Conservation & Heritage Issue 52 Summer/Autumn 2026 - Flipbook - Page 78
Workshop. The amphitheatre is conceived as an inclusive,
multi-functional public space — a place to sit, play and gather
before entering the building.
Despite pressure from the local authority to avoid a
wheelchair lift in such a prominent location, A Small Studio
held firm, maintaining the principle that accessibility must
be equitable, legible and integral — not an afterthought.
The result is an entrance where all visitors arrive together,
through one garden, into one arrival room.
Conservation-Led Transformation Across Four Levels
Beyond the new entrance, the commission involved the
full transformation of a previously fragmented mixed-use
building — offices, a residential flat, gallery spaces and sublet
units — into a unified cultural institution. A Small Studio
developed a coherent spatial and material logic capable of
holding a diverse range of programmes across all four levels:
a makerspace, a dedicated PlayLab for creative learning, a
podcast suite, a lecture and workshop venue, AV gallery,
main gallery, and an expanded bookshop.
© photography by Andy Stagg (@studioStagg)
Earlier corporate partitions were removed and replaced with
fire curtains, passages were widened, and the internal plan
was rationalised to allow fluid, fully accessible movement
between all levels — a transformation that required detailed
fire engineering, structural input from VESTA Structures
Ltd, and close co-ordination with building control through
Stroma Ltd.
© photography by Andy Stagg (@studioStagg)
On the lower ground floor, the gallery was extended
and industrial ceiling elements exposed, creating a more
flexible, technically capable exhibition environment suited
to AV-intensive installations. Throughout, the materiality
of historic fabric was respected and celebrated rather than
concealed.
A Small Studio, with specialist expertise in working within
conservation areas and with listed and locally listed buildings
across London, led all planning negotiations with RBKC
directly. This included securing consent for the building’s
most transformative change: the relocation of the principal
public entrance from Cromwell Road to Earl’s Court Road —
a move that required close dialogue with the local planning
authority and a careful, evidence-based heritage justification.
A Kit of Parts: Unity Through Material Consistency
A key design challenge was achieving coherence across a
complex, multi-programme building without imposing
uniformity. A Small Studio’s response was an interior kit
of parts — a family of kitchenettes and storage elements
that appear in different configurations at each level — using
PLYKEA laminated plywood fronts in a colour palette
selected to reflect the tones of the Palestinian landscape,
paired with Smile Plastics worktops chosen for their
environmental credentials. This system — applied to the
bookshop, the PlayLab, the Salon, and future-fitted residency
and makerspace studios — allows each room its own character
while remaining part of one continuous narrative.
From Grand Threshold to Inclusive Welcome
The existing Cromwell Road entrance — an imposing flight of
steps — had long created an inadvertent hierarchy of arrival.
Visitors with reduced mobility, buggies or wheelchairs
were directed to a separate side door, an arrangement
fundamentally at odds with The Mosaic Rooms’ ethos of
openness and cultural inclusion. Addressing this was central
to the brief.
The decision to relocate the entrance to Earl’s Court Road
— fully supported by the client — unlocked a sequence of
improvements that transformed the public experience of the
building. In its place, a new shared arrival garden was formed:
a modest but generous public threshold combining soft
landscaping by Aarde, whose planting scheme draws on the
colours of Arabic landscapes, with a stepped amphitheatre
in Shropshire stone. Integrated into the stone steps are
bespoke Jesmonite board-game inlays, selected by the Mosaic
Rooms team from a list of ancient games with roots in or
connection to Arab culture, and handcrafted by Windsor
I
The arrival room is anchored by a permanent commissioned
artwork by Palestinian architect, artist and academic Dima
Srouji — Four Moons from Home — was commissioned from
the artist @dimasrouji by Rachael Jarvis, director of Mosaic
Rooms. The stones were tenderly cared for and beautifully
installed by ’The White Wall Company’. The project was
funded by Art Fund, Al-Qattan Charitable Trust and Mosaic
Rooms.
Conservation & Heritage Journal
76
I
