PSLab Offices – London
A late Victorian warehouse has been converted into the London base for PSLab, a showroom filled with natural light and greenery for the exhibition of the lighting solutions they offer.
JAMESPLUMB used muted tones and biophilia to showcase the lighting solutions offered by PSLab in London, England.
PSLab is a Beirut-born company creating context-specific lighting solutions across a wide scope of international projects. Their new London home, like their other ateliers worldwide, provides a stage for the exhibition and explanation of light and optics. Housed within a late Victorian warehouse on an inconspicuous side street in south east London, the single open space invites exploration into the possibilities that their technologies enable – a space for discussion, a space of tactility, a space for engineering and a space primed for experimentation.
Grounded in hospitality, it is neither an office nor a showroom yet it serves both of these functions. Designed by London studio JAMESPLUMB in close dialogue with PSLab, the discreet space has been stripped back to reveal the core structure of the building comprising steel, brick, concrete and sunken pits formerly used for dying in the tannery industry. That industry was once prevalent in Bermondsey due to its proximity to the water supply needed from the River Thames; today such post-industrial spaces in the area are teeming with a multitude of independent creative businesses.
The mess and toil from the building’s original life has been superseded with its own form of brutalism, albeit a quiet one spread across its internal concrete landscape cast into the structure. The mass and density of concrete dances across the space in the form of varying geometric levels: the floor becomes a bench; steps extend to become levels; plinths become floor; tables become chairs; seats merge into steps. Concrete levels, softened and detailed with timber, textiles and plants, become objects onto which PSLab can activate light and shadow in endless sequence.
Across the unified space are overlapping functions: a library, a meeting room, a living room, a kitchen, a dining table, an auditorium, an atelier, a garden, a courtyard. Overhead is a sophisticated custom-designed gantry from which the brand can connect and demonstrate the endless outcomes that they can achieve with light. Working at the forefront of lighting technologies, PSLab can meet the demands of architects, interior designers, specifiers and independent customers searching for a bespoke technical solution delivered in PSLab’s understated yet sculptural aesthetic.
Visitors to the space can peruse the atelier – a playground of diverse ingredients that will inform the finished product. The process is hands on and personal: PSLab London becomes a forum to discuss options via demonstrations, maquettes, models, samples and materials, aided by the expert knowledge and hospitality of its London team.
Design: JAMESPLUMB
Photography: Rory Gardiner