Design Council HQ is refurbished

The Design Council’s offices in Covent Garden, London WC2, are to be refurbished by joint team Clive Sall Architecture & Carl Turner Architects.

The group was appointed to the £170 000 contract following a three-way pitch in January, says a council spokesman.

The work comes as staff from Creativity, Culture and Educations move into part of the fourth floor of the building.

CSA&CTA’s Clive Sall says, ‘We wanted to embrace the council’s values so that visitors can understand what it stands for and what it does.’ This involved breaking the council’s functions down into three areas: Do, Think and Review.

The Do and Think sections will be housed on the building’s third floor, Review on the fourth.

Sall adds that the layout will also function as a ‘curated tour’, with the council’s work exhibited around the space.

He says, ‘Visitors will be able to see how the Design Council is structured, and also view the process of how they enable and manage design.’

David Kester, chief executive of the Design Council, says, ‘CSA&CTA are applying user-led design principles to create an environment which will help us do our job better, not a piece of hero architecture.’

The current award-winning interiors were created by Ben Kelly Design in 1997.