We are an integrated design and architecture studio based in London and working internationally
Our practice is founded in material and cultural research with a singular approach to design, one that marries analysis with a consideration of the emotional impact of each project. We take ideas as seriously as feelings and find solutions that are intellectually rigorous yet effortless and simple. The passion here is to create an environment of open conversation with our clients and collaborators with a focus towards the Arts and wellbeing.
The quality of the Studio's work is established from the agglomeration of Jenny Jones’ status as a chartered architect and a visiting lecturer on the MA interior design program at the Royal College of Art, who trained in the offices of Rem Koolhaas and Richard Rogers.
We offer services from strategic vision assessments through to the finest detail of implementation on projects and briefs of all scales.
We are an independent studio, allowing us to concentrate on delivering a focused and dedicated service. We have also formed collaborations and partnerships to deliver to specific briefs and programmes.
STUDIO JENNY JONES
62 BRITTON STREET
LONDON EC1M 5UY
HELLO@STUDIOJENNYJONES.COM
T+44 207 253 2034
Accelerate is one of the Open City’s free educational outreach programmes designed to support teenagers from under-represented backgrounds to explore what it means to study and work in the built environment.
Studio Jenny Jones | Fjord | Accenture Interactive | Studio Roco
Fjord London
How to create a space to inspire innovation for a company culture
Client | Accenture
User | Fjord & Accenture Interactive
Program | 1000 m2 Company Studio | fit out of 1980's Office
Location | Farringdon, London
Design and innovation consultancy Fjord London, part of Accenture Interactive, has relocated from its Margaret Street base to a new studio in Clerkenwell.
The quality of the space mirrors others in Fjord’s international family and reflects the company’s position as an international design company with a distinct London identity. 30 Farringdon Road is now home to approximately 100 people and has a direct connection to sister agency Karmarama downstairs and to the neighbourhood via the wide views and the communal roof terrace.
Our approach was to treat the space as another member of the team. The question we asked was ‘ how do we create a space for change, where work can flow, company values are experienced and new cultures can be formed?’
Architects and Interior Design | Studio Jenny Jones
Jenny Jones, Christina Huber, Lindsay Bell, Hernan Fierro, Juan Vega Nuez, Mara Huber, Maria Gluzdakova, Nini Zhou, Dionne Griffith, Paddy Austin, Stephanie Buttle
Mechanical and Electrical Engineers | Hoare Lea
Acoustic Design | KP Acoustics
Main Contractor | Parkeray
Project Management | GVA Acuity
Cost Consultants | Bigham Anderson Partnership
Approved Inspector | Greendoor
All photographs courtesy Paul Raeside
Abbie Walsh, then Chief Design Officer, Accenture Interactive UKI
"In designing the Fjord London studio, Jenny Jones not only created a beautiful, idyllic and functionally optimal design space, but she and her team also gave rise to a new kind of workspace that balanced the needs of employees, clients and the neighbourhood.
She also created an environment in which a new culture and organisation could be formed.
Working hand in hand with the team, Jenny co-created a space that gave designers the room to create and feel at home, whilst also allowing for collisions between different teams that would give rise to genuinely new ideas and outcomes.
Understanding that we needed to bring together different teams into this design-centric world, Jenny created a world in which the designers could feel like they had space for their craft whilst enabling the influence of other minds and experts into their bubble. For those joining them in the space, whether colleagues from other teams or clients, the space enabled people to step out of their accepted roles and tap into a more creative side of themselves.
Wellbeing, light, and plant energy meant that a space had been purely corporate before Jenny’s transformation, became a haven, drawing people into it and leading to a feeling of calm and confidence in those who stepped through the doors. The space became an extension of Fjord’s culture, and yet it evolved and added to the team’s identity in a very real and lived way.
I would recommend Jenny for her brilliance, empathy and ability to draw out the best in her clients and suppliers - we would never have created such an iconic and groundbreaking, experientially astute working space without her. "
Early Dialogue
The early stage dialogue that we developed with the client allowed us to gain insights into their own specific company culture: from those conversations and observations we transcribed the insights into a spatial brief super specific to their culture. Our approach was to treat the space as another member of the team. The question we asked was ‘ how do we create a space for change, where work can flow, company values are experienced and new cultures can be formed? We addressed key aspects of contemporary workplace culture and looked at evidence-based design research.
The process included interviews with ‘Fjordians’ to form a picture of how they work now and how they dream of working and drew on insights gained from a previous workshops run by the Fjordians.
Field research included visits to Fjord’s Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin studios as well as delving into the history of the studio’s new context of Farringdon and Clerkenwell.
Design research projected durational uses against daily, weekly and monthly rhythms to create a spatial efficiency and incorporate the idiosyncrasies and diversity of needs. The outcome of this exploratory phase set out the principles that then guided the design process from the spatial to the selection of material and furniture.
The new studio comfortably houses seeming contradictions and carefully choreographs diverse habitats. It allows for both highly collaborative work but also offers lots of corners (the corner count rose from 14 to 88) for privacy or contemplation; to achieve this diversity, close attention has been paid to different levels of acoustic and visual permeability. As well as the informal gathering areas such as the marketplace, the kitchen and the slow stair, there is a taxonomy of meeting rooms and workspaces from the small to large, acoustically sealed to open, visually obscured to transparent, standing to lounging, two-person to the 30-person, 2-minute to 2-hour. Large surfaces to write on and display work in progress, up and down desks and break-out areas next to the windows where views out to the neighbours and the horizon are essential.
