Matthew Warrenberg

Matthew is an architectural designer based in London. His interests lie in architecture which has room for multiplicity and appropriation, designed through a playful approach – resulting in socially and materially attentive designs. His project this year explored the potential adaptability of an air-rights office, seeking opportunities which could be unlocked from existing conditions to better serve the public and make intergenerational connections.

Prior to the RCA, Matthew completed his undergraduate degree at Newcastle University in 2019, where he won the RIBA North East and Yorkshire award Part 1 award. He has since worked at David Chipperfield Architects and BUF architecture. He worked on a range of projects, varying from the adaptive reuse of both a museum and a farmstead to a 28 storey office tower. 

The project is reappropriating Embankment Place as an intergenerational hub. The 1980s corporate office building (designed by Terry Farrell) was constructed on the air rights of Charing Cross station in central London. It was built on a previously unattainable part of the city – the air – only for financial profit, and only possible due to modern construction methods. The proposal reimagines the site for public use, opening up the building through a process of removal. A generous thoroughfare is carved out through the building, connecting the recently dubbed ‘Northbank’ and the Southbank. Above, are programmes serving the young and the old, who are usually forgotten about in the city or deemed unproductive. These programmes revolve around care, recreation and education.

The project is set in a future scenario where large city centre corporate offices have become disused and obsolete. Nearly all white-collar computer based work is now carried out remotely in a virtual office – from the convenience of bedrooms, garden offices or abroad. Online platforms have become substitutes for what community and connection was once cultivated in the physical workplace. In this speculative situation, there is an eventual shift in attitudes towards work, leading to unsustainable and unhealthy, metric based productivity no longer being prioritised. Alternatively, more importance comes to be placed upon the real, as well as the less easily quantifiable aspects of society, which foster health, well-being, care and education.

The proposal manifests itself with three key architectural strategies, which treat the building as a valuable resource to be maintained.

1. Make the interior match the expressive gestures the façade makes to its context.

2. Exploit the potential of the bridge-like structure by stripping back the interior, then removing and cutting away material to make new meaningful connections.

3. Reuse excess material removed from the building to construct new spaces and landscapes inside and outside the building.