Riding House Street, where the building is located features an extraordinary variety of architectural styles. Along the street you can move from 19th century terraces to post-war commercial buildings and 20th century concrete slab structures. The fragmentary aesthetics of the street is characterized by the use of bricks that serve as the chosen façade material, sometimes so abundant that they form the road surface
Fragmented brick facade for a building in London. A new vision of historical aesthetics
The Interlock is located in London's Fitzrovia, a new five-storey mixed-use building designed by architects Bureau de Change for the developer HGG London, a company founded to commission innovative architecture
The Interlock absorbs this history by reformulating its brick façade to create a building of uncertain heritage that is both historical and contemporary. By abandoning the traditional dimensions of London brick, a collection of 44 deformable and apparently stackable clay blocks have been developed
The bricks seem to be lapping against windows, they deform between floors. For passers-by, the bricks seem to transform and twist like gears, shaping the façade in 3D. Their structure has been set in 14 handcrafted steel moulds and burned in oxidation to create the matt blue finish. The construction of the 5000 block building took place in three months
Behind the façade are three new residential units and a café at street level. The regularity of the proportions and openings of the façade reduces the complexity of the building's volume and overall dimensions. At the rear, the building consists of a series of stacked boxes of various shapes and sizes. Each floor occupies a lower surface area, creating a terraced shape
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Bureau de change
18 Coronet St, Hackney, London, N1 6HD, Regno Unito