Arbeit Studios, Lisson Grove is a 1,088 sqm creative hub with 38 studios, a café, dance and rehearsal space, desks, meeting facilities and exhibition space across five floors.

Arbeit Studios, Lisson Grove is a 1088m2 mixed use creative workspace hub including 38 creative enterprise studios, a café, dance & rehearsal studio, 22 desk spaces, a meeting room, two phone booths and an exhibition space, arranged over 5 split level floors.

The design provided a strategy to activate the “shell and core” premises, creating a high-quality, low-cost creative hub for small businesses in Westminster.

The brief, set by the City of Westminster, required an innovative and pragmatic design strategy to deliver a large number of studio spaces, including the coordination and extension of existing air handling and fire suppression systems, within a limited budget to ensure affordability for end users.
Adaptable, low-cost materials were used to create enclosed studios and shared areas that encourage visibility, interaction, and flexibility. A simple partition system of softwood timber and translucent panels forms enclosed workspaces linked by light-filled communal areas, including kitchenettes, seating areas, and coworking spaces.

The panel system allows light to diffuse across the split-level open-plan floors, while the translucent finish balances privacy and openness, offering glimpses of the creative practices within. The soft pink internal palette creates a welcoming and consistent identity while meeting fire-spread compliance requirements.

The prototype fit-out concept (‘Spacefrom.space’) was originally developed with spacecraft.work and supported via the Mayor’s Resilience fund, as a low-cost, adaptable, and fully demountable system allowing components to be disassembled and reused.

All materials are mechanically fixed, with no glues used, providing a practical and sustainable solution for rapidly activating vacant “shell and core” premises across London.