{"id":421553,"date":"2026-02-12T09:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421553\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:50:11","slug":"gibson-thornleys-north-london-self-storage-scheme-gets-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421553\/","title":{"rendered":"Gibson Thornley\u2019s north London self-storage scheme gets OK"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scheme, for developer Compound Real Estate, is for a site on the A100, Great North Road in New Barnet. The council approved the designs under delegated powers last week.<\/p>\n

The Hackney practice\u2019s Meadow Works scheme will comprise storage facilities alongside collaborative workspaces, spaces for emerging small businesses and community facilities in a light industrial structure, which features anodised aluminium fins and \u2018off-the-peg\u2019 corrugated panels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It also provides a new home for the locally popular Hole in the Wall caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Gibson Thornley said its design was a new typology for self-storage buildings, and that its height and rhythm mirrored the surrounding housing. <\/p>\n

Its metallic and precast concrete structure was inspired by early High-Tech sheds designed by Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and Nicholas Grimshaw, practice director Matt Thornley told the AJ last year for a news feature on the self storage revolution<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When the scheme was submitted last year, Thornley said it had been designed to challenge traditional self-storage facilities, which are often located on the outskirts of town and city centres and tend to be unsympathetic to surrounding architecture.<\/p>\n

In the case of Meadow Works, Thornley said the design \u2018repairs the street frontage\u2019 on the Great North Road, while offering a building that is domestic in scale and feel.<\/p>\n

Thornley added: \u2018Our design for Meadow Works is shaped by a clear ambition to repair and reframe this important site in New Barnet. By introducing a civic quality building with active ground floor uses and generous landscaping, we\u2019ve sought to create a place that feels welcoming, safe and enduring \u2014 an \u2018artful shed\u2019 that both supports local businesses and contributes positively to the everyday life of the community.\u2019<\/p>\n

The scheme is just the latest in a series of next-generation self-storage schemes being delivered by Compound, an SME developer which secured planning at the start of the year on Architecture 00-designs for a similar scheme in Peckham, south London.<\/p>\n

Southwark Council approved the five-storey Peckham proposal in January. The building also provides co-working spaces on the ground floor, offering passive surveillance to an unsupervised pedestrian path leading to nearby homes.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the AJ last summer, Architecture 00\u2019s Lynton Pepper said the materiality of the Peckham scheme matched that of its standout neighbour, a Peter Barber Architects housing scheme with a \u2018distinctive tall, stepped massing\u2019. <\/p>\n

In response, the storage unit\u2019s fa\u00e7ade has a brick texture and \u2018syncopated rhythm\u2019 of a warm \u2013 and, importantly, non-industrial \u2013 colour palette.\u00a0It should invite you in, Pepper added.<\/p>\n

Compound principal Jo Winter said: \u2018We\u2019re delighted to have secured planning for Meadow Works. The scheme demonstrates that well-designed self-storage can be a positive, low-impact urban use, combining strong architectural quality with real community benefit.<\/p>\n

\u2018By reusing a constrained site efficiently, Meadow Works will support local residents and businesses while improving the streetscape and long-term function of the area.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Architecture 00\u2019s proposal for a storage facility in Peckham, south London, includes planted decks to provide a \u2018human scale\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scheme, for developer Compound Real Estate, is for a site on the A100, Great North Road in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,155249,107801,1120,96,155250,155251,155252,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-421553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-barnet","tag-co-working","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-gibson-thornley-architects","tag-light-industry","tag-self-storage","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}