McDowell+Benedetti architects build new business centre
Designed specifically for start-up businesses, The Springboard Centre provides subsidised offices, communal spaces and training facilities in a new 13,500sqft “incubator” building located in an industrial park in North Yorkshire.
The building is curvilinear in contrast to the prosaic rectangular forms of a typical industrial park with a distinctive aluminium mesh louvered screen façade and a striking white floating atrium roof, creating a strong visual identity for the new centre. The building creates intimate flexible spaces conducive to how small businesses operate. All units open onto a generous multi-purpose communal space with stair core and centralised facilities, creating an open atmosphere and promoting the cross-fertilisation of ideas.
The result is a successful local authority public building (built on a modest budget of £2 million/£148 per sqft) and an exemplar sustainable building model, which could be repeated in other locations with minimum modifications.
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