St Katharine, next to Tower Bridge, is perhaps the best known of London’s historic docks and is the city’s only yacht marina. Like many old warehouse buildings on the dockside wharfs, Commodity Quay had already been converted for commercial use. We upgraded the building as part of a wider renovation of the marina, improving the internal spaces, adding a new entrance to give it a stronger identity, and repositioning it as a characterful, high-quality workplace in this surprisingly tranquil waterside location.
Our interventions began at boardwalk level, giving the building a new, textured base using materials more appropriate to the dock. We re-clad the brick columns with Corten steel to gradually weather in the salty Thames air, topped with a further horizontal band of the steel to mark the bottom of the office floors.
