Yorkton Workshops

Gallery, event space and location available for hire in Hackney, East London. Home to design studio Pearson Lloyd.

Located in the heart of Hackney, East London, Yorkton Workshops is home to the award winning design studio, Pearson Lloyd. 

Acquired in 2017 by Pearson Lloyd, Yorkton Workshops was restored from a series of dilapidated Victorian stables into their new permanent studio, archive and workshop. Whilst also providing a gallery, event space and location available for hire. 

At 6000 sq ft and set over two levels, Yorkton Workshops encompasses a variety of spaces; including studios, workshops for making and prototyping, meeting rooms and a self-contained and rentable area for exhibitions and events. Outside space includes a small yard and garden terrace.

Gallery

The gallery space, comprising 1000 ft2 over two interconnected ground floor spaces with access to Yorkton Street and its own outdoor space. Forming part of the newly completed Yorkton Workshops complex, the gallery includes polished concrete floors, exposed timber ceilings and original brickwork and generous east and north facing windows. Facilities include a fully fitted kitchen, accessible toilet and independent alarm system. 

Contact info@yorktonworkshops.com for rates and availability.

Location

The entire building is available as a bookable location for photo shoots, videography and or launch events/meeting spaces. Yorkton Workshops industrial interior pairs domesticated materiality and spaces with functioning workplace environments. The breadth of the building makes it incredibly versatile for a range of brands.

Events

Yorkton Workshops is an ideal venue for corporate and creative events, photography shoots, talks, product launches and meetings. To find out more about the space please contact:

info@yorktonworkshops.com

Making Design Work

Pearson Lloyd is a design office based in East London. Founded in 1997 and led by Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd, the studio works with manufacturers, brands and public bodies to identify and build products, spaces and services that respond to the challenges of the day and enhance our experience of the world.

In particular, the development of furniture solutions for sectors including transport, workplace, hospitality and the home, has allowed the studio to conduct long standing research and understanding into the relationship between space, people and product. Occupying a territory somewhere between architecture and interior design, the studio now defines this process and output as ‘intelligent space,’ an approach that runs deep throughout their portfolio of work. It is on these foundations that inspired Pearson Lloyd to take on the design of their own studio, Yorkton Workshops.

Over the course of 24 years, the studio has obtained a number of patents for innovative spatial design layouts, including the Upper Class Suite for Virgin Atlantic Airlines, the WorkLife room for Intercontinental Hotel Group and more recently all Virgin Voyages standard cabins for their new ships. The Yorkton Workshops project has allowed the studio to further explore current and future workplace trends and especially in light of Covid-19, how furniture can play an active role in its future.

Yorkton Workshops has enabled Pearson Lloyd to consolidate its office, workshop and design archive onto a single site for the first time in five years. A new permanent home in the heart of Hackney for their industry-leading design office. Built and designed in collaboration with Cassion Castle Architects who also acted as contractor for the build.

Spanning five former stables-turned-workshops on Yorkton Street, Yorkton Workshops is set in an area with a long association with making and manufacturing.

Today, most of the premises once occupied by furniture makers, musical-instrument artisans, wood turners and other craftspeople have been replaced with residential units. The restoration of Yorkton Workshops is thus an act of preservation, reinvigorating the area’s design heritage, and linking Pearson Lloyd to a lineage of making that dates back over a century.

When Pearson Lloyd acquired the building in 2017, it was a mess; a haphazard collision of old and new, with a mishmash of overlaid alterations and adaptations that had been made over the decades.

Pearson Lloyd considered the most sustainable, socially valuable and creatively interesting path was to work with the existing building – to preserve, enhance and adapt.⁠ 

This determination to minimise environmental impact influenced the design approach from the outset. Choices were made to minimise the demolition needed, the potential landfill generated and the new materials introduced. They ensured existing materials were retained or reused wherever possible, repurposing bricks, steelwork and timber joists from the demolition phase, supplemented by materials sourced from reclamation yards wherever necessary. 

The retrofit approach left Yorkton Workshops with a 43% predicted reduction on existing emissions, and 66% reduction in embodied carbon emissions in comparison to a new-build (timber) structure. (source Structural Workshops). 

Coverage from leading press publications.

Award winning space.

RIBA London Awards 2022

New London Awards 2021

Silver: London Design Awards 2021

AJ Architecture Awards Refurb 2021

AJ Retrofit Award 2021: Retrofit of the Year

AJ Retrofit Award 2021: Workplace (under 2,000m²)

Yorkton Workshops is a project that isn't just sustainable by saving on embodied carbon and reusing as many materials as possible, but is incredibly beautiful, despite the nondescript buildings from which it has been reworked, showing what can be achieved through thought, attention to detail and true collaboration. It is replicable, and demonstrates the bravery of both the architect and client in keeping an unusual set of buildings that wouldn’t usually be saved from demolition to create something longer lasting
Judges Comments AJ Retrofit Awards 2021

For more details on Yorkton Workshops including; rates, availability and tours please use the contact details below. 

1-3 Yorkton Street
London E2 8NH

+44 (0)20 7033 4440
info@yorktonworkshops.com

Newsletter

By signing up to our newsletter you agree to our Privacy Policy.