William Russell Scoops Two Commercial Architecture Awards

William Russell has received two Commercial Architecture Awards for his designs for retail environments for Cass Art Warehouse and Margaret Howell’s Fulham Road store. The Commercial Architecture Awards are an annual prize for work in the UK commercial sector and seek to recognise “…schemes that have managed to achieve the balance between meeting a client’s commercial objectives, while producing the best quality architecture and interior design.”

The Margaret Howell store in London’s Fulham Road echoes the design personality of the earlier flagship store in Wigmore Street, designed by Russell in 2002. Like the Wigmore Street branch, the new interiors reflect the classic and understated personality of Margaret Howell’s clothes.

The new space is pared down to a minimum and combined with simple materials such as oak, stained wooden floorboards, concrete and mild steel. To allow for less space, the new store reduces the scale of some of the original elements – the longest display rail in London, found at Wigmore Street, isn’t a feature here – but room has been made for an exhibition area to showcase the furniture, architecture and product designs of Howell’s colleagues and friends.

Cass Art Warehouse is housed within a 1930s, three-storey warehouse in Islington, North London. Russell designed the interior of the building and added a new, reconfigured entrance. He also designed the furniture and store fittings, while Angus Hyland produced environmental graphics and signage for the building as part of his identity design for the brand.

Russell’s interior design respects the integrity of the building, with its wide vistas, high ceilings, large windows and striking pitched roof. The furnishings are given an industrial feel with the use of galvanized steel for wall shelving and Douglas Fir - a warm and distinctly patterned softwood traditionally used for workshop furniture - for a series of large tables. These keep the sightlines clear so that customers can scan the floor areas and navigate them easily. Wheels on the shelving units and tables enable the owner to reconfigure the spaces, as necessary.

A large graphic frieze around the walls adds to the creative atmosphere. This is positioned above comfortable reaching height on each floor so as not to waste precious wall storage space. On the ground floor, the frieze depicts names of artists and paint colours and on the first floor presents silhouettes of iconic Art; Duchamp’s urinal and Lancia’s stag among them.

Photography by Nick Turner.