The integration of plants and indoor gardens is critical to the atmospheric and performative values of the design and is supported by extensive research that proves the positive correlation between growing plants in the workplace, productivity and wellbeing. Some plants are embedded and cared for by Ro Co, others are personally cared for by the Fjordians. SJJ collaborated with Stephanie Buttle who ran a ceramics workshop at Margaret Street where the Fjordians made their own plant pots that they would be reconnected with in the kitchen at Farringdon Road. Now you can see all the name tags inside the plantpots on the kitchen shelves.
Materials selection is functional and honest; mostly white ( the blank canvas as a design principle ) but where colour was selected it was influenced by the hues of the neighbourhood. Lighting and furniture selections was filtered by ergonomic performance, author design principals and geographical connects to Fjord’s story. Over 200 products from 21 suppliers were expertly sourced and sensitively respecified where needed by Eporta who navigated a range of complexities and sourcing options within the scheme such as 20 Arper Chairs in 20 different colours.
Generation 80's office space -
what now?
On day one we found a generic 1980’s open-plan office floorplate, what the client now has is a multi-orientational workspace alive with plants and with diverse habitats designed for focus, creativity and collaboration. The transformation of a deep plan, low ceiling corporate space to a place that is identifiable as a creative studio environment is a case study in how to work with this abundant type of real estate floorplate.
Freespace
The ‘first encounter’ space on entering the Fjord Studio is light, informal and immediately welcoming with a coffee area, banquettes sheltered by an indoor garden with Farringdon road views and gallery walls showcasing Fjord and Accenture Interactive’ latest creations.
This space is a sequential open plan space that flows to the marketplace, down the slow stair to the kitchen on the lower level.
The Marketplace is a flexible client and team space that can be open and lounge-like to the reception area, with moveable walls and moveable garden carts to create spaces for ‘rumbles’ (workshops) and talks. It also adapts into an event space and features a “superloon” by Jasper Morrison as a nod to Fjord’s annual Equinox Conference.
The Kitchen, the informal heart of the studio is reached by a ‘slow stair’ that creates a flow between the split levels, adds a sense of drama or ‘circulation as performance’ and which doubles up as [amphi]theatre-style seating to allow informal gatherings by the kitchen. The enclosure of the kitchen area is loosely defined by openshelving, the level change, an acoustically rated greenhouse and the plywood threshold walls into the project bays.
Meeting Spaces
The kitchen, makespace, stair and reception allow informal gathering and touchdown working and the flexibility in the marketplace allows the square footage to work hard through being adaptable. Through the briefing research phase, we also recognised that Fjord required a range of places to meet, from the small to large, acoustically sealed to open, visually obscured to transparent, standing to lounging, two-person to the 30-person, two minute to two hour. The studio now has a diverse range of meeting spaces that cater to those diffferent needs highlghted in the briefing phase.
/ 1 to 6 person standing meeting room: sodium light room which turns the space into a monochrome environment where you ”see things differently” x 1
/ 1 to 6 person train carraige like space in reference to the tracks next to the building - now named the Sauna for obvious reasons x 1
/ 1 to 8 person tranquil, dark blue library: analogue space x 1
/ 1 to 3 person greenhouse in which to meet and work in the midst of plants x 1
/ 1 to 12 person long table meeting room x 1
/ 1 to 10 person round table meeting room x 1
/ 1 to 2 person call spaces x 6
/ 1 to 4 person conversation nooks x 2
Project Spaces
We worked with Fjord to develope the design brief for the project rooms. Through engagement and observation, from the field trips, to seeing how the existing London studio worked, led to a seemingly conflicting set of ideals that would create the "ideal" workspace. The objective for us was to tune the spaces and surfaces to allow these functions to flow.
/ to collaborate, to focus, to bond
/ temporary confidentiality and enable acoustic and visual separation from other teams
/ daylight and distance views
/ adaptable spaces (different scales and performances)
/ desks that allow ease of rearranging
/ desks that are solid and alllow standing and sitting ergonomics
/ terratorial access to expansive wall surfaces that allow working on walls at scale
The new studios are active spaces with larges surfaces to write on and display work in progress, up and down desks and break-out areas next to the windows. Instead of doors some project rooms are semi-separated with an entrance wall/ threshold that hide call spaces and banquettes and the views out to the neighbours and the horizon – for dreaming – are essential. The taxonmony of workspaces addressed the diverse requirements learned by watching the Fjordians work processes.
Community and making an imprint
We collaborated with Stephanie Buttle and the Fjordians to set up a workshop to create vessels for the plants that would be given to Fjordians as a welcome to the new studio. Stephanie developed a methodology and approach that merged he own practice with the design principals and concepts for the space. The materials and forms used for the pots use black stoneware, porcelain and terracotta into platonic, simple and utilitarian forms.
The ceramics workshop that Steph ran at the Margaret St Studio, set up a timeline for connection for the transition from old to new space. Now moved in to Farringdon Road, the Fjordian plants and their pots connect the studio environment to it’s community, literally growing day by day and literally celebrating the hands of those who work there.
Real Plants
From concept, the integration of living plants in the design was critical to the atmospheric and performative values of the design. Research continues to evidence the positive correlation between growing living plants in the workplace and the productivity and wellbeing of those working in those environments*.
Based on such research and from dialogues with Ro-co we developed the locations, bedding, planting concepts. Ro Co - the company behind the wonderful book the House of Plants then went on to source, plant and consintue to nurture the plants in the studio. There are layers of planting concepts within the space: embedded into the floor void, large plants in pots on the floor, plants on bespoke designed carts that allow the Fjordians to easily reconfigure their marketplace and the Fjordian plants that sit on the shelves of the kitchen.
Several months into the move in Ro-co and the Fjordians are nurturing their plants well and there is a lot of new growth.
