Holland Park in West London. The new
location is housed in an odd cluster of five
separate buildings, with cast-iron cultural
credentials. Once the studio of photographer
John Cowan, it was used as the creative lair of
David Hemmings’ fashion photographer in
Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up.
During the 1980s it became Richard Rogers’
studio (Rogers’ son Roo remembers spending
time here and now runs his innovation
agency from this new Second Home). It was
then taken on by architect John McAslan,
and later a TV company until a period of
redundancy. Proof perhaps that the creative
juices were draining out of West London
and flowing eastwards.
Indeed, it was that drain that drew Silva
and Aldenton to the area. ‘We did think that
the pendulum had swung too far east,’ says
Silva. ‘Suddenly lots of cultural venues were
closing in West London and lots of creative
people were being turfed out.’
Silva and Aldenton again called on
Selgas Cano to refit the building. Structural
interventions are minimal – a staircase
designed by David Chipperfield when he was
working with Rogers remains intact – though
they have added an extra mezzanine level,
more skylights and a courtyard café, armed
with a soap bubble machine that can fill its
roof space in 20 minutes, creating an effective
form of insulation in winter. It also features
a small poetry bookshop and, in a nod to its
backstory, a photographic studio.
The Spanish architects have adapted the
formula they worked out in Spitalfields and,perhaps because of the building’s history,
Holland Park’s interior landscape of
walkways, Perspex studios, illuminated desks,
250 different varieties of lamps and chairs,
dense vegetation and foam-topped cafés
comes off as even more retro sci-fi.
It is also built on a more intimate scale
than Spitalfields, which recently opened an
extra floor to cope with demand. The biggest
‘studio’ at Spitalfields houses 150 people,
while Holland Park concentrates on spaces
for eight-strong teams or less. Its members
include WAH Nails founder Sharmadean
Reid, violinist and arts broadcaster Clemency
Burton-Hill, and Marquee Arts, which
is developing a streaming app for the
performing arts.
This year, planning permission allowing,
will also see a new opening in London Fields.
Again responding to local demographics,
Silva promises it will be ‘the most family-
friendly working environment in Europe’
with a crèche, a soft-landing floor made from
recycled tyres, and scooter parking for
children and adults. And next year will see
their most ambitious opening, a 90,000 sq ft
campus in East Hollywood in LA, which
will house event spaces, screening rooms
and sound studios. Around it will be dotted
69 curvaceous studios, again designed
by Selgas Cano and connected by covered
walkways. The team are also installing
around 3,500 trees and plants.
In this stretch of LA, the pair spotted
the same emerging confluence of creative
industries, finance and tech that they hadseen in Spitalfields. And the same chance to
spur benign regeneration. ‘We wanted to
change people’s businesses around where we
are, not push people out,’ says Silva. ‘And
hopefully we will be able to do the same here.’
Meanwhile, the pair continue to look for
other potential sites in London and beyond,
while also thinking about how they might
bring their socially minded entrepreneurial
smarts into other areas such as housing.
And they’re convinced that the model they
have established at Second Home will become
central to how we think about the wider
working world of the future. As automation
and AI take on more routine and repetitive
tasks, the ‘creative economy’ will have to find
profitable space for a lot more people. And
that will only happen if that creative
economy pays. ‘Creating creative, cultural
spaces is not just something nice to do,’ says
Silva, ‘or just the hallmark of civilised society.
It’s an economic imperative’. Second Home,
the pair argue, proves that, given the right
space and the right human connections, the
creative economy can deliver.
‘Our view is that having an architecture
and a community that embraces as many
different fields as possible leads to unexpected
conversations and collisions,’ says Silva. ‘And
who knows what will come out of that. You
are around people who can help you turn that
idea into a company, or a product, or a job.’
‘The ideas are almost the cheap currency,’
adds Aldenton. ‘The thing that everyone here
is doing is turning those ideas into reality.’ ∂
secondhome.io‘Creating creative spaces is
not just something nice to do.
It’s an economic imperative’
SECOND HOME HOLLAND
PARK, WHICH ONCE
HOUSED RICHARD
ROGERS’ STUDIO, STILL
FEATURES THE STAIRCASE
DAVID CHIPPERFIELD
DESIGNED FOR ROGERS∑
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