Borehamwood

Borehamwood Hertfordshire, UK

138,000 sqft warehouse and office space on the site of the first Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, home to icons of the golden age of film, including the 1958 Inn of the Sixth Happiness and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • Client

    Panattoni

  • Services

    Architecture

  • Sectors

    Industrial

  • Year Completed

    2022

  • Region

    Hertfordshire, UK

  • BREEAM

    Very Good

  • Size

    12,820 sqm (138,000 sqft)

  • Contractor

    Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd

Borehamwood

The 3.593 hectare campus contains four units with office space, totalling 328,053 sqft. SGP’s design includes service yards and car parking with spaces for electric vehicles and cycles and an unusual boundary treatment that mixes security with references to the site’s past icons.

 

For Unit 2, SGP amended the classic Panattoni livery of contemporary neutral monochromatic colours to respond to the unit’s prominence on the key local route of Elstree Way.

SGP’s design uses a series of elegant vertical details that create a colonnade formed at seemingly random centres. These take on a dynamic, contemporary architectural form, breaking up the mass into a pattern of materials on a more human and vernacular scale.

This contemporary reflection of the Art Deco style balances rustic metallic cladding and boxed out profiles with the softness of the brick slips and adds a more finished and aesthetically pleasing tinted curtain wall glazing. Colourways in the Panattoni corporate colours of navy blue and white with white feature banding at roof level complete the look.

Borehamwood (3)

The campus has achieved BREEAM “Very Good” and includes PV panels on the roofs, EV charging points, cycle storage and external lighting running with timers and motion sensors to minimise unwanted light spill.

 

The boundary treatment was a similar balance of practical security with a strong film-based narrative. SGP chose a semi-transparent fence, whose partial views through to the site diffuses its rigidity but still offers security and clear demarcation. Panels of double skinned copper and a Corten material create 3D effect movie stills of famous actors, movies and quotes throughout decades. Glimpses of Clint Eastwood, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Elizabeth Taylor and others deliver a snapshot timeline of the studios, for visitors and locals to connect to history of site.

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