17-18 Britton Street - 21 Construction & ORMS Architects
Photography Luca Piffaretti
This newly refurbished office building sits in the heart of Farringdon, London, one of the most architecturally diverse areas in the city.
This newly refurbished office building, sitting in the heart of Farringdon, has everything a photographer interested in industrial inspired spaces could ask for; exposed concrete and pipes, elaborate steel staircases and a beautiful brick facade, reminiscent of the old warehouses that formed the fabric of the neighbourhood.
Luca was commissioned to photograph this space by the contractor, 21 Construction, one of his original clients when he first started out, and a company that in just a few years went from refurbishing anonymous offices in the City to collaborating with some of the most respected architectural practices in London.
The project was designed by ORMS architects, the same practice behind some futuristic projects like the Standard Hotel in King’s Cross and 3 Broadgate near Liverpool Street. Despite the building being quite narrow, the big window frames installed on the facade allow a lot of light in, making it a perfect space for long hours at the desk - considering Luca photographed the furnished interiors on an overcast day he did not have to do much exposure blending to get the highlights right.
“The highlight of this project for Luca was the two staircases. One centre stage in the entrance leading up to the office floor above and the other sweeping down from the ground floor to the basement.”
As much as Luca enjoyed photographing the office floor, the real deal are the two staircases, one at the entrance going up and the other on the ground floor leading to the basement.
Both have a spiral structure that was a joy to photograph, allowing for many interesting compositions taking advantage of the converging diagonals.
As ORMS Architects wrote on Instagram “Magic lives in curves, not in angles”. Surely a debatable statement, but at least in this case curves give the images a really enjoyable dynamism.
Last but not least, we would like to highlight the use of the blurring people in the shot. Luca wanted to add some movement to the photos but being completely alone in the building, the only option was to take some shots of himself going up and down the stairs. This is when Canon Camera Connect on his phone really came in handy, he was able to take shots remotely in a really discreet way and the results are dazzling.
