Today I visited Sainsbury Head Office for a training day. I wish to mention some points of interest that occurred over the course of the event, but mainly praise the building’s interior which was rather impressive. There is also a short story about lifts to report.
Head Office is a very large glass building which takes open plan design to previously uncharted areas. For example, as you pass the edifice whilst walking around Holborn, you notice that the lifts are on the outside of the building so you can see them ascend and descend. They are also made of glass (above ground level) so users get a pleasant view.
The training day I attended took place downstairs in what is best described as a cinema come lecture hall. It was a cinema in the sense there was a man behind a screen who operated films when requested by the instructor. It was a lecture hall because of the capacity was around 150 and the room was microphoned to allow the co-ordinator to be heard.
Owing to my colleagues extreme dislike of lifts we only used one once when first went in. Since this was a (relatively) harrowing experience for the other person with me, we asked to take the stairs on the second occasion – which resulted in being sent around four (separate) flights of stairs and through a security barrier. If I had not been fortified by a free ham sandwich, I might not have made it through the great ordeal!
2 comments:
Nice building! Simple smart design. I love the iridiscence of the turquoise glass and the contrast with the older buildings that surround it. Surprise surprise, its agent is Foster & Partners; its main architect happens to be Marshall Cummings Marsh. Perhaps Foster's resort to glass as the main material for most of his projects is slightly redundant, but he surely knows how to blend modern style with older architecture thus creating wonderful postmodernist spaces (my favourite projects are the redevelopment of the British Museum and the Reichstag Dome). I should say I prefer his works of renovation to his controversial buildings. What do you think?
It is lovely the way in which the glass façade reflects the surrounding buildings.
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