DMA

This new, purpose-built, R&D building sits next to 5-10 Brandon Road, another life-science facility that we have designed for our client, Kadans Science Partner, further expanding the emerging life science eco-system in King’s Cross.

4 Brandon Road provides an additional five storeys of flexible laboratory and small-scale manufacturing space that is designed to allow businesses to expand and grow on the site. It is fully adaptable, with access to servicing across a flexible internal layout and a regular structural grid that minimises vibration across the floor plate and allows specialist working throughout.

The design reflects the life science use whilst remaining contextual to the area’s industrial heritage, with a façade of clean, elegant lines informed by the internal laboratory grid, and a palette of robust materials including pre-cast concrete and decorative architectural metalwork. Laboratory spaces facing onto Brandon Road activate the street to passers-by, with a double-height entrance creating a sense of arrival and welcome. Terraces at second and fourth floor levels provide attractive external amenity space.

Designed with passive principles in mind, the building has a compact form and fenestration is articulated to respond to orientation, creating a balance between natural daylight and mitigating overheating, with external canopies to the south elevation. The building’s heating and cooling requirements will be served entirely by air-source heat pumps.