Parkside, Jestico + Whiles’ staff headquarters for the nation's Imperial War Museums serves as a central hub for the organisation’s employees and is located close to the main Iimperial War Museum in Southwark, South London.
The three-storey building forms part of the West Square Conservation Area, which features an array of historical masonry buildings, including brown brick Georgian terraces and mid-19th century structures utilising Flemish-bonded, yellow London stock brick.
The project is not immediately recognisable as being constructed offsite – it hides its credentials behind an elegant, finely detailed facade that is typical of more traditional building methods. In keeping with the local context, a light grey-yellow brick is employed across the entire facade.
The brickwork forms a regular grid of recessed bays, within which tall, paired, bronze-coloured aluminium windows evoke the local Georgian townhouse vernacular. To emphasise the vertical proportions of the building, the brick, which is Wienerberger's famous and popular 'Marziale', is laid in a vertical bond above the windows, contrasting with the predominant stretcher bond.
Elsewhere, the boundary wall to Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, situated to the west of the site, has been reconstructed using the same yellow-grey-white brick.
