Brook Street Offices | Kallos Turin

This historic building, built in 1725 as a family home, sits at the corner of Brook and Binney street in the Mayfair Conservation Area of London. By the time the building was acquired in 2020 for this project, it had been used for many purposes, including a clinic and offices, and had long since been stripped of its historic interior finishes.

As Kallos Turin evaluated the building, the firm deemed it important to maintain the original Francophile classicism of the exterior. The designers sought only to enhance the building’s existent form with a light hand. They chose to preserve the original 1700s facade, as well as the caduceus on the central pediment and the obelisks flanking the entrance, both added in 1922. Their only exterior additions were black metal railings, and the stone stairs and paving.

Given that the interior retained so little of its original detailing, the project presented Kallos Turin with the kind of intellectual challenge the firm relishes: how to place themselves between the old and the new. On the interior, the designers made the lack of extraneous detailing an asset by retaining the pared back aesthetic and adding the simple planes of very luxurious and textured historical materials.

The reception area has a dark, moody feeling to create a transition from outside to in. Frameless arched doors recall the ghost of a historic past, and feature Maison Verloet brass hardware. A sand-blasted, fluted travertine reception desk sits in front of a patinated copper backdrop. Bleached walnut flooring in a basketweave pattern grounds the space in a sense of historicism.

Upstairs, in the workspaces, the plan is more streamlined, modern and bright, with rich, textured materials punctuating the space. Desks are simple forms, but rendered in bleached burl walnut, they add interest and weight. Furnishings in burgundy velvet and black marble ground the workspaces and relate them to the historic building they’re contained within.

Designed in partnership with Alexander Hoyle, plantings throughout the circulation spaces bring a quirky and unexpected sense of texture and play. Art from the family’s collection adorns the walls.

From outside the building remains a representation of its location and history; within it has become a presentation of how the historic and modern can play together in a productive environment. The combination of historic and luxurious materials with bold, minimal design result in an environment that moves forward in time, while respecting the contributions of the past.