There is something quite stressful about watching Simon Allford casually wandering about his under-construction offices in a pristine Brioni suit. The pitch black jacket and trousers are, so far, untarnished by dust or paint. But he seems remarkably relaxed, considering the tailoring at stake.
But then that sums up the director and founder of architect Allford Hall Monaghan Morris – sharp style twinned with a pragmatic attitude. And it is serving him well.
Last year the practice – set up in 1989 – was revealed as the designer of Google’s new £300m HQ in King’s Cross. And Allford’s initial, relaxed comments on the job couldn’t be more in character: “We were working on Google for a year and a half and couldn’t say anything about it,” he shrugs. “If you have a job like that, with a client like that, you don’t go around shouting ‘we’ve got Google’. Because if you do have Google you need to focus on not wasting the opportunity. If you are overly promoting yourself you can very quickly find yourself becoming a hostage to fortune.”
For now, the fortune part of the equation is going pretty well. The £12.4m-turnover practice, which designed the Stirling Prize-listed Angel Building and is working on plans for BBC Television Centre in west London, reported a sixfold profit increase to £844,000 for the year ending March 2012.
Here the 51-year-old designer talks Google, growth and what it is like to work for a client for whom the best is simply not good enough.
The Google factor
Allford and a team of 40 architects are working on the Google HQ design, due for completion in 2016. Apart from the sheer size of the project – at 860,000 sq ft the King’s Cross Google deal accounted for one-third of London offices take-up in the first quarter of 2013 – it will inevitably have a massive knock-on effect on the future of office design in the UK and around the world.
Although designing for a TMT giant, Allford doesn’t necessarily believe in sector-specific architecture: “There is this whole big TMT thing, but it’s not just about that one sector,” he says. “Buildings are really less specialised than people think they are. OK, so you want a building that is designed for Google. But if Google was to radically change the way it works in the future then the building should be able to change with the company. By that I don’t mean designing a space to be flexible – I don’t believe in flexible boxes that change every week. I mean choosing the right space, creating the right light and being in the right location, so when the way people work or live changes, the building can cope with that.”
He adds that future-proof design ultimately means eliminating projects that are over-specified for a particular client and says his team will not be designing a “bespoke” building for Google. “It will be a building inspired by Google,” he explains. “But the core of what will make that building desirable should be done in every building in King’s Cross or London now and into the future.”
Allford’s honesty is refreshing. But he concedes that while AHMM has taken the Google job in its stride, it does come with added pressure: “I would prefer to use the word ‘opportunity’, but of course there is tremendous pressure,” he says. “London is a small world and there is always pressure to keep creative and inventive. But not just for the sake of it.”
Creativity and innovation are likely to be high on Google’s list of priorities and Allford confirms there will be some unexpected treats in the design, though he cannot be specific until the planning application goes in next month: “There will be some delightful surprises,” he laughs. “The building will be the theatre – designed to last 100 years – and will be simple with exposed finishes and floor-to-ceiling heights. The stage set is bits like the sports hall, swimming pool and auditorium, which will last between 10 and 20 years. And then there are the props – these are little rooms that can reconfigure almost daily.”
As for working for Google, it comes as no surprise that it expects the best and beyond: “This is a hugely successful, ambitious company,” says Allford. “The best isn’t good enough and it will keep testing and pushing. It wants the entire team to work together. We started off in what was called “the Big Room” in our office, then moved into “the Bigger Room” at the Google base, and in the summer we will all move into “the Biggest Room” at King’s Cross, which caters for 200 people.
“And as for that pressure, what do you think I would rather have? To not be doing any of this and not have the pressure, or to have the opportunity to work for a client that is prepared to invest on a project of this scale? The building is being bought in packages and we have an upgrade option for every package. We can decide at each stage whether to go with the upgrades, which are like built-in prototypes and investigations, because that is the sort of company Google is – always floating ideas and challenging myths. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”
Beyond Google
The Google deal has sent AHMM’s profile through the roof, but it is by no means the firm’s only well-known scheme. “We are working for the Crown Estate, for Peabody, with Derwent. Some people might think we just do Google but they will find out eventually what a broad portfolio we have,” says Allford. “We don’t specialise. We never have. Specialisation is one of the big mistakes this profession has made. In desperate attempts to reclaim territory they have resorted to the idea of expertise.”
While Allford does not necessarily buy into the idea of specialising, he does believe in a particular focus on office design – something he thinks was one of the reasons Google picked AHMM as its architect: “How do you create a sense of community on such a big site? We came up with the idea of the promenade, which creates a street through the building and ties it all together with inside and outside elements. And I believe in applying this concept – often on a smaller scale – on other office schemes. Journeys into atriums should be memorable. I talk about simple buildings but I am not arguing for blandness. The idea of a public promenade is that you enter a building and there is a journey you can go on that makes it memorable and enjoyable. And the vanilla space around that needs to be large and generous.”
The future
Following the practice’s impressive profit growth since 2011, AHMM is on a recruitment drive, hiring 80 staff last year and planning to take on a similar number in 2013 – and the practice is always looking for new clients.
“Ultimately, we are looking for fee-paying opportunities,” says Allford. “But we can only work with clients and agents who are prepared to be challenged and to challenge us. Clients with an interest in the value of place, promenade and space, who recognise that institutional funding models as well as planning use class orders need to be challenged. Clients who know that a great environment has a core value: that light and volume define the value per square foot, regardless of use. Clients who are interested in use over time and how we build as well as what we build. Clients who are open to views that are different to theirs and are prepared to listen to their advisers but then make their own bold call. In summary, clients who tend to hold onto their buildings financially or emotionally as the value over time is what differentiates the good from the average.”
Simon Allford will be talking at the British Council for Offices conference in Madrid on 17 May.
