Touring Sony Music UK’s New King’s Cross Office In London

London’s tunes scene has transformed its tune in the previous ten years, with the action shifting east to King’s Cross. This left Sony Tunes United kingdom in a difficult place even though the corporation in any other case cherished the Kensington office that MoreySmith experienced built for it again in 2008 (and then later refreshed in 2018), it finally recognized that it required to start off planning for a relocation. “If they could have picked up their initial office environment and moved it, that would have been their great resolution,” claims Linda Morey-Burrows, the principal director at MoreySmith. But as the pandemic ushered in new operating versions, her firm’s design and style for Sony Tunes UK’s new King’s Cross headquarters developed into an even bigger rethink.

Like all the most effective sophomore albums, the close end result (which opened this calendar year in a new creating at 2 Canal Get to) experiments with clean concepts although creating on the core appeal of its predecessor. Anybody common with Sony Music UK’s aged digs will no question figure out the new office’s cafeteria, which is a reimagining of a identical room that sat at the heart of the company’s former area. “When you shift homes, you do not want to fully commence once more,” suggests Morey-Burrows. “You require a few things that you beloved in the old home to be in the new 1. Otherwise it seems to be like you have missing your individuality alongside the way.”

Larger alterations engage in out in the office’s workspace configuration, which was informed by workers interviews but also on-the-floor observations. “We hired a team to go to their present office environment in Kensington and check out folks for 10 times, just to get insights into what they ended up in fact executing,” explains Shonagh Gardiner, a senior affiliate at MoreySmith. “Sometimes men and women say that they’re normally at a desk, but then you see that is not definitely the scenario — they are operating on imaginative matters that transpire far more collaboratively. Acquiring that facts permitted us to back again up some new proposals. And then COVID took place, and everybody dropped their desks anyway.”

In the stop, doing the job preparations were being determined on a for each-label foundation, with some of Sony’s brands — which involve RCA, Ministry of Sound and Columbia — preserving a one-to-a single ratio of workers to desks, and other folks keen to embrace additional lounge-like environments with sofas and notebook tables. 

This displays MoreySmith’s general solution to performing with the lots of divisions and departments that tumble beneath the Sony Songs umbrella. “It was in essence 1 undertaking with 25 purchasers,” suggests Gardiner. “And we actually preferred to make absolutely sure that all of the groups felt represented in the new constructing.”

The style business made a decision to divide and conquer, assigning distinctive personnel to diverse labels to guarantee visual directions that mirrored their distinctive identities. As a consequence, Columbia’s zone is clad in grooved concrete, though RCA’s is outlined by an orange corrugated metallic. “It’s almost like a office retail outlet, wherever you’re instantaneously mindful that you’re in a different brand’s area due to the fact of a different visual working experience,” Gardiner claims.

The challenge then turned making sure that these various zones nevertheless felt like section of a cohesive full. In fact, when the branding of each individual house is distinctive, the total style remains flexible sufficient to assist long term adjustments if labels stop up growing or contracting. “Architecturally, they are all constructed really equally. How they are wrapped, dressed and lit, that’s the place the differences are — in the cladding or graphics,” says Morey-Burrows.

MoreySmith invested equivalent vitality in developing methods to carry staff members collectively all over the workday. Sony Tunes UK’s outdated headquarters (which, funnily enough, was found in a former department shop developing) was spread throughout only two flooring, guaranteeing recurrent chance encounters. This new site, spanning 6 floors, essential a a lot more intentional circulation system to endorse interconnectivity.

As a outcome, two outstanding staircases — a person black, 1 purple — were inserted into the creating in shiny, open spaces that make visible inbound links to regions that workers may possibly not normally move by means of. A communal rooftop and stay performance venue are other common social hotspots, both for workers and for people.

Of course, Sony Music UK’s a variety of labels also have one more significant ingredient in frequent: outstanding acoustics. “Obviously, songs is essential,” suggests Morey-Burrows. However acquiring the ideal sound excellent required some savvy design and style interventions. “The way the constructing was made, there was not any acoustic lining in the external wall. So we ended up anxious that we were being heading to be spilling out loud music into King’s Cross, wherever all of the properties are fairly near jointly,” Morey-Burrows describes.

To truly guarantee that the spaces do Sony Music’s albums justice, MoreySmith partnered with acoustics consultant Sandy Brown and the A/V workforce at Combine. The crew additional a secondary glazing to build a relaxed sonic buffer concerning the building and its neighbours, and then wrapped several of the studios in their possess committed acoustic enclosure. Soundproof pods introduce an additional place for personal listening.

Relatively unexpectedly, the closing element of MoreySmith’s style and design is a quiet library location. “The café is a great area to perform if you want to get absent from your individual division, but they appreciate acquiring audio participating in very loud there,” Morey-Burrows explains. “And some people today in our interviews said, though they enjoy that room, they just simply cannot function in it. So we wished to give them a calm spot that is sort of a diverse vibe from the relaxation of the creating.” Like a delicate ballad in an album entire of bangers, the library reiterates the art of a perfectly-crafted blend.