Fostering new musicians and performers is paramount for recording studio Common Knowledge. Enter THISS Studio who, together with specialists Mitre & Mondays and Noatune, created an interior scheme that sounds as good as it looks
For its latest project, THISS Studio has sensitively converted the upper two floors of a warehouse into a new office, co-working area and recording studio. Located in Shoreditch, East London, the project came about when the founder of Common Knowledge, Ben Blackburn, approached the practice to design a flexible social hub for his music management business.
“Ben is a close associate of Ten87 Studios, a community recording studio in Tottenham. We were based there for a few years and worked closely with its founder, Rob Burn, who recommended us to Ben,” explains Sash Scott, director at THISS Studio.
Completed in July 2023, the ambition for the 145 sq m scheme was to create an incubator for new performing musicians. “Ben wanted a space that would inspire young artists; that offered something not too far from the confident creativity that comes from messing around making music in a friend’s bedroom.”
For this project, THISS Studio started with reference images from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. This led the studio to use bright red, white and raw-metal finishes. “From there we developed the overall design with studio Mitre & Mondays and recording studio Noatune, refining the details before collectively taking an active role in the fabrication and installation of the project,” says Scott. “Mitre & Mondays are long-time collaborators of ours, and they brought a fantastic rigour to the design and fabrication process.”
“We had a great meeting with THISS in the early stages of the project,” explains Josef Shanley-Jackson, founder of Mitre & Mondays. “They had already developed a relationship with Common Knowledge through Ben, who was ambitious and open.” Mitre & Mondays helped THISS Studio to carefully develop furniture that could be dismantled and reassembled.
“Everything we designed for Common Knowledge is detailed to be easily de-mounted. Whether a piece of furniture or a bespoke installation, it’s all considered an assembly of parts,” says Shanley-Jackson. Elements for the furnishings were all then manufactured at Mitre & Monday’s Islington workshop before being installed on site. “The brief enabled us to push the disassembly aspect, demonstrating that spaces that are designed to adapt do not have to look and feel temporary.”
As you enter Common Knowledge from the second floor, you are met by a staircase with a red Valchromat balustrade that guides you up to the co-working area on the third floor. Here, white-painted walls and bright-red seating are paired with timber flooring and a clever use of cork. The stools and tables have stainless-steel inlays in the areas where they’re naturally handled to help protect their integrity.
“Cork is a material we have had a long-standing curiosity about, having used it as seating in our PoliNations landscape project last summer. We found that it has a great acoustic quality, so we used it as panelling in the meeting room and writing room as well as for the table and stools in this project,” explains Scott. As you walk around, pops of green can be found in the form of planting and metal details painted in a cool sage.
Above the red upholstered cushions are bespoke sails made from nonwoven material that are suspended from a frame fixed between two ceiling joists. “The furniture and lighting design for this project aimed to bring vibrancy to the existing industrial building,” states Scott.
Travelling up the stairs, visitors are greeted by a homely triple-aspect recording studio on the fourth floor. Here, red Valchromat joinery, storage and seating can be found cleverly concealing an air-handling unit that provides ventilation. Cork runs up the sides of the white walls, helping the light-filled space retain a strong sense of domesticity. This is backed up with sheep-wool insulation, which is perfect for acoustic diffusion.
The impressive recording zone was designed collaboratively with Noatune. “Kris Rylander at Noatune has a huge wealth of knowledge and expertise in the design and delivery of writing studios, and there were lots of discussions on the use of insulating materials, such as cork and acoustic fabrics, to create the perfect environment for writing and listening to music while also tying in with the general interior,” says Scott.
Common Knowledge is now a bold and inviting space for musicians. Designed to function as a social hub as much as an office, the material palette, fixtures and furniture create a welcoming environment that feels like a second home. With Mitre & Mondays and Noatune, THISS Studio has created a scheme that meticulously brings together functionality and craft.
Images by Henry Woide
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