Great Portland Street
208 Great Portland Street brings together architects and craftsmen, transforming blueprints into habitable art inspired by intricate glazing patterns found on traditional Japanese porcelain.
Lead
E8 Architecture
location
London, United Kingdom
Size
4645m2
Date
2021
Type
Multi-unit residential
SCOPE
DESIGN, DOCUMENTATION & FABRICATION COORDINATION
In collaboration with E8 Architecture, Differential was tasked with designing, documenting, and overseeing the fabrication of bespoke balustrades for 208 Great Portland Street.
The development comprises of 31 luxurious apartments and street-level retail spaces. The building's bay windows feature the distinctive cast aluminum balconies that draw inspiration from the intricate glazing patterns found on Japanese porcelain.
Differential developed custom scripts to iterate through various balustrade designs while adhering to local building codes.
Close coordination with the highly skilled team at Hadleigh Casting Ltd ensured faithful translation of the digital designs into physical artefacts.
quality control
The finished balustrades were 3D scanned and compared against digital models supplied by Differential to ensure millimeter accuracy and on-site fit.
configurability
The experienced team at Hadleigh Casting based in Ipswich, UK took exceptional care from casting, griding and polishing to ensure faithful translation of the digital designs.
The architectural concept was translated into simplified and scriptable vertical and horizontal elements while simultaneously taking into account local building regulations. This investment into a scriptable workflow allowed for rapid configurability even during late stages of the project.
