Sky Central by AL_A, PLP and HASSELL

Sky Central
Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

Sky plc has launched Sky Central, a new flagship building at the heart of its 13 hectare media campus headquarters in Osterley, West London. Over 3,500 employees are housed in the building, which has been designed to promote flexibility, openness, ease of access and communication to encourage the flow of people and ideas across the business.

The building was developed by a team including AL_A as concept architect, PLP Architecture as interior and executive architect with HASSELL leading on workplace design.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

Bringing together the corporate and creative sides of the business under a single roof, Sky Central puts entertainment, live production and the development of new ideas through collaboration at the heart of the Sky experience.In 2011, Sky asked AL_A to create a Strategic Campus Vision and masterplan for the entire headquarters alongside the broadcaster as it set out to transform the experience of working at Sky. The Vision reflects the workings of the organisation with a campus connected by the assets that drive the business forward: creativity and people.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

Embodying the principles of the Vision, AL_A worked on the concept and developed design to stage D for Sky Central, the largest single building on the site, winning planning consent for the project in 2013.PLP Architecture was invited to design the building’s interior, develop the external envelope to respond to the changing interior programme and deliver the project through to completion.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

Wayne McKiernan, Director at PLP Architecture, said: “The environment that we have designed supports Sky’s key values by promoting flexibility, openness, ease of access and communication through fostering the natural flow of both people and ideas throughout the elegant and innovative building.” HASSELL Principal Felicity Roocke, designers of the activity based workplace, said the vast scale of the workplace required careful consideration to create a sense of connection and intimacy for the Sky team.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

“We worked closely with individual teams to understand how they work and their requirements on the space. We wanted to give people a sense of ownership and belonging over their workplace, and for  them to feel a genuine sense of connection with the organisation they work for,” Felicity said. This has been achieved with the introduction of 18 versatile ‘neighbourhoods’ each  housing around 200 people. The neighbourhoods include a range of individual and team settings, from interactive to focused, to suit every type of activity.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

Andrew Jackson, Sky Project Manager for Sky Central said: “Sky Central is a unique creation, embodying the Campus vision of bringing people together to do the best work of their careers. The huge light-filled volumes of space are simple and intuitive yet inspiring and energising, timeless and yet thoroughly modern.” The three-storey, 37,700m2 (GIA) building features a large triple-height central atrium above the bustling 100-metre long Sky Street that runs the entire width of the ground floor.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

The building feels open and transparent because Sky want to make it easy to see what is going on across the business and for everyone to feel the DNA of Sky. Taking centre stage is an elevated, glass walled live Sky News broadcast studio, located so that employees and visitors alike can see Sky’s daily operations as soon as they are welcomed to the building. Above it, a large H-shaped atrium hosts all visible vertical circulation routes through the  building. Ramps and staircases wrap themselves around two central mezzanines encouraging  movement and therefore well-being, and facilitating  ad hoc encounters between colleagues.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

The street is lined with touchdown workspaces, a 200-seat 4K cinema, restaurants and cafes, informal meeting and support facilities, and connects the main entrance and reception areas to cultural amenities on the same level.The roof of Sky Central is designed to maximise natural light. It is characterised by a grid of skylights that allow daylight to penetrate through the building to create top-lit workspaces, reducing façade glazing and the reliance on artificial lighting.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

Sky Central reflects the broadcaster’s industrial heritage, updated to the standards expected of a 21st century broadcaster, with an anodised aluminium cladding that is a high-quality evocation of those humble origins. Ho-Yin Ng, Director at AL_A said: “Sky is proud of its beginnings on an industrial business park on the fringes of central London. AL_A worked with Sky to re-imagine a simple ‘shed’ typology as a means of bringing the broadcaster’s activities and people together under one roof in a series of modern and people-centric workplaces on its campus in Osterley.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow

“The design embraces the simplicity of the industrial shed, the roots of the campus’s context, and defines a new model for the industry’s fast-paced and evolving future.” Sky Central is a safe, healthy and environmentally sustainable place for everyone, and has been designed  to a BREEAM ‘ ‘Excellent’ standard. Source by AL_A.

Sky Central
Photo © Hufton + Crow
  • Location: London, UK
  • Architects: AL_A
  • Executive architect: PLP
  • Workplace design: HASSELL
  • Planning consultant: DP9
  • Quantity surveyor: Aecom
  • Approved inspector: Butler and Young
  • Health & Safety/CDM co-ordinator: Lend Lease
  • BIM co-odinator: Fulcro
  • Sustainability (from RBA Stage E): KLH
  • Structural engineering: Arup
  • Gwotechnical engineering: Arup
  • Landscape architects: Capita
  • Visualisations (to RIBA Stage D): Dscribe CGI
  • Visualisations (from RIBA Stage E): Cityscape
  • Main contractor: Mace
  • Client: Sky
  • Completion: 2016
  • Photographs: Hufton + Crow, Courtesy of AL_A

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