and avoid overcrowding – this is, after all, a project developed almost in its entirety during a pandemic. 

Bureau is set in an HNNA-designed building a few steps away from the North Greenwich station, and right in the heart of London’s newest, and vibrant, creative hub – the Design District, consisting of 16 buildings for work and play. The club is a key piece in the puzzle for the District, which promises to become a playground for creatives, offering opportunities to work, connect and cross-polinate. 

‘We want Bureau to be the Design District in microcosm – somewhere that nurtures a diverse and dynamic creative community, giving freelancers a space to grow their businesses, connect across disciplines, build networks and advance their careers,’ says the Design District’s director Helen Arvanitakis. 

Bureau hosts Design District Creates

In that spirit, and kicking open its doors to non-members too, Bureau is about to host a design-debate extravaganza: part of the inaugural Design District Creates series of events and curated by the District and Wallpaper’s very own contributing editor Nick Compton. Launching on 15 September and lasting for a month, there is no better excuse to visit this fast-evolving part of London. 

Large white meeting table on red floors

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

Eating space with red metal chairs

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

Red lighting in a lounge area with square sofas

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

2 red sofas with a small table and a lamp

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

Outside space with a planted tree and chairs

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

Curtain area for solo work

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

Yellow sofa in an grey office with red carpet

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

elegant interior with pale colours at the Bureau coworking space which opens at the Design District

(Image credit: Alex Upton)

INFORMATION

rozbarr.com

bureau.club

hnna.co

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).

With contributions from